Method of Data Collection in Conducting Business Research - Term Paper Example

A survey is a popular method of data collection in conducting business research. A survey can however be concluded with different categories errors. Discuss the possible errors that can occur in a survey? There are different types of errors that can take place while conducting a survey. The main types of survey errors are coverage errors, non-response errors and measurement errors. All these errors are explained ahead in detail. Coverage errors take place when sampling frame does not include a few target populations’ segments (Little, 2009). It is basically a type of survey error that takes place at a time where all the members of population fail to have a known and equal probability of being incorporated in sample. So it is very important to go the extra mile for finding and including the respondents that are hard-to-reach. Non-response error is another common error of a survey. This type of error can cause severe partiality in survey results. This non-response error has two effects on statistical results that are basically contributing to increase the sampling variance of the estimates with the reduction in the effective sample size from that formerly sought and it also contributes towards bias of estimates where non-respondents vary from respondents in characteristics measured. Non-response error takes birth in two basic means that include inability to build contact with the selected units of a survey that may be a significant and main contributor and also the refusal of people to participate partially or fully. So this type of survey error can affect the results of the survey severely. Measurement errors take place when inaccurate answers are given by the participants due to wrong question wording, interviewer effect, question ordering and other external influences etc. Like for example a question may be gender biased due to the wording it has and sometimes the sequence of the questions can also make the participant lode interest so he or she may provide false information. So the sequence, wording etc have a major role to play and if the researcher fails to do so then a major survey error can occur. Keeping all the above errors in mind is really important while devising the instrument for the survey. Attitude measurement is important to managers, assuming that you are a human resource manager of a multinational corporation; illustrate how attitude measurement can help management of employees? An expression of disfavor or favor towards a place, person, thing, or may be an event is the attitude. Attitude may be formed as a result of past and present experiences of the person. Attitude is moreover changeable, measurable and also has the influencing power over the behavior and emotions of a person. Many scales and measurements assist in examining the attitudes. It can be challenging to measure attitudes as they are a hypothetically constructed and cannot be directly observed. Explicit measures for attitude measurements tend to depend upon self-reports or may be easily observed behaviors. These have a tendency to involve bipolar measures like favorable-unfavorable, good-bad, support-oppose, etc. Moreover implicit measures for attitude measurements are presumed to be automatic and not consciously directed. This makes implicit measures much more reliable and valid than the explicit measures. For HR managers measuring the attitude happens to be one really important thing. There are a lot of benefits associated with the accurate measurement of attitude like for instance an HR manager can strongly relate attitude with job satisfaction. Like if an employee is a regular employee who is not in a habit of being absent from work so the HR manager through this attitude of his can assume that he or she is satisfied with the job that is the reason for the responsible attitude towards the organization. On the other hand if an employee is quite irregular and is not performing well so his attitude shows that he is not satisfied with the job or has some problem so the HR manager if is good with measuring these attitudes then the organization can be saved from bearing big losses due to poor performance of its employees and also can help in retaining the star performers. In developing a questionnaire, there are no hard-and fast-rules. Fortunately, however some guidelines that help to prevent most common mistakes have been developed from research experiences. Identify FIVE guidelines and explain how to follow each of them in details. Most frequently used data collection method is the questionnaire which helps in gathering information on attitudes, opinions, knowledge, facts, behaviors etc. There are quite a few important things that need to be kept in mind while developing an effective questionnaire. It is very important to follow the five guidelines mentioned ahead in order to stay as effective as possible. The person developing the questionnaire should most importantly keep this fact in mind that there are a lot of differences between the different respondents of that particular questionnaire so developing a questionnaire which will protect the rights and interests of all the respondents is one important thing. Then the second important guideline is to know how to sequence the questions which questions are supposed to come in the beginning and which ones will be following up in the middle or in the end is also one important thing in the development of an effective questionnaire. There is another important thing to be kept in mind which questionnaire conceptualization. There should a specific concept and meaning of the questionnaire and it comes from strong background knowledge about the topic for which the data is being collected. Establishing validity and reliability is also another important thing to be followed while developing an effective questionnaire. There is one other important thing that needs to be kept in mind and that is that the length of the questions should not be long as it can increase the chances of false information. No one wants to spend a lot of time on filling out a survey questionnaire so it is to be kept in mind to use as comprehensive wording as possible in the questions. Establishing a link between the questions is also an important thing so that the respondent develops interest and the chances of getting accurate data are enhanced. Among specific survey method, it seems to be that personal interview is the most popular method. Discuss the reasons why it is so and possible drawbacks of this method? Qualitative survey methods are the methods that allow better impulsiveness and adaptation in the dealings between the participant and the researcher. Like for example, the interviews, which are one form of qualitative methods, enable the researcher to pose open-ended questions to the participant. This type of survey method has the flexibility of not following a definite structure. The participants are encouraged to answer questions freely in their own words and are these are often more elaborate responses then simply saying a “yes” or “no”. Also there is an opportunity for the researcher to develop an informal relationship with the participant – which could further encourage the participant to reply more elaborately and provide greater details than is usually the case with the quantitative research methods. Interview is a very useful tool to gather data and understand someone’s perspective on an issue. Though, there are many other methods as well to gather data but personal interviews are the most sought after and useful method to gather data for qualitative research. Personal interviews are mostly unstructured or semi-structured as the purpose of carrying out these interviews is not to justify cause and effect relationship but to get an in depth insight and exploration of a phenomenon and develop research ideas on them. Though, personal interviews are not much different from day to day conversation except that researcher is very alert and attentive while listening to the answers and usually stays very responsive during the course of interviews. The data obtained through the personal interviews, though may not be very descriptive due to time constraints, still it can offer a few insights in the subject being studied. Personal interviews can prove to be useful while dealing with some situations that create challenges for mailing out the questionnaires. Interviewers are sometimes likely to establish a trust relationship with the participants who in other cases may find it difficult to answer truthfully. Personal interviews at the same time have a lot of disadvantages too like creating the potential for the interviewer to unintentionally or intentionally impact the results and break consistency in measurement. Interviewer needs to get adequate training to ensure that he or she understand the ways in which they could involuntarily manipulate responses, the proper techniques that can be used to help the respondent and the significance of not doing so are all important issues to be addressed. Moreover the personal interviews are also costly as the amount of time required by the staff to conduct this type of interviews is much higher than other type of interviews. References Little, R. (2009). Selection and pattern-mixture models, Longitudinal Data Analysis, 409-431. Read More