TYPE OF PROJECT DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

Descriptive research has been adapted to this research. Descriptive research includes survey and fact-finding enquiries of different kinds. The major purpose of descriptive research is description of the state of affairs, as it exists at present.

Descriptive research studies are those studies, which are concern with describing the characteristic of a particular individual or of a group. In descriptive studies, the researcher must be able to define clearly, what he wants to measure and must find adequate methods for measuring it along with clear cut definition of population he wants to study.

he design in such study must be rigid and not flexible and must focus attention on the following: Formulating the objective of the study. Designing the methods of data collection. Selecting the sample. Collecting the data. Processing and analyzing the data. Reporting the findings.

TYPES OF DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH 1. Experimental research

Experimental research is commonly used in sciences such as sociology and psychology, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine etc. It is a collection of research designs which use manipulation and controlled testing to understand causal processes. Generally, one or more variables are manipulated to determine their effect on a independent variable.

The experimental method

It is a systematic and scientific approach to research in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables, and controls and measures any change in other variables. Experimental Research is often used where: There is time priority in a causal relationship (cause precedes effect) There is consistency in a causal relationship (a cause will always lead to the same effect) The magnitude of the correlation is great.

2. Survey method
The survey is a non-experimental, descriptive research method. Surveys can be useful when a researcher wants to collect data on phenomena that cannot be directly observed (such as opinions on library services). Surveys are used extensively in library and information science to assess attitudes and characteristics of a wide range of subjects, from the quality of user-system interfaces to library user reading habits.omn

Types of Surveys
Data are usually collected through the use of questionnaires, although sometimes researchers directly interview subjects. Surveys can use qualitative or quantitative measures. There are two basic types of surveys: cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal surveys.

Cross-Sectional Surveys
Cross-sectional surveys are used to gather information on a population at a single point in time which is not gathered data over a period of time.

Longitudinal Surveys
Longitudinal surveys gather data over a period of time. The researcher may then analyze changes in the population and attempt to describe and/or explain them.

TARGET RESPONDENTS Sample

A sample is a finite part of a statistical population whose properties are studied to gain information about the whole. When dealing with people, it can be defined as a set of respondents (people) selected from a larger population for the purpose of a survey. A population is a group of individuals persons, objects, or items from which samples are taken for measurement. Sample size of the project is going to be 125 for the project.

Sampling
Sampling is the act, process, or technique of selecting a suitable sample, or a representative part of a population for the purpose of determining parameters or characteristics of the whole population

Purpose of sampling
To draw conclusions about populations from samples, we must use inferential statistics which enables us to determine a populations characteristics by directly observing only a portion (or sample) of the population. We obtain a sample rather than a complete enumeration (a census) of the population for many reasons. Obviously, it is cheaper to observe a part rather than the whole, but we should prepare ourselves to cope with the dangers of using samples. In this tutorial, we will investigate various kinds of sampling procedures. Some are better than others but all may yield samples that are inaccurate and unreliable. We will learn how to minimize these dangers, but some potential error is the price we must pay for the convenience and savings the samples provide.

PROPOSED SAMPLING METHOD SAMPLING PROCEDURE Convenience sampling:

Convenience sampling method, which falls under Non-probability sampling method, has been adopted for the study and the sample size is 125 . As its name implies convenience sampling refers to the collection of information from members of the population who are conveniently available to provide it. The respondents are met as per their convenience and the responses are collected. For an example, Pepsi Challenge contest, with the purpose of determining whether people prefer one product to another, might be held at a shopping mall visited by many shoppers those inclined to test might form the sample for the study of how many people prefer Pepsi over Coke or product X to product Y. Such a sample is a convenience sampling

METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION

While deciding about methods of data collection to be used for the study, the researcher should keep in mind two types of data. Primary data Secondary data

Primary Data:
The primary data are those, which are collected afresh and for the first time and thus happen to be original in character.

Secondary data:
The secondary data, on the either hand are those which have already been collected by someone else and which have been already passed through the statistical process.

Collection of primary data

There are several methods of collecting primary data in descriptive research but for this project primary data is going to be collected through questionnaires.

Collection of data through questionnaire

This method of data collection is quite popular. In this method a set or a series of questions in logical order is asked to the respondents and the researcher collects the desired information. The questions may be asked verbally or in writing and the responses may be either form and it is mainly constructed for the purpose of mailing. Questionnaires need to be carefully developed, tested and debugged before they are administered on a large scale.

Collection of secondary data

Secondary data are generally published sources which have been collected originally for some other purpose. Such sources are internal company records, reports and journals, records, advertising media and library.

TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS

The data collected was tabulated and analyzed with the help of percentage analysis, Correlation analysis and Chi-Square test. This is used to frame a list of findings which is useful to give suggestions.

PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS

It is the proportion of the respondent to one criterion when compared to the total respondents.

No. of respondents to a variable _______________________________ Total no. of respondents * 100

Chi-square test
A chi-square test (also chi-squared or 2 test) is any statistical hypothesis test in which the sampling distribution of the test statistic is a chi-square distribution when the null hypothesis is true, or any in which this is asymptotically true, meaning that the sampling distribution (if the null hypothesis is true) can be made to approximate a chi-square distribution as closely as desired by making the sample size large enough.

It is an important non-parametric test and as such no rigid assumptions are necessary in respect of the type of population. We require only degree of freedom (implicitly of course the size of the sample) for using this test. As parametric test chi-square can be used (I) as a test of goodness of fit and (II) as a test of independence.

As a test of goodness of fit: enables to know how well does the assumed theoretical distribution fit to the observed data.

As a test of independence: enables us to explain whether or not two attributes are associated.

The value of the test-statistic is

Where X2 = the test statistic that asymptotically approaches a 2

distribution. Oi = an observed frequency; Ei = an expected (theoretical) frequency, asserted by the null hypothesis; n = the number of possible outcomes of each event.

Weighted average method

An average in which each quantity to be averaged is assigned a weight. These weightings determine the relative importance of each quantity on the average. Weightings are the equivalent of having that many like items with the same value involved in the average A weighted average differs from an average in that a weighted average returns a number that depends on the variables of both value and weight. The term weighted average usually refers to a weighted arithmetic mean, but weighted versions of other means can also be calculated, such as the weighted geometric mean and the weighted harmonic mean.