Answers to Exercises in the Book

9.1 Advantages and disadvantages of alternative survey strategies

1. A project in a small business to assess views on introducing charging employees for car parking.

The target group here is employees, and a small business presumably has relatively few employees, and they obviously work on-site (otherwise they would not be parking a car). A face-to-face survey would be the easiest to carry out, and would be the best way to get responses from the highest number of employees. A telephone survey would make sense for employees who work from home (e.g. sales staff) and do not come into the company premises frequently. A postal survey would only make sense if employees need to have formal notification of the change. A web survey relies on employees having good access to technology, which cannot be taken for granted in a small business.

2. A worldwide survey in a multinational company of staff attitudes to HRM practices.

The target group here is employees, and the organization is multinational. Presumably, employees work in more than one country (with perhaps different native languages). If a large sample is required, then face-to-face or telephone interviews will be difficult and expensive. Postal or web surveys would allow for different language versions to be developed, so that employees can answer in their preferred language. Most multinational companies routinely use email, and so a web survey would be the most cost effective. For employees without internet access at work, a paper copy could be made available at the workplace or through the post.

3. An investigation to understand the nature of bullying within the Social Services Department of a local authority.

Bullying is a very sensitive issue, and one which would be very difficult to examine in any other way than a face-to-face interview. Trust would be the most important issue to consider: who it is who carries out the survey, and how employees can be persuaded to trust those involved. A single department of a local authority would be relatively small, and the high cost of face-to-face interviews would be offset by the quality of information obtained.

9.2 Types of questions that observational data can answer

Research question

What data to collect

How to sample

Do people buy more cold drinks in hot weather, and more soup in cold weather?

Number of different kinds of drink.

Select a sample of locations, and times of day.

Does the presence and type of background music in a store alter customers’ buying behaviour?

Customers – time spent browsing, trying on garments, items bought.

Select days of the week/times of day. Define target customers, and define a quota sample size per day.

How do people use online help sources?

Web pages – pages accessed, time spent per page, click-through from one page to another, content of searches made.

The sampling strategy depends on which people are of interest and which help sources they may use.

When do people who work in different places (virtual teams) switch between media (instant messaging, email, video-conferencing, and phone) in order to manage a project?

The unit of analysis could be the team member or the communication episode. For each episode, you will need data on what work is being done, and what media are used during the episode.

Select a relevant project, and then sample (or select all) teams working on that project. Sample different stages within the project, and tasks within those stages.

How does the conversational style adopted by a call handler influence the effectiveness of telephone helplines?

Conversational style needs to be assessed (this could include factors such as friendliness, manner of eliciting information about the problem, ability to listen to the user).

Effectiveness could be measured by ratings of the extent to which the problem is solved, user satisfaction.

The simplest approach is to select a sample of call handlers who adopt different styles, then select a sample of their calls (over several days, times of day, types of user problems).

In negotiations, how do same-sex and mixed-sex groups differ?

It is important to define relevant characteristics of the negotiation task, so that gender-mix differences are not confounded by differences in the task itself. Relevant style characteristics would include: team role characteristics of group members, ways of managing conflict. Some studies will also consider outcomes –success in completing a task etc.

First define what kind of negotiation is of interest, and decide how many same-sex and mixed-sex groups are required. Then select a sample of negotiation episodes (this would be easiest to do in an experimental study in a laboratory).

9.3 Examples of poor question wording

How strongly do you agree that smoking is harmful to health?

 Not at all

 Slightly

 Quite strongly

 Very strongly

The problem – this is a leading question which assumes that smoking is harmful, which violates the final principle. The response scale is also skewed – it has more responses on the ‘agree’ end than on the ‘disagree’ end.

The question could be rewritten in a number of ways in order to make it more neutral. The first example below has more neutral wording in the question, but retains the lack of symmetry in the response alternatives. The second example is also more neutral in question wording, and has symmetrical response alternatives. It is difficult to imagine that smoking could be seen as beneficial to health, given what we know about its effects.

What is your opinion about the effect of smoking on health?

 Not at all harmful

 Slightly harmful

 Quite harmful

 Very harmful

How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: smoking is harmful to health?

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

How good is your voting record in local elections?

 Not at all

 Quite good

 Very good

 Excellent

There are several problems with this question as it is worded. The second principle is violated since it assumes that all respondents know what ‘local elections’ are, and this could be dealt with by a sentence which explained that the question refers to voting in elections for local government representatives (rather than national or other kinds of elections). The fifth principle refers to appropriate time referents, and this question does not specify anything about when the respondent did or did not vote. Given that most of us have rather fallible memories, especially for events which are not deeply significant for us, it would be better to ask simply about the most recent local election. The question is also rather leading in its wording, since it assumes that the respondent has a good voting record. The response alternatives are poorly worded, because it is impossible to know what any respondents considers to be ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

The question could be replaced with one or more questions such as:

Did you vote in the last local election?

 Yes

 No

 don’t know / can’t remember

How often have you voted in local elections over the last ten years?

 Never

 Hardly ever

 Sometimes

 Almost always

 Always

If you wanted to express your opinion about genetically modified foods would you consider taking part in a boycott of your local supermarket?

 Not at all

 Probably not

 Not sure

 Probably

 Definitely

There are several problems with this question. It violates the first principle, that a question should express only one idea. It is also hard to interpret any specific response. If a respondent says ‘not at all’, it is impossible to say whether the person has no opinion about GM foods, is in favour of GM foods (and therefore would not boycott supermarkets that sell them), does not agree with boycotts in principle, or agrees with boycotts but it is too inconvenient to boycott their local supermarket. It could also be that the respondent never shops in their local supermarket anyway.

The key to rewriting the question is to untangle what it is that the researcher wants to get at. If it is general favourability towards GM foods, then a possible question would be something like:

What is your opinion about genetically modified foods?

 Strongly against

 Slightly against

 Not sure

 Slightly in favour

 Strongly in favour

If the focus of attention is on attitudes to boycotts as a means of expressing an opinion, then the question could be something like:

What is your opinion about boycotting shops which sell GM food?

 Strongly against

 Slightly against

 Not sure

 Slightly in favour

 Strongly in favour

If the researcher wants to assess whether the respondent would exercise a boycott, then a gating question is needed to establish personal strength of opinion towards GM foods. This would then be followed by a question about boycotting only for those who are against GM foods.

How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Politicians never keep the promises they make before an election, once they are in office.

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

The problem with this question is the negative wording, which violates the fourth principle. The question is also somewhat leading, since its wording expresses a populist cynicism about the integrity of politicians. The response alternatives are hard to interpret (what does it mean to say that I ‘disagree’ with the statement?). Suppose I think that only some politicians never keep their promises, while most politicians do keep their promises. How would I express that opinion?

There are different ways to re-write the question, depending on the researcher’s focus of attention. For example:

How many politicians keep the promises they make before an election, once they are in office?

 None of them

 A few of them

 About half of them

 Most of them

 All of them

How often do politicians keep the promises they make before an election, once they are in office?

 Never

 Hardly ever

 Sometimes

 Most of the time

 All the time

How much do you agree with the following: My training supervisor is dynamic and well organized.

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

This question is actually two questions and so violates the first principle. The researcher would be unable to tell what any response alternative means, other than a generalized attitude of favourability towards the training supervisor.

This should be replaced with two questions:

How much do you agree with the following: My training supervisor is:

Dynamic

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

Well organized

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

                   

How much do you agree with the following: I am not satisfied with the progress of my research.

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

The problem here is the third principle, use simple expressions, as well as the fourth principle, avoid the use of negatives.

It would be much simpler to remove the negative in the statement and rewrite the response alternatives in terms of degree of satisfaction:

How satisfied are you with the progress of your research?

 Very dissatisfied

 Slightly dissatisfied

 Not sure

 Slightly satisfied

 Very satisfied

How much do you agree with the following: The presence of humorous literary allusions is conducive to an accessible presentation mode in academic pedagogy.

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

The silly wording here is an example of violating both the second principle (avoid jargon) and the third principle (use simple expressions). ‘Humorous literary allusions’ are jokes and ‘academic pedagogy’ means lecturing. It is harder to interpret what ‘accessible presentation mode’ means, though perhaps it means that the lecture is easier to follow.

A possible wording for the question could be:

How much do you agree with the following: Jokes make lectures easier to follow.

 Strongly disagree

 Disagree

 Not sure

 Agree

 Strongly agree

 

Note: Not all questions have answers, this is because some questions don't lend themselves to a clear correct answer - dicuss with you're tutor if you're not sure of your work on the questions not on this website.