Survey Research Method

Method Description

Face validity

Content validity

Predictive / criterion-related validity

Construct validity

The easiest and weakest form of validity that intuitively and subjectively assesses an instrument measures what it should be measuring.

Extends face validity by assessing the relevance of the items to the phenomenon of interest. A panel of experts usually conducts content validity.

Involves the comparison of the new measurement to an existing measurement evaluating the same phenomenon.

Thus, an instrument has predictive validity when it has an empirical association with some criteria measure.

The strongest form of validity that examines how well the instrument measures the theoretical phenomenon. An instrument is said to possess construct validity when it behaves the way it has been theorised.

Figure 5.2: Validity Evaluation Techniques

5.4.1 Survey Research Method

Quantitative methods have been widely applied in cross-disciplinary research; and in this study, are used in the measurement verification of the conceptual model and hypotheses.

The survey research method was the quantitative method employed using surveys as primary

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data collection instruments. This method supports the collection and analysis of large sets of quantitative data collected from multiple subjects. Surveys are a relatively inexpensive method of quick data collection that sample people under real world conditions as opposed to controlled laboratory environments (Panacek, 2008, Totten et al., 1999). Survey data can be collected at a single point in time (cross-sectional) or at multiple intervals of time (longitudinal) by interviews (face-to-face or telephone) or self-administered surveys (mailed or in-person) (Krosnick, 1999, Totten et al., 1999).

Surveys, which are made up of scales which consist of 2 parts – stimuli and response, are developed to measure the respondents‗ judgements (appreciation or understanding of issues), feelings or expressions, opinions, attitudes, and perceptions (Jupp, 2006). The stimuli part consists of phrases or statements describing the phenomenon of interest whilst the response part corresponds to the actual measurement. Scale responses measure a specific dimension such as agreement, liking, frequency can use either ordinal or ratio measures.

Popular scale measurement methods summarised in Figure 5.3 include paired comparison,

rank order, direct magnitude estimation, and rating (DeVellis, 2003, Jupp, 2006).

Measurement Method Description Paired comparison

Rank order

Direct magnitude estimate Rating

Respondents compare pairs of stimuli along a dimension of interest.

Respondents place stimuli in order along a defined dimension.

Respondents are asked to score stimuli on a dimension.

Respondents are asked to select a response choice from several ordered along a dimension. Major rating scales are: Thurstone, Likert (summate), and Guttman (cumulative) scales.

A Thurstone scale has equal intervals and is used to measure attitudes using the principle of paired comparison. The Likert scale is also an attitudinal scale that measures the degree of agreement or disagreement. The number of point scores on an agreement dimension Likert scales can contain as few as 3-points to as many as 7-3-points. A Guttman scale progressively evaluates higher levels of stimuli. By arranging the stimuli according to their level of difficulty, Guttman scales cannot only be used to indicate the presence or absence of the phenomenon of interest, but also the degree.

Figure 5.3: Scale Measurement Methods.

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In spite of the popularity of survey research, they are not without criticism or challenges such as generalisation, measurement, and response quality.

The present thesis, before considering the adoption of one or more research design approaches, has carefully explored two important issues; namely the theoretical model of the thesis (presented in chapter 3), as well as the research objectives of the study (presented in chapter 1). After careful consideration of the pros and cons of the various data collection methods and bearing in mind the difficulty of interviewing and collecting data from directors in Nigeria, a descriptive, cross-sectional approach, with primary data through the use of mail (postal) questionnaire was adopted.

5.4.2 Scales

Four types of scales have been identified in the literature, the nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Each one represents a higher form of measurement precision. Thus the ordinal scale provides the least precision measurement whereas ratio the highest one. One of the most commonly used scales was developed by Likert (1932), who developed a technique that increases the variation in the possible scores that a respondent can choose from. Initially, it had the form of a 5 point scale (e.g. from strongly disagree to strongly agree), although sometimes a 7 point version is used.

Lietz (2008) found that the 5-7 options are more generally used. John Dawes (2008) in his study found that the 5- and 7-point scales produced the same mean score as each other, once they were rescaled. However, the 10-point format tended to produce slightly lower relative means than either the 5- or 7-point scales.

Bearing in mind the above as well as findings from the pre-testing phase, this thesis adopted seven point scales throughout the questionnaire. In terms of response item layout, the layout adopted in this research ran left to right, ascending numerically and from negative to positive responses (as in figure 4.4 below). The opposite has been found to distort results (Hartley and Betts, 2009) and running left to right better matches the reading direction of Latin text.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly Disagree Slightly Neutral Slightly Agree Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree Figure 5.4: Response items runs from left to right

In summary, a descriptive approach was undertaken, using the questionnaire approach, based on primary data and utilising seven point scales (both Likert and Semantics).

The questionnaires were put in envelopes and mailed by courier to the respondents.

The following section deals with the survey research design, data sources and scale construction that were employed in the research project.