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CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY


3.1 INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter, a literature review was done to explore social factors
influencing employee well-being. The following factors have been identified for
investigation:

Interpersonal relations
Quality of supervision
Working conditions
Environmental factors
Occupational health

Now that this basis has been laid, this chapter can deal with research
methodology that was used for this study.

Research involves formulating the problem to be investigated, selecting a suitable
research design, choosing and applying appropriate procedures for data
collection, and analyzing and communicating the process and findings through a
written report. The research methodology refers to the research decisions taken
within the framework of specific determinants unique to the research study (De
Beer, 1999: 23).

This study is descriptive because it will describe the social factors at the workplace
that influence employee well-being. Mouton and Marais (1990:44) state that the
emphasis is on an in-depth description of an individual, group, situation or
organization.


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As stated in the previous chapters, the aim of this research study is to measure
social factors influencing employee well-being at the Department of Social
Development, Germiston Office.

In this study, this research problem is encapsulated in the research objectives
which are as follows:

To measure social factors influencing employee (Department of Social
Development employees in Germiston) well-being with regard to the 17
subscales of the Organization Climate Audit (OCA).
To draw up a profile of employee well-being at Social Development

After a discussion of the research design, data-collection methods, sampling and
data analysis will be discussed. The researcher therefore commence with a
discussion of the research design.

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN

The research design is of crucial importance because it determines the success or
failure of research. The research design guides logical arrangements for the
collection and analysis of data so that conclusions may be drawn. Thyer in De
Vos and Fouche (1998a:77) defines a research design as a blueprint or detailed
plan of how a research study is to be conducted operationalizing variables so
they can be measured, selecting a sample of interest to study, collecting data to
be used as a basis for testing hypotheses and analyzing the results.

In this study, the researcher will employ a quantitative descriptive design. The
survey designs are classified together because they also belong together logically.
They are often more quantitative in nature, requiring questions as a data-collection
method. Respondents are ideally selected by means of randomized sampling
methods (De Vos and Fouche, 1998a:78).


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The Randomized Cross-Sectional Survey design (De Vos, 1998:127) is one of two
designs that are commonly used with surveys as the data-collection method. The
design is written as follows:

R O 1

Randomized Cross-Sectional Survey is going to be employed in this study so as to
get information that is necessary to answer the questions or test the hypotheses
posed. Neuman (1997:228) states that surveys produce quantitative information
about the social world and describe features of people or the social world.
Neuman (1997:231) further states that the survey researcher follows a deductive
approach that is, he or she begins with a theoretical or applied research problem
and ends with empirical measurement and data analysis.

3.2.1 Details of research steps in survey research

3.2.1.1 Design and planning phase
Neuman (1997:232) proposes the following layout for survey research:

1. Decide on type of survey (e.g. mail, telephone interview), type of respondent,
and the population.
2. Develop the survey instrument/questionnaire:
a. Write questions to measure variables
b. Decide on response categories
c. Organize question sequence
d. Design questionnaire layout
3. Plan a system for recording answers.
4. Pilot-test the instrument and train interviewers if necessary.
5. Draw the sample:
a. Define target population
b. Decide on type of sample
c. Develop sampling frame
d. Decide on sample size
e. Select sample.

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The next discussion will thus be on data collection methods.

3.3 DATA-COLLECTION METHODS

The types of data-collection methods relevant to the quantitative approach are
questionnaires, checklists, indexes and scales. A questionnaire has been defined
by De Vos and Fouche (1998:89) as an instrument with open or closed questions
or statements, to which a respondent must react. The method used by the
researcher was a self-designed questionnaire consisting of two sections and an
existing scale consisting of 17 subscales. (See Appendix D and E.) The
questionnaires and the scales were handed out to the respondents to complete on
their own but the researcher was available in case problems are experienced and
encouraged the respondents to continue with the contribution. The instruction
sheet on how to complete the questionnaires was also given to the respondents.

Rubin and Babbie (1992:335) state that the mail survey is the typical method used
in self-administered studies, but there are several other common methods. Rubin
and Babbie further state that in some cases it may be appropriate to administer
the questionnaire to a group of respondents gathered at the same place at the
same time.

A research question is distinguished from other kinds of questions in that
information is sought to help solve a carefully formulated problem, the wording is
clear and specific, and the respondents are believed to represent a representative
sample. Polansky (1995:134) states that once the decision has been made on
whether to use a questionnaire or an interview, the kind of data sought will help
determine the type of instruments to develop.

The usual distinction between types of instruments is between those that are
structured and those that are unstructured. Polansky (1995:135) further states
that in a structured questionnaire all respondents have the same possible choices,
all questions are presented to the respondents in the same order, instructions and
explanations are fixed and there is no opportunity for the respondents to seek
further clarification and this format can be used in both questions and interviews.

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The researcher handed out questionnaires to the employees being studied.
Permission to conduct research at the Department of Social Development,
Germiston Office was sought from management. (See Appendix A). The next
topic will focus on the questionnaire that the researcher developed.

3.3.1 Development of a self-designed questionnaire

This questionnaire, which is used as a quantitative data-collection instrument,
firstly has the objective of collecting certain demographic information, and,
secondly, measuring social factors influencing employee well-being.

The main themes in the chapter on the literature review were captured and used in
designing the questionnaire. These themes are as follows: Interpersonal
relationships, quality of supervision, working conditions, environmental factors and
occupational health. The main points under these issues were then turned into
questions. The researcher had to develop a separate set of questions since some
of the social factors influencing employee well-being were not covered in the
Organization Climate Audit Scale (Perspective Training College).

This data will be interpreted together with the OCA results to draw up a profile of
employee well-being at the Department of Social Development (Germiston).
These measuring instruments aim to gather data to address the following research
objectives:

To draw up a profile of employee well-being at the Department of Social
Development.

The self-designed questionnaire comprises the following:

This questionnaire has 18 items. The items are as follows:

Feedback about job performance
Salary increase
Promotion

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Disciplinary hearing
Reward for good performance
Shift work (day and night duty)
Fringe benefits pension fund
Fringe benefits medical aid
Fringe benefits housing allowance
Overtime work
Leave (paternity, sick, study or holiday)
Downsizing
Retrenchment
Filling of vacant posts
In-service training
Team-building exercises
Equipment to fulfil duties

Now that the self designed questionnaire has been discussed, the Organization
Climate Audit will follow.

3.3.2 The Organization Climate Audit scale (OCA)

The Organization Climate Audit (Perspective Training College) is designed to
evaluate the present climate in the organization and make recommendations for
the future. The researcher chose it since it measures a range of social factors
influencing employee well - being. It has 17 subscales measuring the following
dimensions: achievement, job satisfaction, top management, supervisor, equality,
job security, working conditions, and relationships with team members, training,
conflict, communication, relationships with clients and labour unions, expectations,
energy and responsibility.

Each subscale consists of specific statements to which the respondents are
required to respond on five-point scales that will be provided whereby (1) will
indicate Never; (2) Sometimes; (3) Half the Time; (4) Often and (5) Always. The

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scale has been standardised and is presented by the publishers as an instrument
for measuring climate (social) in an organisation.

Each subscale produces a score ranging from 62 to 68. Lower scores represent
the relative presence of social factors influencing employee well-being whereas
higher scores represent the absence of social factors influencing employee well-
being.

Clinical cutting scores are also established for each subscale, distinguishing
various degrees of severity of the problem. One subscale was omitted in
respect of administrative staff and security personnel as they do not work
directly with the clients. The omitted subscale was Relationship with clients.

Appendix A: A request to conduct the study at the Department of Social
Development, Germiston Office.
Appendix B: An approval to conduct the study, including Form B, to be completed
by the researcher and the respondents. Respondents must
complete Form B to indicate that they had given consent to
participate in the research study.
Appendix C: A request for participation in the study, including instructions on how
to complete questionnaires.
Appendix D: Self-designed questionnaire (consisting of Section A, aiming to
establish the nature of demographic variables that will possibly have
an influence on the research.
(Section B, questionnaire posing closed questions measuring social
factors influencing employee well-being).
Appendix E: Section C, Organization Climate Audit Scale, consists of 17
subscales with specific statements to which the respondents are
requested to respond on 5 point scales that will be provided

For a copy of these questionnaires, see Appendixes.

With clarity gained on the measurement instruments that are used in this study,
sampling can be discussed next.

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3.4 SAMPLING

Polansky (1995:93) defines a sample as a group of subjects selected from a larger
group and including less than all the subjects in that larger group. Sampling is a
powerful tool in social research. Sampling procedures make it possible to know
how much confidence one can have that the information gathered is similar to the
information that would have been gathered if one had studied everyone in the
larger group.

Tripodi and Epstein (1980:165) define sample surveys as research devices for
making relatively safe generalizations about a larger target population from
findings within a smaller sample taken from the target population. Sampling
techniques are designed to increase the chances of drawing a representative
sample to decrease the cost of data-gathering.

Tripodi and Epstein (1980:170) further state that there are basically two kinds of
sampling strategies: non-probability sampling and probability sampling. In non-
probability sampling, there is no way of determining the probability that any
particular sampling unit will actually be included in the sample population.

Strydom and De Vos in De Vos (1998:195) quotes Seaberg stating that a
probability sample is one in which each person or (other sampling unit) in the
population has the same known probability of being selected and the selection of
persons from the population is based on some form of random procedure.

There are various techniques for selecting random samples. The most common
are the lottery techniques, where a symbol for each unit of the population is placed
in a container, mixed well and then the lucky numbers for each unit of the
population can be names of participants, written on identical pieces of paper or a
number assigned to each participant. Sample size has to be established
beforehand; otherwise one would not know how many symbols to draw.

Simple random sampling (Strydom and De Vos, 1998:195) states that in this
situation, each individual case in the population theoretically has an equal chance

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to be selected for the sample. Stoker in Strydom and De Vos ( 1998: 192 ) offers
the following tables as an indication of what the size of sample ought to be.

Table 3.1: Sample size (Stoker in Strydom and De Vos ( 1998: 192 )
Population Percentage suggested No. of respondents
20 100% 20
30 80% 24
50 64% 32
100 45% 45
200 32% 64
500 20% 100
1 000 14% 140
10 000 4,5% 450
100 000 2% 2 000
200 000 1% 2 000

In general, it is stated that the larger the population, the smaller the percentage of
that population the sample needs to include. Strydom and De Vos (1998:191)
further state that if the population itself is relatively small, the sample should
comprise a reasonably large percentage of the population. The following steps
were adapted from Strydom and De Vos (1998:194) in drawing up a random list
sample.

STEP 1: Identify and list the research population. A complete list of the
research population from which we want to draw the sample.

STEP 2: Assign numbers to all the members of the research population.
Assign a number to every person or item in the population. The researcher
can start anywhere in the list but will assign 1 to the first person of item, or 2 to
the second and so on.

STEP 3: Decide about the size of the sample, what percentage of the
population we want to study (at least 10% of the sample) or use Stokers table.


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STEP 4: Size of the population determines the number of digits that will be
used from the random table. For example, if the population from which the
sample going to be drawn is 50\70\80, there are only two digits and therefore
only two digits from a random sample will be used to draw the sample.

STEP 5: Select any column with the correct number of digits as indicated in
step 4 from any list of random numbers, but stick to the selected column. The
researcher is now ready to start drawing the sample. Any list of random
numbers is taken as the one to be used but the researcher must then stick to
the selected column and not jump around to any other column. For example,
the population size may be 500, and the researcher decides on a 10% sample
that is, 50. The population size determines that the researcher should select
a column with 3 digits.

STEP 6: Go down the column and mark every number as large as or smaller
than the population until the desired size of the sample has been reached.
Mark every number as large as or smaller than the population. This means
that the person or items in our population with the numbers are all in the
sample.

The population for this study includes employees of the Department of Social
Development (Germiston) that receive a salary from the Department of Social
Development (Germiston). The total population was 124, consisting of social
workers, security officials ( working shifts ) and administration staff. There is
differing levels of language proficiency amongst the respondents, and so the
researcher had to assist those who could not complete the questionnaire on their
own. The implication therefore was that those who were assisted did not have
privacy of response as did other respondents.

A random, representative sample of 60 employees was drawn from the population
of 124 employees. This represents 48% of the population in the setting. This
sample can be seen as a random sample since each element had an equal
chance of being selected for the sample. The researcher had obtained a list of
names of employees from Human Resource Department, Germiston office in order

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to draw the sample. The researcher then assigned numbers (thus assigning 1 to
the first employee on the list and 2 to the second and so on) to all the names of
the employees.

Now that the method of sampling for this study has been discussed, the vehicle of
data analysis can be looked at briefly.

3.5 QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

Quantitative data can be analyzed manually or by computer. The decision on
which of these approaches to use will depend primarily on the amount of data to
be analyzed and the number and types of analyses to be performed. Data analysis
entails that the analyst breaks down data into constituent parts to obtain answers
to research questions and to test research hypotheses.

The quantitative data analysis that will be undertaken will utilize the SPSS version
11.0 for Windows computer programme (RAU Statkon Department). It will be
important firstly to describe the characteristics of the demographic variables, which
will serve as the independent variables in the research. The variables will be
described with the use of frequency tables.

The second step in the quantitative data analysis and procedure is that it is
important to examine the nature of the relationships that exist between
independent and dependent variables. Here the influences of the demographic
variables that are recorded in the first section of the questionnaire are examined.
Cross-tabulations will be used to determine if a statistically significant influence
exists.








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3.6 CONCLUSION

Now that the research methodology in the form of a research design, data-
collection methods, measuring instruments, sampling and data analysis has been
discussed, the stage has been set for the implementation of data-collection and
analysis process. The next chapter will therefore deal with the presentation and
analysis of the results.



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