Advantages Of Using Questionnaires

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Research methodology is detailed research methods through which data are collected Most of the researches done in the field of service quality are concentrated in assessing service quality in a specific industry. Studies on service quality in a particular industry are very common and they help to assess the quality of service being provided and improvement that are required in order to offer a better service quality.

3.1 Research Objectives

The objectives of the research are:

To assess service quality in the mobile telecommunication industry from a customer’s point of view based on the SERVQUAL model.

To Identify whether there is any divergence in service quality perceived by two different age groups

To identify whether there is any divergence in service quality perceived by different gender.

Identify which of the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model (reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness) have more importance in the mobile telecommunication industry from customers’ perspective.

Identify whether there is any relationship between service quality and age in the industry

3.2 Research Plan

Research plan helps to collect necessary information so as to meet the research objectives. Therefore in this research, data has been gathered from the local customers who make use of the mobile services provided by mobile service operators.

3.3 Developing The Research Plan

3.3.1 Data Sources

There are 2 types of data that is primary data and the secondary data. Primary data are data that we collect by ourselves. If a researcher cannot find required data from secondary sources, he makes use of primary data collection. The data can be collected from observations interviews, focus group, surveys and questionnaires.

Secondary data are data which are readily available and are inexpensively to obtain. They are data which are already published. They are data from books, journals, magazines, other researches and articles.

In my research both primary data and secondary data will be used .Therefore primary data will be collected to serve the purpose of the study. As mentioned in the research plan, the target population is customers from the mobile service industry. Secondary data will also be used in order to determine the different dimensions of the service quality .therefore similar researches done in the past will also be considered so as to have a better understanding. Articles from Emerald, J STOR, and EBSCO and from journals like Business magazine will be considered.

3.3.2 Data Collection Method

Firstly, secondary data has been collected so as to have an idea about quality of service provided by mobile service operators in the mobile telecommunication industry in different countries. In order to collect secondary data articles and journals were used.

There are four most important ways to collect primary data that is via:

Observations: The researcher observes the group and takes notes about how the members in the group are behaving.

Interviews: Here questions are asked by the interviewer to the interviewee so as to get facts or statements from the interviewee.

Focus groups: Some people are brought together and are asked about there opinions and perceptions towards something (product or service).

Surveys: Here data are collected by making of questionnaires and people opinions are asked about a particular topic.

For this research the best way to gather data is by conducting a survey. The instrument that will be used to carry out the survey is questionnaire. Since interviews and observations to gather data will be quite difficult due to the number of people that will be included in the sample and the number of questions that will be involved, questionnaire was chosen as a mean to collect required data. A questionnaire consists of a set of questions which the respondent can easily answered and can freely give their opinion about a particular question. For this survey, the questionnaire includes mainly likert scaling questions as it will be the most flexible and easiest way to gather primary data.

3.3.3 Advantages of Using Questionnaires

Large amount of information can be collected from a large number of people in a short time period as compared to interview

It is a cheaper mean of collecting data

The responses are more standardized and it is more objective when compared to interviews.

Compare to interview there is less risk of obtaining bias response as the respondent may not be influenced by the researcher.

3.3.4 Disadvantages of Using Questionnaires

Due to the fact that the questionnaires are standardized it becomes difficult to explain any points that are misinterpreted by respondent. Therefore pivot testing was done to reduce this problem.

There is no way to tell how truthful a respondent is being

At time respondents are unwilling to participate in questionnaires and do not like sharing their personal opinion.

Some people fail to return the questionnaire on time, therefore this affect the time factor in research.

3.4 Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire is based on the SERVQUAL model of Parasuraman to assess service quality. It was customized so as to reflect the mobile service industry. The questionnaire has four sections as shown below:

Table 3.1: The Questionnaire’s Structure

Section A: Personal Details

This section is all about personal questions about the respondent. Here we are mainly interested to know the age and gender of the respondent and which mobile service provider’s services the respondent has recently used.

Section B: Customer’s Expectations

In this section there are 22 questions which focus towards measuring expectations of customers in the mobile service industry

Section C: Customer’s Perceptions

This section also consist of 22 questions which will help to evaluate perceptions of service quality in the mobile service industry

Section D: Score Assignment

In this section we want to know the level of satisfaction of respondent toward the different dimensions and it will consist of five questions.

In total 52 questions were addresses in the questionnaire.

Section A contains both multiple choice question and dichotomous question. In a dichotomous question only two options are offered to the respondent. This type of question helps to get data and can be easily analyzed. In this research an example of a dichotomous question will be selection of gender, where respondent will have to choose between male and female.

For section B and C likert scale type questions have been used. In section B there are 22 statements on expectations of service quality which are based on the five dimensions of service quality. The five dimensions are reliability, empathy, responsiveness, assurance and tangiability and section C also consists of 22 statement s which will help to evaluate perceptions of service quality. These 22 statements are also based on the five dimensions of service quality. In both sections respondents will have to choose between five options which are strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. Each of the response has a rating ranging from 1 to 5.

In section D as well, likert scaling has been used. This section aims at finding the importance of the dimensions from respondents’ point of view. The scaling which respondents have to choose are "not satisfied", "Neutral", "quite satisfied" and "Highly satisfied". These had a weight of 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

3.5 Population And Sample

Since my title is Assessing service quality of the mobile telecommunication industry from customers’ perspectives in Mauritius, the population for this survey are those Mauritian who are subscribe to any mobile service operators. However, due to the fact that it is difficult to include each and every member of the population in the survey a sample of 150 individuals were chosen.

3.5.1 Sampling Strategies

Different strategies can be used to choose a sample. They are:

Simple Random Sampling- Here all element in the population have equal chance of being chosen

Systemic sampling- Sample is taken according to some systematic rule, for example every 5th element in the population is chosen.

Stratified sampling strategy- This sampling strategy is used when the population has different groups and there is a need to make sure that those groups are fairly represented. Therefore independent samples are drawn from each group and the size of each sample depend and the relative size of the group.

Cluster Sampling- Here groups are identified. Then some groups are chosen at random and all members in these chosen groups are selected.

Convenience- Those respondents who are nearby and whom we can easily contact are chosen

Judgmental sampling- In this sampling strategy it is the views and judgments of the researcher which is considered when selecting respondents.

Quota Sampling- From a targeted group, respondents is selected based on some quota.

Therefore in this research simple random sampling has been used, thus every member in the population has equal chance of being selected and to take part in this research.

3.6 Pilot Testing

Pilot testing of the questionnaires was done before the survey was carried out. A pilot testing of size 6 was conducted in order to test the questionnaire’s readability, understandability and general construction. After the pilot testing was done, some changes were made in the questionnaires. Questions which were confusing and too lengthy were modified.

3.7 Data Analysis

In order to analyze the date collected statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Software was used. Once relevant findings will be obtained, the results will be posted in form of tables and diagrams by using Microsoft Word and SPSS.

3.8 Validity and Reliability

Before interpretation, the data was tested for reliability and validity. the following points were also considered:

In to get people opinions, likert scales were used

Easy terms were used in the questionnaire so that respondents can easily fill in the questionnaire

Pilot testing was carried out so that necessary corrections could be made and confusing questions could be modified.

Unanswered questions in the questionnaire were ignored.

Moreover to make sure that whether the research measures what it was supposed to measure, the data was tested for validity. Therefore, to make sure that the findings were valid, respondent who had an experience in the mobile telecommunication industry was chosen.

Reliability is concerned with whether data collected can provide consistent results. In this case the Cronbach’s Alpha test was done and to do this test the SPSS package was used the reliability of the results obtained. Details about the reliability test are in the Data Analysis chapter.

The data collected was important as they help to calculate the weighted PE score in the industry.

The main research questions that were addresses in the research are:

Is the service quality perceived by customers in the mobile telecommunication industry was high or low

Is the expectations of customers concerning the service quality in the mobile telecommunication industry was high or low

Which dimensions of the SERVQUAL model is considered to impact more on the quality of service in the mobile telecommunication industry according to customers.

Which dimensions of the servqual model contribute to the satisfaction of customer in the mobile telecommunication industry

Moreover the following hypotheses were tested:

Hypothesis 1

Ho: Demographic factors affect service quality

H1: Demographic factors do not affect service quality

Hypothesis 2

Ho: there is a relationship between highest scoring perceived dimensions and overall satisfaction.

H1: there is no relationship between highest scoring perceived dimensions and overall satisfaction.

3.9 Limitation of the Study:

Some respondents of the sample claimed that they are subscribed to more than one mobile service providers

Some respondents pointed out that they have been to different showroom of the same mobile service provider. They have noticed that the customer care services in some showrooms were satisfactory while in others they were not satisfied with the customer services.

Some respondents fails to return the questionnaire on time

Some respondents find the questionnaire bulky because of the number of statements it consists. Therefore, they were just choosing an answer for the sake of filling the questionnaire rather than answering precisely.

Only a sample size of 150 respondents was chosen. Larger sample was difficult to choose due to time constraints.

Some questionnaires were return half unfilled and they had to be not considered for the research

3.10 Summary

In this chapter, the instrument used for data collection was considered and the negative and positive impacts of using the questionnaires were discussed. Moreover data collection and administration of the questionnaires were highlighted and the limitations of the study were also discussed.