Question

research methods

Question two

A final year undergraduate student of UDS is examining the demand for social media among bankers. She used questionnaires to collect the needed data. Out of the population of 450 bankers in the region she sampled 200 of them and distributed the questionnaires to solicit the needed information. Only 165 returned the questionnaires and answered all questions well. As part of the study she has presented some of her results in the form of the tables below:

Table 1: Monthly expenses for social media data bundle Amount (GH¢) Frequency Percentage Less than 10 15 9.1 10-15 20 12.1 16-20 38 23.0 21-25 76 46.1 26-30 10 6.1 Above 30 6 3.6 Total 165 100

Table 2: Motive for the usage of social media Motive Frequency Percentage To stay in touch with friends 130 78.8 Keep up with news 145 87.9 Build professional contacts 94 57.0 To have fun 120 72.7 Peer pressure 70 42.4

1. The student has approached you to assist her with the discussion of her results. Since you don’t want to do her work for her you have agreed to discuss the results in Table 2 to guide her. Do your discussion of the results in Table 2 by citing some imaginary works to support.                                                                                                                   [5 marks]
2. Why is that the responses in Table 1 amount to 100% while in Table 2 the sum of the responses exceeds 100%.?                                                                                             [3 marks]
3. Solomon, an MSc Financial Risk Management student of PUCG also did a similar study by using ALL the 850 bankers from another region. Explain any two (2) reasons why the student from UDS would sample 200 respondents but the PUCG student would use the entire population for the study.                                                                              [5 marks]

Answer 1

Answer a:

From table 2 it can be observed that the motivation for using the social media among most of the bankers is for keeping up with news, staying in touch with friends and to have fun. Bankers are supposed to be updated with the financial news and social media is one of the platforms where they could get the specific news by following the social media pages that publish the relevant financial news and its analysis. This adds up to the knowledge of banker. Also, by staying over the social media, they can learn of the news by simultaneously staying in touch with their friends by chatting with them and having fun along with them over the virtual network. Hence, banking institutions can allot a specific time to their bankers after the customer hours during which they could use the social media so as remain motivated for their tasks during the customer hours.

Answer b:

In table 1, the column “Amount” represents the people who are taken only once at a time or in other works, each individual in the bank belongs to only one specific category in table 1. Hence, the total percentage has amounted to 100 % which represent that all of the persons in the bank has been evaluated only once at a time. In table 2, individuals have responded the questionnaire in the comparison format for their interest; hence, their interest could be more than one. Thus, for a single individual, more than one of the interests has been listed in the specific order. Thus, the total percentage in table 2 is moving over 100%.

Answer c:

1. The student from PUCG region would have wanted to generate the most accurate result from his study as by including all of the population, the study generates more accurate result than the study that has generated data from the sample of the population.

2. Time constraint for conducting a study also plays an important role in determining the number of samples to be included in the study. If there is no time limit, then the researcher would not hesitate to include all of the population for study as it would give him accurate result. If there is a time limit, then researcher may shrink the population into the approachable sample so as to gather the sufficient data for arriving at the best possible solution.