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100,000 1,099 398 204 100
>100,000 1,111 400 204 100
a = Assumption of normal population is poor (Yamane, 1967). The entire population should be sampled.
Furthermore, purposive stratified sampling technique was applied to the student sample.
University or college librarians of the case study libraries and ICT directors were purposively selected and were interviewed.
Table 4. 3: Research Sample
Study site Students Academic staff University or College Librarian
IT
Directors Population Sample Population Sample
MZUNI 1189 81 176 61 1 1
KCN 361 24 71 24 1 1
Polytechnic 2176 147 211 73 1 1
COM 680 46 119 41 1 1
LUANAR 1059 72 164 56 1 1
Total 5465 370 741 255 5 5
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collection methods include interview protocols/guide/schedules, tape recorders, notebooks, and more.
4.7.1 Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a pre-formulated written set of questions to which respondents record their answers, usually within rather closely defined alternatives (Sekaran and Dougie, 2010).
Questionnaires are the most commonly used instrument, particularly in surveys.
Questionnaires containing both closed and open-ended questions were administered to academic staff and students (See appendices 5 and 6). Such instruments mainly collected data related to mobile phone ownership, uses, and attitudes towards the use of mobile phones in providing and accessing library services.
Questionnaires were used in this study because they make it possible for the researcher to harvest data from a larger sample than would be possible using any other technique (Pickard, 2007). Samples drawn from both the academic staff and student populations were large (369 for students and 255 for academic staff). The use of other methods like structured interviews may not have suited a sample of this magnitude because it would have made the work more tedious. However, questionnaires can easily be administered to such a large sample hence the choice of this instrument.
Questionnaires are categorised mainly based on how they are administered hence personally distributed, mailed and electronically distributed questionnaires. Mailed questionnaires are those that are normally sent through post. Such type of questionnaires have the advantage of assuring anonymity of respondents and reaching a wide geographical area. The advantage of mailed questionnaires is that they are cheap to administer. However, their disadvantage is that they attract an extremely low response rate, sometimes hardly going beyond 30% (Delport and Roestenburg, 2011; Sekaran and Dougie, 2010). Rossouw (2003), however, notes that this percentage can go as higher as 70% in certain instances with follow-ups. Mailed questionnaires were not used in this study owing to the poor response rates noted above, and also due to other logistical challenges. Other types of questionnaires which guarantee a higher response rate were explored and used.
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Advances in technology has presented alternative means of administering questionnaires.
Telephones, emails and websites are all exploited for the sake of administering questionnaires. The advantages of using these electronic facilities vary according to context.
In more developed economies, these technologies have facilitated the administration of surveys by helping researchers to reach out to more people easily, faster and cheaply.
However, this may not be the case in least developed economies, and Malawi in particular, where this study was conducted. ITU (2014) statistics indicated that both land line density and mobile phone penetration was low. Personal computer (PC) ownership and internet usage have also been discovered to be low. These factors meant that the researcher could have faced challenges in using these technologies to administer the questionnaires hence questionnaires administered using this strategy (webhosted, emailed and telephone administered questionnaires) were not used.
Owing to the challenges outlined above, self-completed questionnaires were used in this study. Self-completed questionnaires were viewed as a valuable tool because they guarantee a higher response rate of as much as 100 % in certain instances. In this study, an 85.4% student response rate and 87.8% academic staff response rate was achieved. Moreover, self- completed questionnaires help assure anonymity of the respondents whilst at the same time enabling the one administering the instrument to establish rapport and motivate the respondent (Sekaran and Dougie, 2010). Although the researcher faced the prospect of spending more time in the field thereby incurring more expenses through the use of this data collection instrument, he still proceeded to use it because the advantages of using self- completion questionnaires far outweighed the disadvantages.
4.7.2 Interview Guides/Protocols
Interview guides or protocols are another data collection instrument that were used in this study (See appendices 3 and 4). Interview guides were viewed as an ideal data collection instrument because they accorded the researcher the opportunity of asking supplementary questions (Coleman, 2012; Pickard, 2007). The interview guides contained open-ended questions which helped in getting a deeper and more detailed account of the issues investigated. In this study, interview guides were used in conducting semi-structured interviews with the university/college librarians and ICT directors. Interview guides mainly
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collected qualitative data related to the interviewees’ assessment of relevant infrastructure, human resource requirements, and policy issues, among others.
Whilst interview guides are used to guide the conduct of the whole interview, tape recorders and notebooks are used to capture or record the proceedings of the interview. According to Smith (1995), tape recorders enables the researcher to capture a fuller record of the interview than notes taken during the interview process. The other advantage of using a tape recorder is that the researcher can always playback the recording to get greater clarity of the notes the researcher took during the interview. Greeff (2011) advise that permission be obtained from the interviewees where a tape recorder is used for data capture. Creswell (2013) recommend the use of a lapel mic for both interviewer and interview or an adequate mic sensitive to the acoustics of the room for audiotaping the interviews.
In this study, proceedings of the interviews were audio-recorded using mobile phone, and notes were also hand-written in notebooks as a form of backup. In compliance with University of KwaZulu-Natal research code of ethics, the researcher asked for permission from the interviewees before commencement of recording. Moreover, interviewees were also asked to sign an informed consent letter for interviews as evidence that they gave consent for recording of the interviews.