This reduces the fear of any possible retaliation if some of the responses are not favorable for the respondent's organization
Another reason why this method is appropriate is the reduction in peer pressure as touched on in the Ethical Considerations section of this paper. Participating in a survey via an instrument such as Survey Monkey, the individual can be assured that the responses provided are anonymous. In a survey conducted in interview form, there is a chance that the participant may not feel comfortable being completely honest because there will always be a trust factor. They don't really know the person interviewing them and there may not be enough of a comfort level to be open and honest.
A forum might work if the topic were different. Because of the topic chosen there is likely to be discussions on age discrimination being the reason for no advancement opportunities and other issues. This is something that workers may not be willing to discuss in front of other coworkers, even though they may have the same issues in common. This is another instance where the trust factor comes into play.
Of the three reasons listed above regarding the appropriateness of the survey method, the common denominator in all is the anonymity of the participants. In any type of research, the protection of the subjects must be one of the main concerns. In order for the participants to feel at ease and comfortable, the survey method was chosen. Also, in order to get a high response rate with a high degree of honesty on the question, the survey method was determined to be the best method.
VI. ANALYSIS
Because this research is mostly qualitative in nature, the analysis will be a qualitative analysis. The answers will need to be coded and this coding will have to be created by the researcher. There are three types of coding that can be used. Open coding is where...
Axial coding examines the core concepts in the study to determine if there is a recurring them. Selective coding builds on the results of open coding and axial coding to identify any central concepts (Babbie, 2007). For the purpose of this research, selective coding might be the best approach. Once all of the survey questions have been written out and responses have been received can we determine the exact method of coding to be used. For now, selective seems most appropriate.
After the information is coded, it will be entered into a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. A few of the questions on the survey will be quantitative in nature, such as age and number of years worked at the company, but the majority of questions on the survey will be qualitative in nature. In order to run any type of
statistics on the data, a software program such as SPSS could be used because it has the capability to turn qualitative data into quantitative data making it easier to gauge responses to open ended question. Once all of the data has been analyzed, the researcher can determine what patterns appear within the data and if further research needs to be done on the topic.
References
Babbie, Earl. The Practice of
Social Research. (Eleventh Edition). California: Thomson-Wadsworth.
O'Reilly, Sally. (2006). More than able to pull their weight. Personnel Today, May 2, 2006, 25-26.
Webb, Wendy. (2009). Work is the new retirement.
Training, 46(3), 44-45.
Whitney-Gibson, Jane, Jones, Preston J., Cella, Jennifer, Clark, Cory et al. (2010). Ageism and the
baby boomers: Issues, challenges, and the TEAM approach.
Contemporary Issues in
Education Research, 3(1), 53-59.
http://www.irbservices.com/irbservices/Home.html (Accessed on July 7, 2010).
