5.4 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SAMPLE
5.5.2 QUESTIONNAIRES
A questionnaire consists of a pre-formulated set of written questions to which respondents are requested to record their answers, which ordinarily comprises closely related alternatives (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). Bryman and Bell (2007) agree with Sekaran and Bougie (2010) that a questionnaire is a suitable research instrument in the instance where the researcher is aware of precisely what is required about the topic under investigation and how the variables of interest ought to be measured. Questionnaires can be administered personally, through mail or distributed electronically. In this study, questionnaires were administered personally and trained fieldworkers assisted respondents to complete the questionnaires. This approach was suitable owing to the fact that these respondents have limited education or are illiterate and required assistance in the completion of the questionnaire. Further to this, the advantage
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of using the personally administered questionnaires is that a good rapport can be established with respondents and any doubts can be clarified by the fieldworkers (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). A team of fieldworkers from the four selected provinces (Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal) were recruited and trained by the researcher in terms of the requirements of the data collection process. The advantage of having trained fieldworkers assist respondents in completing the questionnaire was that a low-response rate and incomplete questionnaires were avoided in this study.
Construction of the questionnaire
Sekaran and Bougie (2010) advise that the language of the questionnaire must suit the level of understanding of the respondents and that the choice of words selected must be dependent on the level of education of respondents. It is for this reason that the researcher compiled a very simple questionnaire with statements that were very easy to understand by the BOP respondents of this study (Appendix 1). Further to this, the questionnaire was translated by a reputable company into three African languages of preference (isi-Zulu, Tshivenda and Xhosa) for the various provinces (Appendices 2-4). The researcher was provided with a Translation Certificate (Appendix 5) that certifies that the original questionnaire was translated into the different languages by expert translators and that the content retained the same meaning as the original English version.
Closed-ended questions were utilised in the questionnaire. Zikmund (2003) outlined that the advantage of using closed-ended questions is that it assists respondents in answering questions easily and speedily. Sekaran and Bougie (2010) further add that closed-ended questions boast the benefits of easy coding of responses. The educational levels of respondents and the magnitude of this study (sample of 600 elements) warrants the use of closed-ended questions. The researcher chose not to utilise open-ended questions in the research instrument because of the lengthy time and exorbitant costs involved in the translation of the responses into English.
The questions were both positively and negatively worded in order to avoid respondents mechanically circling responses on one end of the scale. The questionnaire (Appendix 1) is divided into two sections. Section A of the questionnaire uses a nominal scale to record the biographical details (age, highest educational qualification, monthly income and number of
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people living in a household, gender and race) of the BOP consumers. Nominal scales allow a researcher to assign subjects to various categories or subgroups (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010).
Section B of the questionnaire uses an ordinal scale in which consumers were requested to rank certain variables in order of importance to them, as well as an interval scale in the form of a 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from:
(1) Strongly Disagree (SD) (2) Disagree (D)
(3) Neither Agree nor Disagree (N) (4) Agree (A) to
(5) Strongly Agree (SA)
An ordinal scale that uses a rank-order system, categorizes information in a meaningful way that is of pertinence to the respondent, thereby allowing the researcher to identify the variables that are comparatively more important than others (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). A Likert scale measures the strength and direction of a respondent’s opinions and feelings towards certain variables and is simple and easy to construct (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010).
The nature of the variables of interest of this study, as outlined in Section B of the questionnaire (Appendix 1), is subjective whereby the respondents’ beliefs, perceptions, attitudes and behavioural patterns were measured. The variables of interest (key dimensions of the study) include BOP consumers’ perceptions of:
branding;
savings potential and ability to pay off debt;
price and affordability of products;
quality of products;
appearance and acceptability of products;
adaptability of existing products to their living conditions;
functionality and performance of products;
packaging and quantity of products;
advertising and awareness of products;
accessibility and availability of products and
partnering with MNCs.
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In-house pretesting and pilot testing
It is imperative to pretest the research instrument in order to ensure that respondents are able to comprehend the questions so as to avoid inadequacies and ambiguity in the questions (Kumar, Aaker & Day, 1999). A pilot test was conducted (prior to the actual commencement of the study) on a small group of 15 BOP consumers from the KwaZulu-Natal region. The rationale for conducting the pilot test was to investigate the feasibility of the proposed procedure, as well as detect possible shortcomings and flaws in the measurement procedures. The suitability of the design of the questionnaire was also tested and it was not necessary to implement any changes before the actual commencement of this study.
Validity and reliability
When undertaking a research study, the researcher needs to be certain that he/she is measuring the correct concepts and not something else. Therefore, it is imperative to apply certain tests of validity in order to test the goodness of measures. According to Sekaran and Bougie (2010), validity can be sub-divided into three broad headings, namely, content validity, criterion validity and construct validity. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will use content validity and face validity as a validity measure. Content validity ensures that the measure includes a sufficient and representative collection of items that tap the concept. The more the scale items represent the domain or universe of the concept being measured, the greater the content validity (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). The items in the questionnaires were included based on recurring patterns that emerged when conducting the literature review so as to ensure content and face validity. Sekaran and Bougie (2010) state that face validity is deemed as a basic and minimum index of content validity and that the items intended to measure a concept, do, on the face of it, look like they measure the concept.
The reliability of a measure reflects the degree to which the measure is without bias (error free) and, hence, ensures dependable measurement across time and across the numerous items in the instrument (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). Quinlan (2011) concurs with Sekaran and Bougie (2010) that reliability is an indication of the stability and consistency with which the instrument measures the concept and helps to assess the “goodness” of a measure. For this research study, reliability was ensured through consistency in the processes that were used to administer the research instrument to sample respondents.
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After the questionnaires were administered in the different provinces, they were batched and posted to the researcher who, on receipt thereof, checked that these questionnaires were completed correctly. The trained fieldworkers ensured that respondents answered all questions and followed the researcher’s instructions when completing the questionnaires.
The researcher had designed a pre-coded questionnaire for the study. Coding, which involves assigning numbers to participants’ responses so that these responses can be entered into a database, is the first step in the data preparation process (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010). To facilitate this process, a coded template sheet was designed to meet these requirements and data from the completed questionnaires were captured in SPSS Data Editor (Special Package for Social Sciences).