MSc.

Urban Ecological Planning (13-15)

AAR5250: PREPARATION ASSIGNMENT

FOR

RESEARCH

FIELD

WORK

METHODS

1. Please provide a detailed answer to one of the questions allotted to you using various references from the literature and lecture notes. (minimum 2000 words) 2. How would you apply proposal?(minimum 1000 words) the learnings to your own research

Note: Question 1 has to be answered in group and question 2 have to be answered individually by each member of the group. The names are mentioned against the questions.

Question 4: What are the important considerations for designing a questionnaire in research? How do we undertake statistical analysis of data gathered through questionnaire?

RINY SHARMA KARINA YUDONO FIONA NSHEMERIRWE

Framework for assignment on Questionnaire design and Statistical Analysis

What is a questionnaire?

A questionnaire is defined as a formalized set of questions for obtaining information from respondents. The overriding objective is to translate the researc hers information needs into a set of specific questions that respondents are willing and able to answer. (Malhotra, 2004) In a research, Primary data can be collected either through experiment or through survey depending on the type of research whether qualitative or quantitative, Experimental or Descriptive research. However, a questionnaire is the main means of collecting quantitative primary data. The tool enables quantitative data to be collected in a standardized way so that the data are internally consistent and coherent for analysis (Malhotra, 2004). Welldesigned questionnaires are highly structured to allow the same types of information to be collected from a large number of people in the same way and for data to be analysed quantitatively and systematically. The questionnaire is mainly used in social science research. In this type of research, the types of information will take account of the peoples or organizations level of knowledge, attitude, personalities, beliefs, or preferences. (Leung, 2001) The broad area of survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of respondents. Quite often questionnaire is considered as the heart of a survey operation (Kothari, 2004). Hence it should be very carefully constructed in order to obtain information that is reliable, valid and truthful. The use of questionnaires as a method of data collection is quite popular, particularly in case of big enquiries. However, questionnaire is not mean to be the only source of information, so the certain goals for doing questionnaire surveys has to be aligned with the features of questionnaire. Designing a questionnaire-

In designing a questionnaire it is important the following considerations must be made. o The type of research whether Research question or hypotheses (how to testparameter and variable). The structure of the research questions in the questionnaire is dependent on whether the research is exploring a given phenomenon, or whether it is testing a hypothesis.
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o If it is qualitative and quantitative data the researcher is interested in, this will basically be reflected in the design of the questions. It is important to pay attention to the sequence of questions in the questionnaire. The first few questions are particularly important because they are likely to influence the attitude of the respondent and in seeking his desired cooperation. The opening questions should be such as to arouse human interest. After the main objective of survey has been established, the detailed and unavoidably tedious work of the questions shall design one by one. Questionnaire have to refer on the data analysis plan, it will help to explain in detail what data are needed to attain the objective set out for the questionnaire (Glewwe, 2005). To facilitate a researcher, questionnaire can be built in several modules that aimed to collect information on a particular subject. o Depends on the objectives, question can be divided into open-ended and closedended question. Open-ended questions allow the respondent to express an opinion without being influenced by the researcher, while close-ended questions limit the

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respondent to the set of alternatives (Foddy, 1993). Open question can gather a lot of information, however sometimes it difficult to summarize the result because of the broadness. Closed question will make analysis easier but sometimes it failed to get information aside from the given choice (Reja, 2003). It is important to pay attention to the sequence of questions in the questionnaire. The first few questions are particularly important because they are likely to influence the attitude of the respondent and in seeking his desired cooperation. The opening questions should be such as to arouse human interest. Some people suggest that questionnaire should start with relatively easy to answer insensitive question (Glewwe, 2005. Xxx,xxx). It believed can help interviewer build ease. However, in practical lesson, there is one prove that sometimes hard question should ask first because at the beginning of interview, respondent psychologically still fresh to answer it. The easy question put in the end so tired respondent should not think too hard to answer (xxx). o Respondent/Target audience Target audience will influence the questionnaire design because it effect determination of the objectives from one to another questionnaire. It will be differ according to what information need to be gathered from certain audience. Different characteristic of the respondent should also taken into account when designing a questionnaire so that respondent can give interviewer the needed information. o Limitation (time, budget, culture/habit) There is low cost even when the universe is large and is widely spread geographically using Internet based, Postal, and phone based questionnaires. However this may not be the case in an interview based questionnaire that may involve moving from door to door. So many opinion about how to design a questionnaire and what is the better way to do it in the field. Initial questionnaire is needed to make sure that questionnaire and the procedure about how to do it is applicable (effective and efficient) in certain condition. Means that it can reach the goals of the questionnaire survey. Statistical Analysis Types of data-(read more) Variable can be divided by two, categorical variables and numerical variables. Categorical variables are types or variables that are not numerical, for example reason to take the bus. On the other hands, numerical variables are by their very nature numbers (Glewwe, Paul & Levin, Michael., 2005). The main difference in the treatment of those two types of variables arise from how to summarize it when the catogories are large. Categorical variables can be displayed by taking some part of variable or aggregate it into broad categories. Numerical variables have several option of displaying summary statistics.

 Data entry- 1)Coding 2) Missing data 3) Filtering the data Before doing the analysis, data should compile and manage. After entry data, it should be checked at least twice to see whether there are errors or inconsistencies. Weight need to be used in analysing survey daya and variences of survey estimates need to be computed in a manner that reflects the complex sample (Chromy, 2005)

Tools of analysis- 1) Frequency distribution 3) Central Tendency 3) Variability The data collected can be thought of as a collection of variables, some of variables are of interest in isolation and the others are interesting when compared with the other variables. If the number of values is big, it is good to show aggregated or summary statistics concerning the distribution of the variables (Glewwe, Paul & Levin, Michael., 2005). Frequency Distribution: Presenting all the numbers in each variables or categories is usually not as helpful as showing the percentage of the observations. Table 1. Distribution of population by age and sex, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island, April 2002: row percentage Broad age group, Numbers Row percentages in years Total Male Female Total Male Female Total persons 67011 29668 37343 100 44.3 55.7 Less than 15 16915 8703 8212 100 51.5 48.5 15 to 29 18950 5765 13184 100 30.4 69.6 30 to 44 20803 9654 11149 100 46.4 53.6 45 to 59 8105 4458 3648 100 55.0 45.0 60 years or over 2239 1088 1150 100 48.6 51.4 Source: Glewwe, Paul., 2005. p. 338 (Round 10 of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Current Labour-force Survey) When presenting data in percentage, number can explain more. It is easier and clearer to interpret, either to describe or compare to the others categories. Yet, it depends on how to present the data, sometimes presenting numbers can be work when putted in bar chart or line chart.

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Figure 1. Distribution of population by age and sex, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island, April 2002: row percentage
40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 Less than 15 15 to 29 30 to 44 45 to 59 Male Female
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Source: Table 1 Central Tendency: The most common way to summarize numerical data is to show the average of the data set. However, it can also eliminate unique event in data. For example in income distribution, we can show the average if the gap between them is not too big. If in one village, 1,000 people have income 50,000 NOK per month and 500 people have income 30,000 NOK per month. The mean will be 34,333 NOK. Nevertheless, the number is not presenting the situation since more people have 50,000 NOK for their monthly income. To deal with such situation, median or midpoint of a distribution can help. In this case, after arranging the entire number from the smallest to the biggest, the midpoint is 50,000 NOK per month. Figure 2. Example for Median

Income Per Month

60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0

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To show the most frequently occurring value in data set, mode can be used. So for the income distribution case, the most commonly occurring value is 50,000. Variability: Some commonly used measures the variability are range, midspread or interquartile range, mean deviation, variance, standard deviation, and standard error (Robson, Colin. (ed.), 2011). Range can be used to show the difference between the highest and the lowest score. In the example, the highest score is 50,000 NOK and the lowest score is 30,000 NOK. Midspread is actually related to median. If median is 50th percentile, than midspread are the 25th and 75th percentile. In the given example, the 25th percentile is 50,000 NOK and 75th percentile is 30,000 NOK. Mean deviation is the average of the deviations of individual scores from the mean. The formula is is 8,888.89. Variance is the average of the squared deviations of individual scores from the mean (Robson, Colin. (ed.), 2011). The formula is given example, the variance is 89,485,458.61. Standard deviation is a square root of the variance. The formula is
( ) ( ) | |

. For the given example, the mean deviation

. In the

.For the given example, the standard deviation is 9,459.7.

Standard deviation shows distribution of the values, so it is better to put it in the figure instead of number. Standard error is the standard deviation of the mean score. Standard error is a value measures how precisely the obtained mean value. The formula is .

For the given formula, the standard error is 777.38 So, the mean is 34,333 777.38 NOK

Summarizing/Inferencing from Statistical Analysis

References

-How to design a questionnaire Wai-Ching Leung STUDENTBMJ VOLUME 9 JUNE 2001 studentbmj.com -Research methods knowledge base, William M.K. Trochim, 10 October 2006 -Research Methodology Methods and Techniques, C.R.Kothari, 2004, New Age International (P) Ltd., Publishers, New Delhi - QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN AND SCALE DEVELOPMENT ,Naresh K. Malhotra, Georgia Institute of Technology , Malhotra (2004) Chromy, James R. and Abeyasekera, Savitri. 2005. Household Surveys in Developing and Transition Countries. Chapter 9 Statistical Analysis of Survey Data. United Nation. New York Glewwe, Paul. 2005. Household Surveys in Developing and Transition Countries. Chapter 3 An Overview of Questionnaire Design for Household Surveys in Developing Countries. United Nation. New York. Glewwe, Paul & Levin, Michael. 2005 Household Surveys in Developing and Transition Countries. Chapter 16 Presenting Simple Descriptive Statistics from Household Survey Data. United Nation. New York. Reja, Ursa., Manfreda, Katja L., Hlebec, Valentina, and Vehovar, Vasja. 1993. Open-ended vs. Close-ended Questions in Web Questionnaires. Foddy, W. 1993. Constructing Questions for Interviews and Questionnaires: Theory and Practice in Social Research. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Munoz, Juan. 2005. Household Surveys in Developing and Transition Countries. Chapter 15 A guide for Data Management of Household Surveys. United Nation. New York
Formatted: English (U.S.)

Formatted: English (U.S.)