Research Methodology IV BTech IT Faculty of Informatics & Design (FID) Cape Peninsula University (CPUT) Lecturer: Nhlanhla Mlitwa

Surveys It’s a Quantitative Data Gathering Method, where many people are asked the same question/s at one time. Surveys are “inherently statistical in nature” (Groves, 1996:389). Surveys measure many variables (with multiple indicators). You work from a research problem to a research question to inform your data collection instrument: a questionnaire or interviews.

Let’s consider the simple question - whether SMOKING DAGGA DOES MAKE YOU CLEVER? I said, understand the type of (Data) answers you are looking for. Also know who your (Data) information sources should be Who would you ask? Dagga smokers only? Perhaps, but would they not tend to give biased answers? You may also need those who deal with them before and after they smoke. For the purpose of this lecture, let us presume that you only need YES or NO answers from all your samples Now, what kind of a questionnaire will you design? … Using your research question as a basis

Does Dagga smoking really makes you clever? A plain “Yes” or “No” answer may not get you to the bottom of things though!. So, you need to create different sub- questions. To do so, you’d need to do conceptualisation: Clarifying the meaning:1. clever, & 2. making one to be clever – will help you develop meaningful sub questions. Why? Because you will base your sub-questions on the meaning of “clever” [ pp 278 – 281, 6 th ed. Discusses thing to avoid when asking questions ] For purposes of this lecture – let me use “Yes” or “No” responses to illustrate example of a questionnaire - Next slide

… Descriptive Statistics Does dagga smoking really make you clever? Yes1 No2 Sometimes 3 Don’t know 4

Let’s say you select 180 respondents [ n=180] Your research sample (s) Respondent #Response

How will you analyse data? CategoryFrequencyPercentage Yes No Sometimes00 Don’t know158.3 Total180100

Statistical surveys Remember: what you have in the previous table is just “findings”. You now need a section called “discussion of findings” – what is that, what does it entail, how do you do it, and why do you need it? Kyk hier my broer, nou is die einde van die lecture, ja!, dis duidelik!