Question 1: Describe the sampling strategy. How appropriate were the various sampling design decisions.
Answer: The mail survey was distributed to 1650 country club members belonging to a variety of demographic categories (Schindler, 2001). One of the most important considerations in any survey is sample size. 1650 members is a decent size to represent the population of thousands of members associated with the club with a minute margin of error. The collected data can easily be analyzed on 95% to 99% confidence interval with such large size of sample population (Barlett, Kotrlik, & Higgins, n.d.).
Then, it is also worth mentioning that the type of sample population aligns with the key objectives of the study. The club aims to add value to its business by making its services more attractive to its members. However, it has to get a proper insight into the core requirements among its members. Therefore, the decision to mainly focus the survey on club members is strategically appropriate and justifiable.
However, certain issues can be identified while analyzing the sample in specific dimensions. In simple words, it is a wise decision to select club members as a sample population, but several of their categories do not properly respond to the purpose of the study. For example, 65% of the participants are employed at the club that indicates the incorporation of bias especially with the questions relating to the quality of services. Then, the highest percentage (33% of total) of participants comes from the age group exceeding 65 years, while the youngest group that represents the potential future target audience for the club accounts for 19% only.
As a matter of fact, McMahon Group has opted for random sampling at all stages, which does not serve the purpose in an optimized manner. It would have been far better if it had adopted ‘stratified approach’ to sampling. In that way, from the sample population, categories should have already been defined by various demographic standards along with the ideal percentage of each adhering to the stratified random sampling (Mathew, 2013). After this, the researcher should have randomly selected the participants against each category defined earlier up to the predefined percentages.
Question 2: What, if any, problems did you find with the questionnaire as a whole? Consider structure, directions, question order, question phrasing, appropriateness of response strategy chosen, etc.
Answer: Very first issue with the questionnaire that the writer could identify is the ‘question order.' First, two or three questions should have been reserved to determine the demographic characteristics of each respondent such as age, gender, and level and type of membership. However, the researcher has jumped over all these considerations to start with the question setting out to determine the level of satisfaction of respondents with club facilities. By the same token, questions have no order either of importance or about specific categories. For example, Question 4 lacks smoothness in the transition from Question 3. The sudden move to the ‘member of boards’ from the discussion of club facilities hardly makes any sense.
Then, it is also important to keep the questionnaire format as simple as possible to inspire maximum response and to ensure maximum understanding of the participants to the survey questions that subsequently leads to highly reliable response (Williams, 2003). However, in the present case, several question types require respondents to follow a complicated pattern to respond. For example, Question 5 and Question 10 that involve providing the scale to respondents to register their rating for each of the following questions should have been formatted in as sleek manner as Question 9 to be easier to understand.
Furthermore, the questionnaire should have been a perfect blend of quantifiable and qualitatively important responses. Whereas quantitative data stands for exaction, qualitative results provide sufficient room for critical analysis (Lewis, 2015). However, the questionnaire in contention does not serve this purpose due to being totally based on close-ended questions. Even though there is a ‘comment section’ at the end, it is plagued by redundancy. All of three questions included in this section are directed towards the same purpose, and it is to stimulate respondents to provide recommendations for future improvements. However, it is also not wise on the part of the researcher to make open-ended questions major part of a mail questionnaire, because it is likely to have a negative impact on response rate. However, there should have been two open-ended questions added at the end of the questionnaire. One of them should have been dealing with current complaints of members concerning club and its services. And, the second one should have been ideally condensed form of current three questions in the last section i.e. recommendations for future.
References
Barlett, J. E., Kotrlik, J. W., and Higgins, C. C. (n.d.). Organizational Research: Determining Appropriate Sample Size in Survey Research. Organizational System Research Association. Retrieved April 14, 2016 from ftp://149.222-62-69.ftth.swbr.surewest.net/TreePDF/Determing%20Appropriate%20Sample%20Size%20in%20Survey%20Research.pdf
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Health Promotion Practice, 16(4), 473-475. doi:10.1177/1524839915580941
Mathew, O. O. (2013). Efficiency of Neyman Allocation Procedure over other Allocation Procedures in Stratified Random Sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 2(5), 122. doi:10.11648/j.ajtas.20130205.12
Williams, A. (2003). How to Write and analyse a questionnaire. Journal of Orthodontics,30(3), 245-252. doi:10.1093/ortho/30.3.245
