(Total Word Count is 2207)
Table of Contents
Background
3
Introduction
4
Scope of the research
5
Research Design
5
Data Collection
6
Sampling Plan
7
Data Analysis
9
Bibliography
11
Appendix
13
Sample questions for the Questionnaire
13
Background
Leisure services department of Newtownville District Council have been affected severely by the current economic crisis. This has resulted in imparting a strong pressure on the limited available funds. Consequently, the Leisure Services Department is focusing on ways and means of funds generation while at the same time cutting down costs in order to ensure that the residents have an opportunity to receive high quality services. However, Leisure Services Department needs to have a strong consideration on how the immediate surrounding population may play a role in this process. Further, there is a need to have a consideration of the local business community. This consideration is based on the way the local business community may support and sponsor various changes and developments. This has been arrived since partnering with the local business community will steer the project towards attaining the desired success.
With reference to this, the department wants to know how to have an effective satisfaction of the family needs. This includes identification of the current perceived gaps, as well as the interests of the family in terms of what should be provided. Further, the department wants to know how the facilities that are available at the recreation centers and parks could be used by the organizations. This encompasses identification of the organizations, which may focus on using the facilities, and the needs of such organizations in terms of what should be provided at the recreation centers and parks. Therefore, for this department to solve its problem there is a need to conduct an effective research, which will lead towards the collection of credible data, which contributes towards answering of the problem.
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Introduction
Technological, economic, social, and political changes have been significant factors, which have left park fields and recreation centers at loose ends (Russell 2010). Park and recreation agencies experience a tremendous challenge from unrelenting financial problems, lack of citizen involvement, state and federal requirements, change of demands among different age sets in a population, tax dollar competition, ethnically changing and shrinking work force, and lack of population involvement (Russell 2010). As such, the current parks and recreation centers have a chance of survival only at the onset of provision of quality services and been able to respond and anticipate changes within the current society.
Based on these facts, this research proposal is developed in order to comprehend the needs of the families and organizations on various parks and recreation centers. The proposal focuses on using non-probability sampling as the sampling technique for the sample population of 200 individuals in the family category and 50 individuals in the organization category. These participants will be subjected to questionnaires, which will be administered to them since the research is based on quantitative data collection methods. The data obtained will be analyzed in a descriptive manner while employing some statistical tools such as the SPSS software.
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Objectives
The business objectives for this research are:
a) To identify the needs of the families and organizations on parks and recreation centers
b) To comprehend the perception of the organizations and families on the parks and recreation centers.
These business objectives will be achieved by the following research objectives:
1. To determine the current needs of the families and organizations on the park and recreation centers.
2. To determine how the families and organizations use the park and the recreation centre.
3. To comprehend the perception of the families and the organizations towards the parks and the recreation centers.
Scope of the research
This research is bound to collection of data on the park and recreation centre operated by Leisure Services Department from the surrounding population and organizations. The data to be collected will be based on the needs of the population and organizations, as well as the perception of the population and the organizations on the park and recreation centers. Further, the research is based on the views and perceptions of the data, which will be gathered from the proposed study population.
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Research Design
This research will be a descriptive research. This is because the research focuses on collection of data, which will provide accurate and salient variables that are found within the environmental setup for this research (Freedman 2005). Further, descriptive research is widely used in the process of investigation of the various business and social phenomenon issues since it has the ability and potential to yield the desired results in a credible manner according to the anticipation of the researcher. As such, the phenomenon under consideration, in this research, will be fully described through the use of the descriptive research. The research is time consuming, but has the benefits of yielding reliable and accurate data from conducting the research. This will occur effectively since this research will be able to attain the desired perspectives of the research process (Wilson, 2006). These perspectives, which in most cases are not mutually exclusive, include the information being sought, objective based research, and application based study. Therefore, this research will use these three perspectives to warrant an opportunity to collect significant data for analysis and making relevant inferences on the research topic.
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Data Collection
This research will use quantitative data collection methods. This is because the research will use a questionnaire as the means of data collection that relies on random sampling of participants where the response categories have been pre-determined (Powell 2004). Further, quantitative data will be easy to generalize, compare, and summarize. This will contribute towards ensuring that the process of data analysis occurs effectively and attains the desired success. Moreover, the research has observation units of individuals (families), and organization. This indicates that using a quantitative data collection method will be effective in measuring the variables among these observation units, which vary from one unit to the other (Maylor, & Blackmon 2005). Therefore, using the quantitative research will enable effective description of the process and social structures of the organizations and families, making accurate comparisons between family and organization responses, describe the economic crisis change as it impacts the park and recreation centers, and making an effective explanation of the dependencies, which seem to coexist in a social phenomenon (Kumar 1999).
This research will use the primary method for data collection. This is because this method warrants collection of first-hand data (data that has not being used before), which would be more reliable for this research. Nevertheless, the method is associated with the element of being costly and time-consuming, but the credibility and reliability level of the data, which is collected while using this method is very high.
Several methods of primary data collection exist (Chiara 1997). However, this research focuses on using the questionnaires as the means of data collection. The structuring of the questionnaire will occur in an effective manner so that they can have the potential to elicit the desired response from the respondent, as well as collect adequate and reliable data for this research (Yin 2004). The proposed questionnaire for this research will comprise of both open-ended and closed questions. This will create room for the research to collect a wide variety of data, which will answer the questions for the research process effectively (Chisnall 2005). Unfortunately, questionnaires have a limitation of respondents failing to return them, or even being unable to answer some of the questions in the questionnaire (Crotty 1998).
In order to mitigate on these limitations of the questionnaire, the research process will first conduct a pilot study with a pilot questionnaire (Woolf 1975). This will create room for identification of the factors, which would be challenging to respondents, as well as challenges, which are expected from the field while using the questionnaire (Webb 2002). This will be followed by ensuring that the selection of the study participants occurs effectively.
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Sampling Plan
Sampling is an effective process of cross-examining a small category of a large population in order to comprehend the quality and nature of the large population (Proctor 2005). This is necessary since the sample should have the element of being a representative of the whole population in terms of the provision of the needed data in research process. Therefore, this research needs an effective sampling technique in order to ensure that it does not incur the problem of not solving the problem and accomplishing its desired objectives (Bryman, & Bell 2007).
This research focuses on using non-probability sampling as the technique for determination of the number and composition of the study participants. This will involve the use of the judgment sample and convenience sample as the non-probability samples (Hakim 2000). This will grant the researcher an opportunity to make a selection, as well as a judgment with regard to the participants who will be involved in the study. This is necessary since the environmental setup for this research is prone to a myriad of changes. These changes include family problems of the participants, as well as time availability of both family and organization participants (Kolb 2008). Further, non-probability sampling will ensure that the data set for this research does not have a bias of being from one single location. As such, it will be possible to have an effective distribution of the participants in pre-determined geographical location (McGivern 2006). This will ensure that the findings do not reflect on the views or perceptions of a single group of people.
The main population for this study is the family members and staff members from different organization. The selection of the sample population for the family members will adopt the technique of non-probability sampling. As such, at least each family will provide one member for participation. These participants will be from both male and female genders in the age group categories as (10-20, 20-35, 35- 50, and 60 and above). This categorization of the age groups is based on the fact that different age groups have varying perception with regard to park and recreation centers. This includes how to use, what should be there, and the services, which these areas provide. A total of 100 families will be selected randomly. The anticipated sample population in the family category is 200 participants. This population will be adequate to handle and manage in the research process.
The second population will be 10 different organizations, which will be selected randomly. Each of these organizations should provide 5 participants that makes a total of 50 under this category. The 5 participants will comprise of 3 junior staff members and 2 senior staff members from each organization. This will ensure that the collected data depicts the whole perception of the organization. The pre-selected sample population for this research will adequate enough to serve as a representative sample of the entire population.
The organization will act as the sampling frame for this research. This is because organizations staff members comprehend effectively the impacts of economic crisis. As such, they will have the potential to make an effective correlation of the same with respect to the study environment for this research.
Organizations have to partner so that they can support each other in the business field. Therefore, the use of the organization in this research will ensure that partnership levels develop effectively and assistance of any form or advice is provided without any limitation. On the other hand, the family provides the market for the park and recreation centers. This indicates that this group will express the real needs in this field. This includes expression of personal perspectives on what should be done in order to improve on the delivery of services within this business environment.
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Data Analysis
Data analysis for this research will involve the adoption of various statistical tools. This will be based on the provision of descriptive statistics of the data, which was collected from the research conducted. SPSS program will be the main statistical tool, which will contribute towards the transformation of the raw data from the field to a complete data set, which will enable in the identification of the relationships (Cooper, & Schindler 2003). This will also include making correlations on the findings from the research, which was conducted. Further, data summary will take place and the same presented in visual aids such as histograms, charts, and graphs. The SPSS software will also aid in attaining a cross tabulation of the data so that each research question is analyzed effectively with reference to the variable under investigation (Birn 2004).
Moreover, the analysis of data will focus on making an effective comparison of various variables under the investigation in this research. This comparison will involve taking a look at what constitutes the relationships between the variables. Further, the analysis will determine how each of the measured variables relate to each other. Such comparisons will be possible since the research will use the SPSS software, which will contribute towards the transformation of the raw data from the field into data that can be analyzed and contributes towards making of the various inferences for this research.
After the analysis of this data, the findings will be presented in terms of demographic variables and statistical percentages. This will aid in comprehending the strength, which is inherent within the perception of a selected population (Healey 2009). Such results will be obtained from the percentages of the various variables such as age and occupation in relation to their responses on the various questions inside the questionnaire.
(Section Word Count is 300)
Bibliography
Birns, J, 2004. The Effective Use of Market Research: How to Drive and Focus Better
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Bryman, A. & Bell, E, 2007. Business Research Methods. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Chiara, M, 1997. The Tenth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and
Philosophy of Science, Florence, August 1995. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Chisnall, P, 2005. Marketing Research.7th ed. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education.
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Cooper, R, & Schindler, S, 2003. Business Research Methods. The eighth edition. McGraw
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Appendix
Sample questions for the Questionnaire
1) What is your gender?
2) What is your current occupation?
3) Do you visit parks and recreation sites?
4) How often do you visit these sites?
5) What compels you to visit these sites?
6) What do you like in these sites?
7) What don’t you like in these sites?
8) In your opinion, how would the appearance of the sites be improved?
9) Do you think that the sites management should be improved? If yes, how?
10) In your opinion, how do the sites earn income?
11) What can be done in order to increase the income level for these sites?
12) Would you like to manage a park and recreation site?
13) How would you manage your site such that it earns adequate income to run itself?
14) Do you think that economic crisis affects the sites management and income level?
15) Are there facilities, which the sites do not provide because of hard economic environments?
16) What should be done in order to ensure that the sites provide the necessary facilities effectively?
