Sample Research Proposal on Methodology

Research Design The study intends to investigate the perception of Hong Kong Shoppers regarding the service and product satisfaction. Thus, this study will determine the complaint behavior of Hong Kong shoppers. For this study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Moreover, the descriptive research method will be utilized. In this method, it is possible that the study would be cheap and quick. It could also suggest unanticipated hypotheses. Nonetheless, it would be very hard to rule out alternative explanations and especially infer causations. Thus, this study will use the descriptive approach. This descriptive type of research utilizes observations in the study.  To illustrate the descriptive type of research, Creswell (1994) guided the researcher when he stated: Descriptive method of research is to gather information about the present existing condition.  Primary research is conducted using questionnaire surveys that are sent to the randomly selected Hong Kong shoppers. Here, the questionnaires will be used to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide qualitative insights into the data collected.  Apparently, secondary data are based from the recent literatures related to consumer/ costumer and shoppers behavior. As stated above, this research will partially base its findings through both quantitative research methods because this permits a flexible and iterative approach. During data gathering the choice and design of methods are constantly modified, based on ongoing analysis. This study will also employ qualitative research method because it will try to find and build theories that will explain the relationship of one variable with another variable through qualitative elements in research. Through this method, qualitative elements that do not have standard measures such as behavior, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs within the business domain will be analyzed.   Sampling Technique               The general population for this study is composed of Hong Kong shoppers. Basically these respondents are asked regarding the current status of services and products offered by Hong Kong Shopping Centers and their personal views about product and service satisfaction.     Measurement First, the respondents shall fill out a self-administered questionnaire. Ideally, the respondents will grade each statement in the survey-questionnaire using a Likert scale (Barnett, V. 1991), with a five-response scale wherein respondents will be given five response choices.           The equivalent weights for the answers will be:   Range                         Interpretation               4.50 – 5.00                              Strongly Agree 3.50 – 4.49                              Agree 2.50 – 3.49                              Uncertain 1.50 – 2.49                              Disagree             0.00 – 1.49                              Strongly Disagree The researcher opted to use the questionnaire as a tool since it is easy to construct having the rules and principles of construction are easy to follow. Moreover, copies of the questionnaire could reach a considerable number of respondents either by mail or by personal distribution. Generally, responses to a questionnaire are objectified and standardized and these make tabulation easy. But more importantly, the respondents' replies are of their own free will because there is no interviewer to influence them. This is one way to avoid biases, particularly the interviewers' bias. The researcher will also use graph and charts for data presentation. Instrumentation             For validation purposes, the researcher will initially submit a sample of the set of survey questionnaires and after approval; the survey will be conducted to five respondents.  After the questions were answered, the researcher will ask the respondents for any suggestions or any necessary corrections to ensure further improvement and validity of the instrument.  The researcher will again examine the content of the interview questions to find out the reliability of the instrument.  The researchers will exclude irrelevant questions and will change words that would be deemed difficult by the respondents, too much simpler terms.   Data Collection Plan The researcher will exclude the five respondents who will be initially used for the validation of the instrument.  The researcher will also tally, score and tabulate all the responses in the provided interview questions. Moreover, the interview shall be using a structured interview. It shall consist of a list of specific questions and the interviewer does not deviate from the list or inject any extra remarks into the interview process. The interviewer may encourage the interviewee to clarify vague statements or to further elaborate on brief comments. Otherwise, the interviewer attempts to be objective and tries not to influence the interviewer's statements. The interviewer does not share his/her own beliefs and opinions. The structured interview is mostly a "question and answer" session. This study assumes that the survey used is an effective measurement tool to identify the complaint behavior of Hong Kong Shoppers.  This study also assumes that each participant will honestly ad thoroughly answer each question.       Statistical Treatment of the Data             When the entire survey questionnaire have been collected, the researcher will used statistics to analyze all the data; and will be assisted by the SPSS in coming up with the statistical analysis for this study. Because of this research design, the results of the data gathered were limited to the determination of factors that affect the complaint behavior of Hong Kong shoppers. Thus, other possible findings in the field of consumer/customer satisfaction and business performance are also analyzed.               Comparisons were drawn between the overall responses to the questions and the differing responses (Creswell, 1994) the following statistical formulae will be also used: 1.  Percentage – to determine the magnitude of the responses to the questionnaire.             n % = -------- x 100       ;           n – number of responses             N                                 N – total number of respondents   2.  Weighted Mean             f1x1 + f2x2  + f3x3 + f4x4  + f5x5 x = ---------------------------------------------;                         xt where:               f – weight given to each response                          x – number of responses                         xt – total number of responses   The researcher will be assisted by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) in coming up with the statistical analysis for this study. SPSS is one of the most widely available and powerful statistical software packages that covers a broad range of statistical procedures, which allows a researcher to summarize data (e.g., compute means and standard deviations), determine whether there are significant differences between groups (e.g., t-tests, ANOVA), examine relationships among variables (e.g., correlation, multiple regression), and graph results (e.g., bar charts, line graphs) (Kirkpatrick and Feeney, 2003).