Small Scale Sample Survey - Case Study Example

Running Head: SMALL SCALE SAMPLE SURVEY Small Scale Sample Survey [The of the will appear here] [The of the will appearhere] [The name of the Professor] [Course] Introduction The purpose of a survey is to gather first hand primary information on a subject of interest. Thus the first step towards developing a survey is to lay down the aims and objectives of the survey. The next part is to develop a set of questions that explore different aspects of the subject. Once the survey questions are designed, the next part would be to conduct the survey from a selected population. Surveys are generally conducted from a sample population that relates closely to the subject of the survey. For example, in this paper the survey focuses on the On-Campus Housing provided by Coventry University and thus the sample population would be taken from university students currently studying at Coventry University and specifically those who make use of the On-Campus Housing. Once the results are obtained, the last part is to tally the answers and to form a conclusion through logical deduction and inference. A Survey can be both Qualitative and Quantitative. A Qualitative survey aims to understand the quality of the selected subject while quantitative survey focuses on numbers, figures and statistics. The survey developed for this paper is a qualitative survey that aims to explore the quality of On-Campus Housing available for students studying at Coventry University. Aims and objectives of your survey The aim of the survey is to understand the quality of On-Campus Housing provided by Coventry University. The survey in this respect attempts to understand the following aspects of the On-Campus Housing: The Environment within the Campus; The Services provided by the administration; The level of satisfaction among the current residents of the Campus; Whether the Campus Administrations allows equal opportunity to all the potential residents; Whether the Campus support a learning environment. Discussion Before conducting the survey, it is imperative that a map for the survey design is developed. This map would define the sampling strategy, the sample size and the attitude adopted for conducting the survey. All these factors are defined after a careful understanding of the aims and objectives of the survey and also through an understanding of the suitability of the survey. Sampling strategy focuses on ethical, legal and other dimensions of conducting a survey. Before conducting a survey, it should be understood that the survey should respect the privacy of the people who are taken as the sample population. For this reason, they survey does not disclose the names of the people selected in the sample population. When the right people were approached for the survey, they were briefed on the reasons for conducting the survey. It is also important that their consent is taken before taking the survey and they should be informed that their feedback would help form an understanding of the On-Campus Housing in Coventry University. The sample population for this survey would be selected from the students currently making use of the On-Campus Housing Available at Coventry University. The purpose of this choice is obvious as it allows us to gain in depth knowledge of the On-Campus Housing by people who have first-hand experience of the subject under study in this survey. These students would be better at providing answers regarding different aspects of the Campus including meal service, transportation service etc. In order to avoid biasness and to form a conclusive result, the sample population has to be large. This would include up to thirty students from within the On-Campus Housing. Since the survey is short and easy to complete, collecting and handling the thirty students would not be hard for the survey. It should be understood at this point that certain answered questionnaires would have to be discarded when tallying results because they lack integrity or because of their lack of inconsistency. Also surveys that are incomplete would also be discarded in order to avoid confusion in the end. Design of your Questionnaire The questionnaire designed for the purpose of this survey is qualitative. Qualitative surveys measure the why and how of the area under study. In the case of this survey, the attempt is to understand how successful is the On-Campus Housing at Coventry University is and the reasons behind the success and failure of the Housing. For this reason, different aspects of the campus housing are explored. The first two set of questions help set the background for the survey. The first question asks whether the student makes use of the Campus Housing. Only if they use the housing would their answers be taken into consideration. The students that answered no for this question, their answers would be discarded as they cannot help in providing any real knowledge on this aspect of the university. The second question deals with the aspect of equal opportunity within the university. The brochure of the housing authority states that equal opportunity is focused on in the campus so that students from all walks and races are allowed to live within the university without any problem. This aspect helps to understand whether this is indeed true. The next seven questions are questions were the students are asked to rate different aspects of the on-Campus housing life. Since this is a small survey, the questionnaire could not focus on each aspect separately with a number of questions for each aspect. Therefore rating was the best option for this survey. Students are asked to rate the services offered by the Campus authorities. These include health care, meal services, and transportation, parking and general services. The students are also asked to rate the culture of the campus and whether this culture allows for an environment conducive to learning. It is imperative that the University Campus has a learning environment since the purpose of living in the campus is to acquire knowledge while living in the proximity of the university and its environment. Analysis of the Survey Once the survey was conducted from a sample population of 30 students with preference to any gender or age, the results were collected and were arranged in a tabular format as shown below: Excellent Good Fair Poor Terrible General Quality 3 23 4 0 0 Culture and Environment 7 21 2 0 0 Health Care Services 3 21 5 1 0 Meal Services 2 11 12 3 2 General Services 3 16 9 2 0 Transportation 3 18 7 2 0 Parking 4 14 7 4 1 Yes No Live in On-Campus Housing 30 0 Campus provide equal opportunity 29 1 Environment conducive to learning 24 6 The results of the survey indicate that the general belief of the campus residents is positive towards the Campus. Most of them answered positively about campus life. None of the sample population listed all aspect of the campus life as terrible and the campus only got terrible rating in parking and meal service and that also limited to 1 or 2 responses. The most preferred response of the students was good followed by only fair. Moving on evaluate the different aspect of campus life separately the general quality of campus life will be discussed first. Generally the students prefer the quality of services and maintenance provided by the administration and rates it as good with three students also rate it as excellent. The culture and environment within the campus is also considered to be good and thus most students like spending time in the on-campus housing of the university. Good is also the most favored response of the sample population when rating the health service. The meal service however is a debatable topic. Certain students perceive the meal service as excellent while some even rate it as poor and terrible. The students prefer the parking and transportation facilities provided by the on-campus housing but certain parts of the sample population even consider it poor and terrible. The students are also satisfied with the campus housing on the aspect of promises. The campus administration promises equal opportunity and almost all the students believe that the administration fulfills its purpose. Furthermore, the students believe that the environment within the housing campus is conducive to learning, which it should be. Conclusion The results of the survey point to the fact that the residents living within the campus are pleased with the environment and the facilities available at the campus. Right now, the culture and environment within the housing campus are conducive to learning since almost all the students voted in the favor of a learning environment. Negative comments about the housing campus were quite few and this reflects on the positive attitude of the students. Critical Evaluation The results of the survey show that the residents perceive the housing campus as good and have no complaints against the administration. However, the overall positive comments make us think about the possibility of biasness in the results. The students may have believed that the results would be shown to the administration and thus they provided good comments only, reserving their negative comments for their friends only. Without the limit of the small scale survey, we could have introduced questions that remove biasness. However, when the survey was been conducted, students had been informed that the purpose of the survey was to complete an assignment and thus biasness was prevented to a good extent. The reason for a varied response towards meal service could be because of the diverse cultures living in the housing campus and their taste often does not match with each other. Certain cultures prefer spicy food while others prefer bland food and since the campus provides equal opportunity, the taste preferences are bound to contradict. The small scale survey allowed us to test our theoretical knowledge on the subject on a practical platform. Since the survey was small scaled, it was easier to control and manage. This allowed us to understand the method of conducting a survey and also helped us to understand how to avoid mistakes in the future when we may have to deal with bigger surveys. Also by focusing on an aspect of university life, sample population was easy to define and also find. However, I believe that I could have done a better job as this survey does not provide in depth knowledge on the subject of study which was On-Campus housing in Coventry University. But since this is the foundation phase of taking surveys, I am satisfied with my current performance. Appendix 1- Questionnaire Questionnaire: Quality of On-Campus Housing in Coventry University Hello, My name is Omar and I’m doing a survey on quality of On-Campus Housing in Coventry University. I would appreciate your taking the time to complete the following survey. It should take about five minutes of your time 1. Do you make use of the On-Campus Housing in Coventry University? Yes No 2. Does the Campus in the University provide equal opportunity to all students? Yes No 3. Rate the quality of on-campus housing in Coventry University Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 4. Rate the culture and environment within the Campus Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 5. Rate the availability and condition of the Health care service within the Campus Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 6. Rate the availability and condition of the Meal service to and from the Campus Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 7. Rate the maintenance and quality of the general services within the Campus Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 8. Rate the availability and condition of the Transportation service to and from the Campus Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 9. Rate the availability and condition of the Parking Space Excellent Good Only fair Poor Terrible 10. Is the environment within the campus conducive to learning? Yes No Thank you for your time Appendix 2- Participation Leaflet & Ethics Form November 2011 Dear Student We would be very grateful if you would help us with our survey which investigates an aspect of the social life of Coventry University students. The survey is anonymous and naturally you do not have to take part, though we hope you will. If you decide to take part and submit a questionnaire then it will be assumed that full consent has been given for your participation in the survey and its analysis. We are second year students and as part of our Data Management & Operational Research module, 204KM, we are undertaking a University wide survey. We have designed the questionnaire ourselves & will be analysing it over the next few weeks. If you have any questions or complaints about the survey please contact our lecturer, Mr Amritpal Slaich, a.slaich@coventry.ac.uk who will be happy to respond. Thank you for your time. Students of 204KM Department of Computing Faculty of Engineering and Computing November 2011 Dear Student We would be very grateful if you would help us with our survey which investigates an aspect of the social life of Coventry University students. The survey is anonymous and naturally you do not have to take part, though we hope you will. If you decide to take part and submit a questionnaire then it will be assumed that full consent has been given for your participation in the survey and its analysis. We are second year students and as part of our Data Management & Operational Research module, 204KM, we are undertaking a University wide survey. We have designed the questionnaire ourselves & will be analysing it over the next few weeks. If you have any questions or complaints about the survey please contact our lecturer, Mr Amritpal Slaich, a.slaich@coventry.ac.uk who will be happy to respond Thank you for your time. Students of 204KM Department of Computing Faculty of Engineering and Computing Read More