Approaches to Research in Social Sciences - Report Example

Approaches to Research in Social Sciences Questionnaire about use of social media in the society Do you have access to internet services? Yes [ ] No [ ] 2. How often do you use the Internet? Daily [ ] More than once a week [ ] Once a week [ ] Once a month [ ] Rarely [ ] 3. How many hours is your session on the internet each time you visit the internet? 0-1 [ ] 1-2 [ ] 2-3 [ ] 3-5 [ ] More than five hours [ ] 4. What sites do you normally visit? Games [ ] Facebook [ ] You tube [ ] Online Library [ ] Twitter [ ] Any other (specify)………… 5. Which device do you use to access the internet? Desk top computer [ ] Laptop [ ] Mobile Phones [ ] Ipads [ ] Any other (specify) ………………. 6. What activity or activities do you do on the internet? Research [ ] Sending Emails [ ] Blogs [ ] Chatting [ ] Shopping [ ] (Any other specify) …………. 7. Where do you use internet most? Home [ ] College [ ] Office [ ] Cyber Cafe [ ] Any other place (specify)................. 8. What the main means of communication with friends? Voice calls [ ] Video Call [ ] Email Messages [ ] SMS [ ] Voice over IP [ ] Any other (Specify) ……. 9. Have you ever met the people with whom you communicate? Yes [ ] No [ ] 10. How easy is it to meet the people with whom you exchange information? Very easy [ ] Easy [ ] Possibly [ ] Rarely [ ] Not possible [ ] 11. Which method of Communication enhances meeting of the online contact? Video call [ ] Voice call [ ] VoIP [ ] SMS [ ] Any other (specify) …………… 12. Have you ever received training on the use of internet? Yes [ ] No [ ] 13. Is training on internet use beneficial? Very beneficial [ ] Beneficial [ ] Slightly Beneficial [ ] Not at all [ ] 14. Have you faced any issue with internet security? Never [ ] Sometimes [ ] Frequently [ ] 15. How do you secure your information? Creating strong password [ ] Blocking the intruder [ ] Any other way (specify) ………… 16. Do you have a personal website? Yes [ ] No [ ] Analysis The questionnaire was administered to ten individuals who had different answers to the questions and the analysis of the answers was done to inform the prevalence of the usage of internet and other issues. The individuals who responded to the questionnaire include the following; Toyosi Abass, Lamia Abdullhosin, Sara Abdulreda, Ruba Ahmed, Huseyin Aksu, Abdullah Al-Obaidi, Jack Alexander, Muna Ali, Samira Ali and Zakir Almo. These individual had different answers according to their exposure to the different things that are according to the internet usage in the different places in the world. In response to the question whether they had access to internet, all the people said that they could access it through the different gadgets which they had or they could access from other people. This implies that all of them could be able to use internet if they chose to use it because it was usually at their disposal and therefore, none had any excuse in relation to their failure to use the internet to access information through it. When the asked the frequency of the usage of internet, the different respondents had different answers to give towards the question with, Toyosi Abass, Jack Alexander, Zakir Almo and Sara Abdulreda saying that they used it daily. Lamia Abdullhosin, Ruba Ahmed and Abdullah Al-Obaidi responded by saying that they used the internet more than once each week and Huseyin Aksu, Muna Ali and Samira Ali saying that they used the internet at least once per week. It was notable that none of the people said that they used the internet less than once a week or rarely used. This indicated that the sample population represented people who access and use internet on a weekly basis but with varying frequency. The length of the session each person took on the internet each time they visited an internet site varied among the respondents with only Muna Ali taking less than one hour on the internet on many of her occasions. The average time according to the different other internet users ranged was between two to three hours with a few of the respondents saying that they can take more than five hours on the internet. Through this analysis, it implied that users of internet had a lot of time to spend on the internet per day which may have impact on their performance in their duties. This is because a good fraction of the time they had for their classes was spent on the internet although the this does not imply that the influences was necessarily negative on the education because there were different things they could do using it. The respondents differently to the question of the sites they normally visited during the sessions they had daily or in the course of the week, those who responded that they used internet for library research were only 20%, Facebook had 90%, twitter was 60%, You tube had 50%, 20% mentioned that they visit games sites and some other said that they had used internet to watch news about the world. This implies that the internet usage among was population was mostly for social media since Facbook, twitter and You tube recorded high respondents who used them to perform different functions. A few people used the internet for making research through the materials that were available in specific online libraries and a few other people in the society depend on the internet for information. In response to the question of the devices people used for surfing the internet, mobile devices attracted the greatest respondents with most of the people indicating that they used laptops which had 70% of the respondents, mobile phones was used by 80% of the respondents while the Ipads and desk top had very few users with 10% respondents each using them. This indicated that portability and cost of the devices was very important to the choice of a device a person could use to surf the internet. The desk tops were very inconvenient to use and therefore, they were used by few of the respondents while Ipads were relatively expensive when compared to the other gadgets that could be used to accomplish similar purposes. The mobile phones, which are conveniently easy to carry, were the most widely used gadgets in the process of surfing the internet because they can be transferred to different places without posing much trouble. The respondent responded that they used internet for various purposes but one this was related to the sites the people visited in the course of their surfing the internet. Those who used the internet for research work were only 10% that could be related to the percentage of the respondents who used internet for online research library. Analysis of the things that people accomplished using internet show that blogging took 20%, sending emails took 50%, other used internet for making calls, which made 10%, shopping made 10% of the respondents while chatting had 70% which can be correlated to the wide usage of social medial sites within the people1. On responding to the question where the respondents used the internet, none mentioned the office since the sample was obtained from a class of students, 20% said that they occasionally used the cyber cafes, 60% mentioned their homes and 80% of the respondents mentioned that they surfed from their college. This can be explained by the fact that the sample population spent a lot of time in college with little time out of it and therefore, they used the internet that their college provided so that they could communicate to others and access some information that they needed. In response to the question of the means of communication, most people mentioned that they used SMS which had a 70% usage as could be related to the chatting, emails message had 40% respondents using it, 10% used either video call or voice call or Voice over IP with 20% of the respondents using communicating through sending photos. In answer to the question of whether the respondents had met the people with whom they communicated, 60% responded that they had met most of them while 40% of the respondents said that they had not met the people with whom they frequently communicated. In response to the question whether it was easy for the respondents to meet the people they frequently communicated, those who felt that it was very easy were 20%, those who said that it was easy were 40%, those who felt that it was possible were 20%, 10% felt that it would rarely happen and 10% felt that it was totally impossible to meet the people with whom they usually communicate. On the response to the question of the method that could enhance meeting together between the people video call was the most popular method with 40% of the people using it, 20% believed that voice calls can achieve that while some 20% respondents said that it would be possible to meet through SMS and the rest felt that VoIP can help the people to meet. In analysing the results of the questionnaire, 60% of the people responded by saying that they had not received any training in the usage of internet, and the rest said that they had received some form of training. Those who had not received training in using internet could have gained their experience through their interaction with the various gadgets enable internet usage while other learnt to use through other people in their school and family. This meant had not advanced knowledge in the usage of the internet since they knew the basic information that they need in the process of surfing and accessing the different sites. In the response to the question whether training in usage of internet was beneficial, people some 30% said that it was very beneficial will 20% of the respondents felt that it was just beneficial, 30% felt that it was beneficial to some degree while 20% of the respondents said that training in usage of internet was not beneficial at all. This reflects some correlation of the between the percentage of the people who said that they had received some training in the usage of internet and those who had not2. It implies that some of the people who had received some training in internet usage found it beneficial while some other people who went through it felt that it was not important or it was just a little beneficial. On the question of whether any of the respondents had faces a problem in internet security while in the process of using the internet in different times, most of the people in the 40% had experienced some form of insecurity frequently, 40% had received some form of internet insecurity while only 20% of the total respondents had received any form of insecurity. This could be related to the experience some people could have in relation to the usage of internet and them that had received advanced training in internet usage could be the people who may have avoided insecurity in the use of internet. The respondents also talked of the different things they had done to secure their time in the course of serving where 20 % said that they blocked the intruders, 70% said that they create strong password for their accounts in various websites. However, another 10% of the respondents said that they respondents said that they secure themselves from internet insecurity through changing their accounting and making new ones. Of the respondents who answered the questionnaire, only 20% had made their own websites that they could use in presenting various things like blog posts and advertisement of some products. Reference Bernard, H R. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press, 2011. Read More