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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research
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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
All praises to Almighty Allah, the most Gracious, the most Beneficent and the most
Merciful, who enabled me to complete this assignment.
I feel great pleasure in expressing my since gratitude to my teacher, for his guidance
and support for providing me an opportunity to complete my Project.
My special thanks and acknowledgments to Mr. Ammir Razaq for providing me all
relative information, guidance and support to compile the practical study at Telenor.
I will keep my hopes alive for the success of given task to submit this report to my
honorable teacher Mr. Ammir Razaq , whose guidance; support and encouragement
enable me to complete this assignment.
Executive Summary
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Survey Instruments and Field Procedures and its implication in Business Research
Surveyors as professionals must fulfil certain legal, regulatory and/or accuracy requirements for
their clients. Typically they will strive to do this in an optimal cost effective way and with the most
appropriate equipment for the job at hand. Naturally it requires a good understanding and assurance
in the instrumentation employed. Clients want the most from what they pay for. Legislative
authorities as well as private and public companies require confidence that the services rendered are
in conformity with globally accepted best practice rules. Generally this involves the application of
internationally recognized standards.
Considerable efforts have been made concerning testing in the field of surveying. In particular the
ISO standard 17123 parts 1 through 8 concerning levels, theodolites, EDM’s, total stations and most
recently GNSS field measurement systems in real time kinematic (RTK); have been published.
Instrument manufacturers often quote these standards when making reference to their instruments
precision. Each of the ISO 17123 standards prescribes test procedures aimed at determining if the
instrument is functioning correctly and qualifying its precision and performance.
Contents
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1. Survey Research.................................................................................5
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Survey Research:
Survey research is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research. The
broad area of survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking
questions of respondents. A "survey" can be anything forms a short paper-and-pencil feedback form
to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview.
We'll begin by looking at the different types of surveys that are possible. These are roughly divided
into two broad areas: Questionnaires and Interviews. Next, we'll look at how you select the survey
method that is best for your situation. Once you've selected the survey method, you have to construct
the survey itself. Here, we will be address a number of issues including: the different types of
questions; content; decisions; decisions about response format; and, sequence in your instrument.
We turn next to some of the special issues involved in administering a personal interview. Finally,
we'll consider some of the advantages and disadvantages of survey methods
Research instruments serve as measurement tools and are an integral component of any nursing
research study. Research instruments may include physiologic or biologic measurements; self-report
instruments, scales, or questionnaires; interviews; diaries; structured or unstructured observations; Q
methodologies; psychologic measurements; or other specialized measures.
If a particular concept has been studied, research instruments to measure that concept can be
identified and selected from clinical practice or from a literature review. When a concept has not
been examined, part of the research process may include developing and testing new measurement
instruments. A research instrument must be reliable (ie, consistent) and valid (ie, measure what it
intends to measure) and contribute to the scientific integrity of a research project.
Decisions about research measures are made by the researcher and are based on the research
question and the design of the study. The research instruments for an investigation need to
accurately measure the phenomena under study. Identifying the right research instruments is critical
to the validity of the design and the results. The researcher also must examine die fit of the research
instruments to die methods. For example, interviews often are employed in qualitative
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Types of Surveys:
Surveys can be divided into two broad categories: the questionnaire and the interview.
Questionnaires are usually paper-and-pencil instruments that the respondent completes.
Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on the respondent says. Sometimes, it's hard to
tell the difference between a questionnaire and an interview. For instance, some people think that
questionnaires always ask short closed-ended questions while interviews always ask broad open-
ended ones. But you will see questionnaires with open-ended questions (although they do tend to be
shorter than in interviews) and there will often be a series of closed-ended questions asked in an
interview.
Survey research has changed dramatically in the last ten years. We have automated telephone
surveys that use random dialing methods. There are computerized kiosks in public places that allows
people to ask for input. A whole new variation of group interview has evolved as focus group
methodology. Increasingly, survey research is tightly integrated with the delivery of service. Your
hotel room has a survey on the desk. Your waiter presents a short customer satisfaction survey with
your check. You get a call for an interview several days after your last call to a computer company
for technical assistance. You're asked to complete a short survey when you visit a web site. Here, I'll
describe the major types of questionnaires and interviews’, keeping in mind that technology is
leading to rapid evolution of methods. We'll discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of
these different survey types in Advantages and Disadvantages of Survey Methods.
Questionnaires:
When most people think of questionnaires, they think of the mail survey. All of us have, at one time
or another received a questionnaire in the mail. There are many advantages
to mail surveys. They are relatively inexpensive to administer. You can
send the exact same instrument to a wide number of people. They allow the
respondent to fill it out at their own convenience. But there are some disadvantages as well.
Response rates from mail surveys are often very low. And, mail questionnaires are not the best
vehicles for asking for detailed written responses.
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What's the difference between a groups administered questionnaire and a group interview or focus
group? In the group administered questionnaire, each respondent is handed an instrument and
asked to complete it while in the room. Each respondent completes an instrument. In the group
interview or focus group, the interviewer facilitates the session. People work as a group, listening to
each other's comments and answering the questions. Someone takes notes for the entire group --
people don't complete an interview individually.
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Interviews
Interviews are a far more personal form of research than questionnaires. In the
personal interview, the interviewer works directly with the respondent.
Unlike with mail surveys, the interviewer has the opportunity to probe or
ask follow-up questions. And, interviews are generally easier for the
respondent, especially if what is sought is opinions or impressions.
Interviews can be very time consuming and they are resource intensive.
The interviewer is considered a part of the measurement instrument and interviewers have to
be well trained in how to respond to any contingency.
Scaling:
Scaling is the branch of measurement that involves the construction of an instrument that associates
qualitative constructs with quantitative metric units. Scaling evolved out of efforts in psychology
and education to measure "un measurable" constructs like authoritarianism and self esteem. In many
ways, scaling remains one of the most arcane and misunderstood aspects of social research
measurement. And, it attempts to do one of the most difficult of research tasks -- measure abstract
concepts.
Most people don't even understand what scaling is. The basic idea of scaling is described in General
Issues in Scaling, including the important distinction between a scale and a response format. Scales
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are generally divided into two broad categories: uni dimensional and multidimensional. The uni
dimensional scaling methods were developed in the first half of the twentieth century and are
generally named after their inventor. We'll look at three types of uni dimensional scaling methods
here:
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, measurement theorists developed more advanced techniques for
creating multidimensional scales. Although these techniques are not considered here, you may want
to look at the method of concept mapping that relies on that approach to see the power of these
multivariate methods.
Proceeding from general to specific research questions, makes the research activities in any project
more focused - in terms of data needed to answer the research questions. Hence questions associated
with data collection are some of the most important in any research enquiry.
It is fairly common for a Research Plan to be divided into two stages: Pre-empirical and empirical
stages. The first stage is where you start with the research question, go through what others have
done, modify your own research question(s) and set some kind of hypothesis or theory. The second
stage is that part of your research where you decide on your research design i.e. qualitative or
quantitative or a combination of both and assemble your conceptual framework. These stages will be
informed by such decisions like:
• What kind of data is required to test the hypothesis/theory?
• From whom to collect the data? and
• What procedures need to be followed to collect that data?
All these decisions are related to the planning of the data collection before it is actually collected. In
this regard, you need to answer some questions as you devise your data collection procedures:
1) How is the data collected?
This can take place at two stages - as part of planning and during project development
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It is also important to compare all these procedures, find out their comparative advantages and
disadvantages before you finally settle for a particular data collection procedure.
However whichever procedure you use, certain guidelines regarding ethics in data collection,
management of data collection and designing of data collection instruments will have to be kept in
mind.
Tips for successful field research:
The way that you conduct your field research will have a significant impact on the quality of the
results. Below are the key points to remember when conducting your research and interpreting your
results.
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Be realistic
It can be tempting to pick out results that confirm what you want to hear, and ignore the rest. But
ignoring negative results could damage your business. Be prepared to modify your plans if
necessary.
Since sorting into categories is one of the most important steps in the data analysis process and I had
already grouped the events that took place during the implementation of the inquiry-based learning
unit, I followed the steps described below in order to make sense of the data I collected. The main
purpose was to start drawing out some theories and explanations in order to interpret the meaning of
those trends, characteristics or features that became apparent (Burns, 1999).
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Bearing in mind that this was an action research project, I knew I had to analyze the data, interpret it
and develop a theory about what the data meant in order to improve my teaching practice in science
classes while increasing the students’ autonomy awareness.
To shape the overall process of data analysis, I used the framework adapted from McKernan (1996).
I started by assembling the data that I had collected over the period of my research: pre-test, pre-
survey, students’ portfolios, field notes, post-test and post-survey. The initial questions that began
my research project provided me a starting point for rereading the data which I scanned first of all in
a general way.
I noted down thoughts, ideas and impressions that occurred to me during this initial examination of
the information that I gathered especially from the field notes that I took throughout the intervention.
At this stage, broad patterns began to show up which I thought could be compared and contrasted
later on to analyze what fit together (Burns, 1999). Once I gathered all the data that I had collected
through the data collection instruments I used I found that students:
• showed in their post-test results improvement in their knowledge about the systems of the human
body.
• showed in the pre-survey results that most of them preferred student-centered classes.
• showed in the pre-survey results that they did not feel very autonomous.
• showed in the pre-survey results that they were hesitant about their preferred learning styles.
• showed in the post-survey results that they felt more autonomous.
• showed in the post-survey results that they identified their preferred learning styles better.
Once there had been some overall examination of the data that I thought illuminated the question I
was researching, I created categories related to inquiry-based learning and its effect on the students’
autonomy awareness and jotted a name for each one of them until I completed a list of categories
(Burns, 1999). The objective was to reduce the amount of data that I had collected to more
manageable categories of concepts, themes or types. The following are the categories for my data:
In order to move beyond describing, categorizing, coding and comparing to make sense of the data I
had collected, I got to a point in the data analysis process that demanded a certain amount of creative
thinking since it was time to articulate underlying concepts and developing theories about why
particular patterns of behaviors, interactions or attitudes had emerged.
I came back to the data I had collected several times and I posed questions about it, rethought the
connections among the data and developed explanations of the bigger picture underpinning my
action research project (Burns, 1999). Then I discussed the data patterns and themes with some of
the school’s science teachers trying to find new discoveries or interpretations.
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Reference
Survey Research Methods, by Earl R. Babbie
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net
http://www.fig.net/pub/monthly_articles/september_2008/septembe
Johnson, Anthony, Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma.
Hong-Sen Yan & Marco Ceccarelli (2009), International Symposium on History of Machines
and Mechanisms: Proceedings of HMM 2008,
Donald Routledge Hill (1996), "Engineering", pp. 766-9, in Rashed, Roshdi; Morelon, Régis
(1996), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Routledge
National Cooperative Highway Research Program: Collecting, Processing and
IntegratingPublished by Transportation Research Board,
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Toni Schenk1, Suyoung Seo, Beata Csatho: Accuracy Study of Airborne Laser Scanning Data
with Photogrammer
http://www.fig.net/pub/athens/papers/ts12/TS12_4_Kibblewhite_Wilkinson.pdf
http://hp1.gcal.ac.uk/pls
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms
http://www.surveyorsinfrance.com
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