Qualitative data analysis was based on the research questions presented in the study. The responses from each of the participants were summarised according to the research questions.
Each research question was entered into Microsoft Excel with its associated responses. This was followed by establishing relationships between the research responses, thus allowing the researcher to put together similar responses from the two participants.
Ethical considerations
The study followed the ethical requirements of the School of Management, IT and Governance.
The ethical clearance for the study was approved by the UKZN Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee on 18 May 2017. The approval number for the study is HSS/0550/017M (see Appendix 2). The gatekeeper’s letter was approved on 2 May 2017 (see Appendix 1).
58 Data collection started after the researcher had obtained the gatekeepers’ letter and the ethical clearance. Participants were authorised to take part after they had read and understood the terms and conditions in a consent form. Participants had the freedom to stop participation in the study at any time they wished. The researcher maintained the confidentiality of the data collected.
Questionnaires and data collected were given to the school administration to be kept for five years after completion of the study.
Summary
This chapter explained how the research was conducted. The study followed a descriptive design, using both questionnaires and interviews as data collection instruments. The study comprised a sample of 373 students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and two ICS staff members. The data collection instruments consisted of self-administered questionnaires and interviews with two participants. The questionnaire was administered to the survey participants, while the interviews were conducted in the offices of the participants. The quantitative data analysis was done using the SPSS software for data analysis, while the qualitative data analysis used Microsoft Excel. Ethical considerations were attended to and the researcher adhered to the rules and practices of ethical research.
The next chapter presents results from the data collected, in the form of descriptive and inferential statistics.
59 4 PRESENTATION OF STUDY RESULTS
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ use of Wi-Fi on campus, and their perceptions of quality of service. The assessment of the quality of service is built on the conceptual framework presented in the literature review section (see Chapter 2, Section 2.7).
Primary data was collected by administering questionnaires to students registered on the University of KwaZulu-Natal Westville campus. To supplement the data collected from the questionnaires administered to students, two ICS staff members were interviewed.
The results from this study are aligned to the following objectives:
1. Report how UKZN Westville students use Wi-Fi on campus:
a) To identify the locations in which UKZN Westville students prefer to access Wi-Fi services on campus.
b) To show how much time UKZN Westville students spend accessing Wi-Fi on campus;
c) To investigate the Internet resources UKZN Westville students access when using Wi- Fi on campus.
d) To show the devices UKZN Westville students use to access Wi-Fi on campus.
2. Identify the access point configurations and specifications provided on Westville campus.
3. Report the difficulties UKZN Westville students face when using Wi-Fi services on campus:
a) To report the difficulties UKZN Westville students experience when using Wi-Fi services on campus.
b) To investigate the difficulties UKZN Westville students report to ICS about the use of Wi-Fi services on campus.
4. Report on UKZN Westville students’ perceptions of the quality of Wi-Fi service on campus:
a) To report on UKZN Westville students’ perceptions of the outcome quality of service when using Wi-Fi services on campus.
60 b) To report on UKZN Westville students’ perceptions of the quality of the physical
environment when using the Wi-Fi service on campus.
c) To report on UKZN Westville students’ perceptions of the interaction quality when using the Wi-Fi service on campus.
d) To investigate how user system device quality and access point configuration specifications affect outcome quality.
5. Report how outcome quality, physical environment quality and interaction quality affect students’ perceived Wi-Fi service quality.
6. Identify the factors that may affect Wi-Fi outcome quality on Westville campus.
The findings will be presented in this chapter. The demographic information of the participants will be presented, followed by the results from the research questions in the students’
questionnaires, and from the interviews.
Basic demographic and education information
Figure 9: Students’ demographic information: gender, age, race and place of residence.
61 A total of 373 UKZN Westville students who use Wi-Fi on campus responded to the questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 100%. Of the respondents, 58.4% were females and 41.6% were male (see Figure 9). Most of the respondents were aged 22 and older (31.6%).
The majority of the respondents were Black (68.9%), followed by Indians (27.9%). In addition, the largest group of respondents stayed in on-campus residences (38.3%). The next largest group of students stayed at home (34.3%). Few students (5.4%) lived in private accommodation (see Figure 9).
Education information
Figure 10: Students’ education information.
As can be seen in Figure 10, the majority of the respondents were registered in the College of Law and Management Studies (CLMS) (47.7%), followed by the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science (CAES) (34. 6%) and the College of Health Sciences (CHS) (16.1%).
Very few (1.6%) were registered in the College of Humanities (CH). Most of the respondents
34,6 47,7
1,6 16,1
78,6
16,4
3,5 1,6 0,5 0,3 1,3
5,4
22,8 21,4 20,6 27,6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Frequency (%)
College Level of education Year of registration
62 were undergraduate students (78%) and Honours students (16.4%). Nearly all the students (92.4%) first registered between 2014 and 2017.
The next section presents the results from the five research questions identified for the study.
The findings are presented according to their respective research objectives.