Introduction
Survey method: asking individuals questions face to face, by telephone or via questionnaires.
- Goal: find out personal, company or sector information.
Design
• Surveys are the last resort because a lack of the population answer.
Questions
• Closed questions restrict the choice available but the respondent finds it easy to deal with.
• Harmonization: process by which questions are kept the same between surveys. Focus on developing
standardization of categories and definitions.
• Questionnaire layout:
- Have a lot of white space ease the respondent
- Easy questions at the beginning and questions which may damage the response rate near the end
- Use “go to” to avoid subjects completing irrelevant areas
• Ethics: the purpose of the questionnaire must be clearly described to the potential respondent.
Pilot survey
• Why?
- The questionnaire is clear and can be completed in the way you wish
- Find the questions that trouble people
- Way of improvement
- Time to have to complete it
• Mail surveys:
- Prepaid return envelopes should be included
- Best to contact the respondents in advance
- Send the questionnaire out in waves
- Should be sent out 10 days to 2 weeks later
- Code the questionnaire: to remind the good people (who haven’t answered)
• E-surveys:
- Uncertainty about the respondent
- Response rates tend to be very poor
- Responses are collated and can be easily download to analyze them reduction of transcription
errors
• Social media:
- Tend to be unrepresentative
Number of respondents
=Good response rates
Number approached
Missing information
Model-based imputation = where statistical regression or neural network procedures are used to predict
the missing values
Social networks
Sociogram: it is used to trace out patterns of communication, understand how individuals influence one
another and how information flows in an organization.
- Strength of the contact: frequency x value
- Size of the circles: how central or important someone is in the network
- Thickness of the connecting line: strength of the tie
CHAPTER 15: CONDUCTING YOUR RESEARCH
Selecting the topic
Focusing on a research topic: to avoid the vague topic, we can use this approach:
- Choose a research area such as demography, economic growth, international marketing, sociology,
etc.
- Identify a particular field within the broad area.
- Consider what specific aspect of the field you wish to investigate.
Guide to supervision
Project plan
To organize this, a project plan helps:
- Forward pass = indicate the earliest start time of each activity (in the boxes)
- Backward pass = starting with the latest finish time of the preceding activity (in the boxes as well).
- Floats = activities not on the critical path, the latest end time – the earliest start time – the duration
of that activity.
Gantt chart
Then, a Gantt chart can be displayed (time chart marking the critical path and showing the milestones).
- The black boxes represent the duration of the critical path.
- The grey boxes show activities with floats.
CHAPTER 16: WRITING AND PRESENTING THE DISSERTATION
The dissertation
Dissertation objectives
Nature of the work: how that you can undertake an independent piece of research in a specialist area of
your choice.
Structure:
- 1 inside page: title, your name and year
- Acknowledgments
- A content page
- List of tables and figures
- Abstract (500 words: description of the nature of the work, how it was undertaken and its main
findings)
- First chapter = introduction (research purpose and objectives)
- Chapter 2 = literature review (a bridge between the objectives of the research and the analysis to
come)
- Other chapters = analysis
- Final chapter = conclusion (should clearly show which of the research objectives have been
achieved and which remain unanswered) + limits
- Appendices
- References and bibliography
Research method: a section on research method and why this method is appropriate to the research
questions.
Style:
- Dissertation title = bold, capitals, 18pts
- Chapter titles = bold, initial capitals, 14 pts
- Sub-headings = as chapters but 12 pts
- Quotations = quotation marks to be used and quotation to be indented one space below paragraph
and one space above the next paragraph. Source and page number to be clearly shown
Citing literature: you must reference all the literature you discuss in the dissertation, using the Harvard
referencing system.
Typing:
- One and a half line spaced with a left margin throughout, of at least 25mm.
- Typescript: 12pts in black arial front
- Page numbers in Arabic numerals at the bottom centre of the page
o Initial pages (contents, abstract and appendices) should be in roman numerals
- Declaration to be made that you are the author
- Printed on a one side of paper
- Margins: 25mm
- Each chapter should be sectioned into subsections and the subsections numbered and given a title.
- Figures and tables: should be included in the main text and referred to by chapter, subsection and
number
- References: should be referred by name and date in the text and listed alphabetically in the
bibliography at the end of the dissertation