FINALS

LESSON 1: Respondents and Sampling

[Chapter 3]

Respondents and Sample Selection

After determining what research method, you will be using,

selecting your respondents follows. To obtain reliable and valid data,
asking or surveying the affected population size (like conducting census)
is a must however the entire population is quite large and costly to
try. Providing an alternative, we have this sample size that can
represent and symbolize the population size. The sample signifies all
of the characteristics of the population that it is being studied
(Saunders, 2000).

Population- A research population is typically a large group of people

or things that serve as the principal focus of a systematic
investigation. Research is carried out to benefit the general public.
However, because population sizes are so huge, it is sometimes
impractical and expensive for researchers to examine every member of the
community. Researchers use sampling strategies because of this.

Sampling- is a process used in selecting respondents from the target

population.

Sample- A sample is merely a portion of the population. The researchers'

inability to evaluate every member of a given group gives rise to the
idea of a sample. The sample must be enough in size to support statistical
analysis and be representative of the population from which it was taken.

Sampling Methods
After getting the exact number of sample size it’s about time to
identify what sample technique to be used to serve as the framework, or
road map that serves as the basis for the selection of a survey sample.
Sampling has two types the probability and non-probability. Since PR1
focuses on qualitative research only, this module discusses the non-
probability sampling only.

Figure 22: Two Types of Sampling plus their Sub-types

Non-Probability Sampling- Non-probability sampling involves non-random

selection based on convenience or other criteria, allowing you to easily
collect data.

1. Convenience sampling- (also known as INCIDENTAL or ACCIDENTAL

sampling) is a sampling technique in which researcher chooses
respondents that are nearest and available to participate in the
study.
Example: Your research is all about students’ experience with
regard to the new normal education. Choosing your friends or
classmates as your respondents is an example of convenience
sampling because it is more convenient for you.
2. Purposive or Judgmental sampling- the researcher chooses
respondents based on their predefined criteria.
Example: If your research is about students who experienced body
shaming, you cannot just choose your friends or classmates. You
 have to make sure that your respondents have experienced body
shaming before selecting them.
3. Quota sampling- is a sampling technique wherein the assembled
sample has the same proportions of individuals as the entire
population with respect to known characteristics, traits or focused
phenomenon.
Example: Let’s say you are seeking opinions about the Intramurals
2022. You may decide to draw a sample of 100 students, including a
quota of 50 people under Grade 11 and a quota of 50 people under
Grade 12. This way, you get the perspective of both grade level
groups equally.
4. Snowball sampling- is a sampling technique works like a chain
referral in which the respondent recruits another respondent. This
sampling technique is used if participants are hard to locate
because the research topic is too confidential or sensitive.
Example: You need to know how cheating works. If you know someone
who cheats during exam, this person might tell you other students
who help them to cheat. This way, you are having more respondents
because your first respondent helps you to find another respondent.
 LESSON 2: Research Instrument and Data Gathering Procedure

[Chapter 3]

Being able to ask and answer questions is an important part of knowledge.

Asking questions helps motivate curiosity about a topic and at the same
time helps you assess their understanding of the question. In relation
to answering questions, in research, research questions are more than
handy tools; they are essential to the research process. By defining
exactly what the researcher is trying to find out, these questions
influence most of the rest of the steps taken to conduct the research.
The methods that researchers use in collecting his desired data are known
as research instrument. These are instruments that are used to collect
data from participants of the study. They are important for collecting
data in all types of research methods.

Instrumentation

This part details what kind of research instrument you are using. It
also includes who made it, or where it came from, and other details
relating to the data collection instrument to be used for the study. You
have calculated your sample size and have decided which sampling to use
the next step is preparing your instrument: survey form or interview
questionnaire.

There are also two types of survey/questionnaire:

1. Self-made- Researchers create their own instrument because there

is no existing questionnaire from the literature that they can use for
their present study. Thus, they create their own questionnaire to yield
accurate data.

2. Standardized- Researchers use existing forms/questionnaires from

existing research. They make sure that the contents are related and good
enough for their study. This requires researchers to ask permission from
the owner of the questionnaire through email or any form of requisition.
3. Modified- Researchers derive from standardized and add their own
content to make it suitable for the present research questions they have.

Interview

A talk used to obtain information is called an interview. In a research

interview, both the interviewer and the interviewee participate in the
conversation and answer the interviewer's questions. Interviews can be
held in-person or over the phone.

Types of Research Interview

1. Structured

- close-ended

- questions are specifically constructed and asked in the same words

through all the respondents

- questions are well constructed before data collection exercise

In a structured interview, the interviewer asks a set of standard,

predetermined questions about particular topics, in a specific order.
The respondents need to select their answers from a list of options. The
interviewer may provide clarification on some questions. Structured
Interviews are typically used in surveys.

2. Semi-structured

- open ended

- also a structured however, there is the opportunity to probe for

details during questions administration (follow up questions)

- questions can be restructured to suit the interviewee and pursue

unexpected trend of thoughts

In a semi-structured interview, the interviewer uses a set of prepared

questions and the respondents answer in their own words. Opinions from
the respondents are accepted. The interviewer can probe areas based on
the respondent’s answers or ask follow up questions for clarification.
A follow up question may be asked depending on the answers of the
respondents.

3. Unstructured

- an informal conversation with no systematic format to follow but

there is a predetermined theme or topic.

- In an unstructured interview, the interviewer has no specific

guidelines, restrictions, predetermined questions, or list of options.
The interviewer asks a few broad questions to engage the respondent in
an open, informal, and spontaneous discussion. The interviewer also
probes with further questions and/or explores inconsistencies to gather
more in-depth information on the topic. Unstructured interviews are
particularly useful for getting the stories behind respondents’
experiences or when there is little information about a topic.
 LESSON 3: Thematic Analysis and Its Approaches

[Chapter 4]

Interview transcripts are records of completed oral interview. This

process can be done real time or from an audio or video recording. It
is among the best qualitative analysis resources available—but you need
the right methods to use them successfully.

How you analyze qualitative data depends largely on your methodology,

your personal organizational and analytic preferences, and what kind of
data you have. That being said, Thematic data analysis process is going
to fall into one of two approaches: deductive or inductive.

Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis is a method of analyzing qualitative data. It is

usually applied to a set of texts; such as interview transcripts. The
researcher closely examines the data to identify common themes – topics,
ideas and patterns of meaning that come up repeatedly. It is a
qualitative data analysis method that involves reading through a data
set from in depth interviews or focus groups. There are two approaches
in conducting thematic analysis and these are inductive and deductive.
Most common form of this analysis follows a four-step process:
familiarization, coding, generating categories, and naming themes.

Inductive Analysis

Inductive analysis is a qualitative method of thematic analysis that

researchers use to develop theory and identify themes by studying
documents, recordings and other printed and verbal material. it is common
to split up an interviewee’s narrative into smaller pieces and group
them by theme with other interviewee’s statements. This breaks up the
individual’s personal narrative. An inductive approach is often used
when a researcher has very little or no idea of the research phenomenon.
Inductive means that themes emerge from the data.

Steps in Inductive Thematic Analysis

1. Familiarization – You have to read through the data. By getting

familiar with the data, you will be able to foresee which data shares
same ideas. Thus, you will be needing interview transcripts so you could
easily access the data.

Look at the sample responses below that are collected from the interview
question, “Why did you resign from your previous job?”

Respondent 1: “I decided to resign from that company because my family

is getting bigger.”

Respondent 2: “I resigned because my salary is too low.”

Respondent 3: “I had to find another job because I was not able to save
money from my previous company.”

Respondent 4: “I quit my job because of their bad management.”

2. Coding - A code is a word or phrase that can represent the

respondent’s answer. Do open coding by identifying meaningful chunks in
your data. Find a word or phrase that can attribute for a portion of
your data.
Let’s go back to the data given above and make code out of the responses.

Respondent 1: “I decided to resign from that company because my family

is getting bigger.”

From the answer of respondent 1, what word or phrase do you think could
represent the response? If your answer is “family is getting bigger’’,
then you are correct. Remember when coding, you have to remove
unnecessary details given by the respondents and focus on its main idea.
You may also rephrase your code provided that you are not changing the
original idea of the responses.

Respondent 2: “I resigned because my salary is too low.”

Code: salary is too low or low salary

Try to code the other two responses below. Write your codes on the space
provided.

Respondent 3: “I had to find another job because I was not able to save
money from my previous company.”

Code:
No savings

Respondent 4: “I quit my job because of their bad management.”

Code: Bad management

3. Merge Codes - After coding, find connections between codes and

merge them to make themes.

Look at the following codes below. Codes with same color share same
ideas. These codes were merge to make themes. Insufficient pay is the
category for the four codes: (1) family is getting bigger; (2) not able
to save money; (3) lack of benefits and; (4) salary is too low. Since
the code ‘excessive work’ is not connected with the other codes, it will
be taken as one theme.

CODES THEME
family is getting bigger financial stability
excessive work lack of work-life balance
no savings financial stability
lack of benefits financial stability
no promotion slow career advancement
low salary financial stability
office gossip toxic workplace
no growth slow career advancement
attention-seeking colleagues toxic workplace
***same color same codes under the same theme

After building themes by means of inductive analysis, you will have

to present your data and its theme using a table. Interpret the table
and find literatures that support the findings. Remember, if your
respondents answer in their language of convenience, you need to
translate their responses to English.

Four out of the eleven participants actually mentioned their

problems with regard to financial stability. Participant 1 noted that
he resigned because his family is getting bigger and as a result, his
family’s needs also increases. Participant 4 added that due to his low
income, he was not able to save money for his future needs.

Employers agree with employees that the primary reason for

voluntary departures is financial (Swartz, 2019). Walters (2017) pointed
out that employees can easily find out what their peers in other
companies are earning, which makes them acutely aware of their market
value. Offering competitive salaries and other benefits can thus motivate
them to stay.

Deductive Analysis

Deductive analysis requires a structured or predetermined approach.

In this case, you will build categories in advance of your analysis. In
this approach, you have an existing framework and you will use it as
your initial set of themes. Therefore, you have to find out if your pre-
existing themes match the narratives of your participants. Themes can
be created from concepts drawn from the literature, from theory, or from
propositions that you have developed. This approach is quick and easy
and can be used if you have an idea about the likely responses that you
are going to receive from your respondents. All you have to do is to
find connections between the participants’ responses and the pre-
existing themes from your framework.

For example, after reading a lot of literature, you found these

common factors that affect online learning which enable you to build a
conceptual framework. This will be your starting point to analyze the
answer of your respondents. Ye have to link these themes to the data you
have collected.
 Study the given responses below and link them to the pre-existing
you have in the conceptual framework above.

Respondent 1: “Sometimes I do not understand the lesson because of weak

internet connection. My teachers’ voices are breaking most of the time.”

Respondent 2: “We have poor signal in our area that is why sometimes I
cannot understand what my teacher is discussing.”

Respondent 3: “My teacher seems to have lost his interest in teaching

which affects us because most of the time he is not prepared.”

Respondent 4: “My class is boring because my teacher is so serious.”

Respondent 5: “I always feel like face to face is better than online

class that is why I am not participating anymore. I lost my sparks and
interest.”

Respondent 6: “I feel so sleepy during class because I always have 3-4

hours of sleep playing mobile games. It is more fun to get blue and red
buffs than to get high grades.”

Respondent 7: “I cannot focus on my studies because I cannot see the

relevance of our subject to my preferred college course.”

Responses of respondents 1 and 2 may be linked to the internet access

theme. This is how you are going to present the data.

Example:

Theme 1. Internet Access

Despite having an internet access, students are struggling due to poor

internet connection.
 “Sometimes I do not understand the lesson because of weak internet
connection. My teachers’ voices are breaking most of the time.”

‘‘We have poor signal in our area that is why sometimes I cannot
understand what my teacher is discussing.”

With internet access transcending its former image as a privilege

for the rich, connectivity has now trickled down to other social ranks
due to the global digital revolution. However, in 2020, when the world
was sent to a standstill due to the pandemic, workers and students were
plunged into the world of hyperawareness of slow internet connections
in the Philippines (Ordinario, 2017).

Another respondent also stated that his data has a limited access only.

“Minsan po kasi nauubusan po ako ng data. Kahit may load po ako

s’yempre it will take time to register again.”

(Sometimes, I am running out of data. Though I already have regular

load, of course it will take time to register again.)

If one cannot afford to have a WiFi at home, mobile data is the

last option. But this may be not enough specially if classes take 4 to
8 hours (Almerez, 2020).
 Lesson 4: Summary of Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations

[Chapter 5]

Did you know that this part is the most widely read portion are
the sections devoted to conclusion and recommendation?

Introductory Paragraph. There should be a brief statement about

the main purpose of the study, the population or respondents, the period
of the study, method of research used, the research instrument, and the
sampling design. All of these must be presented and there should be no
explanations made.

Example:

Finding is an empirical fact, based on data collected that does not just
rely on opinion (even if it is that of an expert). Finding is a piece
of information discovered during a research of a problem. This is what
you have found after collecting your research data.

Summary of Findings demands that each specific question under the

statement of the problem must be written first to followed by the
findings that would answer it. When writing this part, remember the
following.
• The findings should be textual generalizations, that is, a summary
of the important data consisting of text and numbers.

• No deductions, nor inference, nor interpretation should be made

otherwise it will only be duplicated in the conclusion.

• Only the important findings, the highlights of the data, should be

included in the summary, especially those upon which the conclusions
should be based.

• Must be stated as concisely as possible.

• Use past tense to present the result of findings of the

investigation.

Example:

Conclusion synthesizes and interprets the finding and makes a reasoned

judgment that corresponds to the finding. It answers the questions in
the statement of the problem. Conclusion is the section where you restate
the purpose and questions of your study, as well as explain how you
reached this particular purpose and how you responded to your research
questions stated in the beginning of your study.
Example:

Recommendations always address limitations and suggest how they might

be overcome in future work. Recommendations are suggestions offered by
the study. If conclusions must be drawn from the research findings,
recommendations must be written based on the conclusions. In this part,
we may suggest further research, to create a policy, or to develop a
program that could help to further improved the answers for the present
problem.

Example: