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Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research design, locale, data

gathering procedure, population and sample size, description of the

respondents and statistical treatment of data to be used. The study will

focus in investigating the effectiveness of social media marketing to the

food cart franchising in General Santos City for the year 2022.

Additionally, this part of the research also discusses the method that

the researcher will use and the procedure applied to obtain the data

from the respondents.

Research Design

The study will employ a descriptive-quantitative research

design. The researcher will take into consideration the present factors

and current conditions of a group of persons, events, or a class in

finding facts and data to be interpreted. This method is the most

appropriate way to determine in a systematic and accurate manner,

the business profile of the food cart franchisers, effectiveness of social

media marketing, and functions of the selected food cart franchising

business. This quantitative design is a study in which bodies of data

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are collected, recorded, and analyzed. It is used to answer questions,

satisfy curiosity established a cause and effect relationship (Creswell,

2012).

Moreover, the descriptive method is the most popular approach in

research. It systematically, factually, and accurately describes an area

of interest or situation (Burns and Grove, 2017). Further, description,

analysis, and interpretation of conditions that exist are involved.

Researchers may also deal with comparison and contrast or the

discovery of an existing relationship between events or groups. In

addition, this method of research will use in the study to systematically

describes significant relationship between the effectiveness of social

media marketing and the functions of selected food cart franchising

business.

Research Locale

This study will be conducted in the municipality of General

Santos City, South Cotabato. The researcher will determine the exact

location or barangays where there are registered food cart franchisers;

this will come from the General Santos City LGU or DTI/BIR. Further,

General Santos City is a highly urbanized city in the

SOCCSKSARGEN region and is located in the province of Mindanao.

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It has a total of 26 barangays, a postal code of 9500, and a 697,315

total population as of 2020 (PhilAtlas & PSA, 2020). Additionally,

General Santos is formerly known as Dadiangas and has a land area

of 402.86 square kilometers or 190.29 square miles.

In selecting the barangays, the researcher will communicate with the

barangay captains and LGU of General Santos City; further, the

researcher chose this municipality because she is currently living,

studying, and working in the area. Also, she found out that there are

numerous food cart franchises in the different areas of the municipality;

as a result, the accessibility and availability of the data will be at ease.

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Figure 2. Research Locale

Data Gathering Procedure  

This section provides details on how the study will be

conducted. In performing the study, the researcher will first conduct a

literature and studies analysis to identify problems. After the problem

has been identified, the researcher will begin to set objectives that

serve as a guide in answering the problem. Data gathering is the first

step in conducting a research study. It consists of different means of

collecting the data needed. The present design will be studied in

accordance with the effectiveness of social media marketing to the

food cart franchising in General Santos City for the year 2022. 

After the approval of the study, the researcher will look for prospective

respondents. They will be given a letter of consent and request

attached with the survey form. Once they respond to the letter sent

through Gmail and Google Forms, the researcher will schedule the

prospective respondents individually to give them a week to answer

the survey given. Their right to refuse to participate in the study will be

explained. If the respondents agree to be part of the study, they will

then be asked to sign the informed consent after it has been explained

clearly. However, their right to change their mind at any time and stop
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participation will also be accepted. After securing the consent forms,

and there are no more questions or clarifications from the respondents,

a distribution survey questionnaire will then be scheduled. 

In this study, all of the data gathering procedures will be conducted at

selected barangays in General Santos City for the year 2022. The first

stage is to provide a letter of approval to be submitted to the school

management, professor, or dean of Medical Mission Group College

General Santos City, which is the school of the researcher. The next

step will be stage 2, the collection of data. In this stage, the researcher

will conduct an online survey or limited face-to-face survey process

with the use of google forms, Gmail, messenger, or paper-pen based.

Subsequently, a checklist of the instruments will be done in this study.

Moreover, the survey processes will be done formally for them to be

more participative and cooperative as the study is being conducted. It

will take two weeks for the researcher to retrieve the entire

questionnaire from the respondents personally and finally collect,

summarize and treat the data. The last stage, stage 3, will be the

analysis of data using Spearman rho, frequency, percentage, standard

deviation, and mean. This will help the researcher identify the data
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given by the respondents. Lastly, the researcher will finalize all the

gathered data. 

In terms of ethical process, the researcher will obtain an ethical review

from the Research Ethics Committee of the MMG College. Also, the

respondents can express their responses and willingness to participate

before the study commences. Once the respondents received a

consent and assent form, together with a survey link or printed survey

questionnaire, discussing the research information. The online or

paper-based pen survey will be presented the introduction to the study

and a statement indicating that the respondents must read the

information about the study and decide if they want to participate. The

participants' "informed consent" includes the publication of anonymized

responses.

Population and Sample Size

The data of the study will be gathered from the primary sources, which

the food cart franchisee or owners in General Santos City. A total of

100 to 120 food cart franchising business-respondents will be drawn

from the total population of food cart franchisers that are registered to

operate as issued by the General Santos LG (BIR/DTI). On the other

hand, once the first chapters was approved, the researcher will then
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start to gather the total number of food cart franchisers in the LGU to

really determine their total population and undergone it in to slovins

computation for the actual sample size of the study.

Moreover, the selection of the food cart franchising business as a

respondents will be done purposively because there is a criteria that

the selected respondents should met. In definition, Scribbr (2016)

clarifies that purposive sampling refers to a group of non-probability

sampling techniques in which units are selected because they have

characteristics that the researcher of the study need in the sample. In

other words, respondents which are the food cart franchisers are

selected “on purpose” in purposive sampling that will also undergone in

judgement.

To elaborate, the researcher will select the respondents who are: (a)

food cart franchisee or owner in the vicinity of General Santos City; (b)

food cart franchisee or in operation for more than 6 months; (c) have

an internet connection or data available; (d) knowledgably about their

social media marketing, functions, and (e) willing to participate and

available. Furthermore, in terms of adhering the ethical standards of

research, the researcher will ask the respondents consent before their

participation to the study. Due to the threat posed by the COVID-19

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Pandemic, there will be a two ways to utilize the data, and the

gathering of the data. To wit: (a) Via the google form and (b) face-to-

face data gathering. During the face-to-face gathering of data, each

respondents will be accommodated individually, following the IATF

minimum health protocol at their most comfortable time and location.

Description of the Respondents

The respondents will be the food cart franchisers in General

Santos City who will be purposively selected. They will be chosen

because they are operating a food cart that is franchised, and

knowledgeable about their functions and social media marketing

strategies.

Statistical Treatment of Data

After the distribution, collection and completion of distributed

questionnaires, the researcher will tally and categorize the gathered

data in spreadsheet or excel and will use frequency, percentage,

average mean, weighted mean, Spearman rho, interpretation and

ranking for analysis. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences ver.

23 software program will be used in the analysis. Descriptive and

inferential statistics will be utilized to analyze the data. The predictive

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analysis between the variables will be done using multivariate

regression analysis accepted at p < 0.05 level of significance.

The following statistical tools will be utilized to systematically organize,

present, analyze and interpret the data.

1. Frequency and Percentage Distribution. This is a distribution of

frequency and percentage that display the data that specifies the

percentage of observations that exist for each data point or

grouping of data points. It is a particularly useful method of

expressing the relative frequency of survey responses and other

data. This is a statistical tool that will be utilized for the respondents

profile questionnaire. This will allow the researcher to describe the

gathered demographic information such as location, number of

staff, average sales per month, product offered, starting capital of

the business, year of existence in the market, and type of social

media marketing used.

2. Weighted Mean and Standard Deviation. The weighted mean is a

type of mean that is calculated by multiplying the weight (or

probability) associated with a particular event or outcome with its

associated quantitative outcome and then summing all the products

together. Meanwhile, the standard deviation is an indicator of how

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widely values in a group differ from the mean. It is useful for

comparing different sets of values with a similar mean.

This statistical tool was utilized for the following:

2.1 Effectiveness of social media marketing: this allow the

researcher calculate the mean and standard deviation scores

and identify the level of effectiveness of social media marketing

to the selected food cart business in terms of monthly sales,

profitability, customer loyalty, and number of attracted partners.

2.2 functions of selected food cart franchising business in using

social media as marketing: this allow the researcher calculate

the mean and standard deviation scores and identify the

degree of functions of selected food cart franchising business

in using social media as marketing in terms of marketing

operations, management operations; and financial operations.

3. Spearman rho. This statistical tool measures the relationship

between two variables when one or more of the variables is ordinal,

non-linear, skewed, or has outliers. In this study, this will be used to

determine the significant relationship between the effectiveness of

social media marketing and the functions of selected food cart

franchising business.
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Meanwhile, in determining the level of effectiveness and functions of

food cart franchising business in using social media as marketing in General

Santos City, a five-point likert scale will be used, which is shown below:

Scale Verbal Description Definition

5 Very Effective/Highly Functioned Means that the food
cart franchisers
social media
marketing and
operations are about
81% to 100%.
4 Effective/Functioned Means that the food
cart franchisers
social media
marketing and
operations are about
61% to 80%.
3 Moderately Effective/Moderately Means that the food
Functioned cart franchisers
social media
marketing and
operations are about
41% to 60%.
2 Slightly Effective/Slightly Functioned Means that the food
cart franchisers
social media
marketing and
operations are about
21% to 40%.
1 Not Effective/No Function Means that the food
cart franchisers
social media
marketing and
operations are about
1% to 20%.
Ethical Considerations
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This study will be conducted with a strong adherence to the

ethical protocols and guidelines set forth by the Medical Mission Group

Colleges – General Santos City. The researcher will request and

secure all the corresponding permission to the key school officials that

is necessary to complete this study. Further, the researcher will ensure

the appropriateness of identified recruiting respondents and the

conducted survey regarding the effectiveness of social media

marketing to the food cart franchising in General Santos City to its risks

and measures to mitigate these risks (including physical, psychological

and social economic.

Meanwhile, proper authorization and consent will be obtain from

the sample of the study, in which they will be assure that all of their

rights would be fully protected, especially in handling the data such as,

but not limited to:

Voluntary Participation. The participation of the food cart franchisers

as respondents will be completely voluntary and anonymous to protect

their privacy and information that is given whenever the respondents

did not understand, before deciding whether to participate or not in the

study. Respondents’ name will not be appear anywhere and no one

except the researcher will know about respondents’ specific answers. If

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confidential, the researcher will assign a number to the responses, and

only the researcher had the key to indicate which number belongs to

which respondent.

Privacy and Confidentiality. In line with the purpose of protecting the

rights of the study’s respondents all the information gather from this

study will be kept private and confidential.

Informed Consent Process. The survey questionnaire that will utilize

in this study is clear and comprehensible; the researcher will make

sure that the respondents are fully aware of the benefits that they may

get from the study. The survey will be conducted with the approval of

the concerned school authorities, LGU and barangay captains as well

as the permission of the respondents themselves.

Risks. This research will not involve high risk situation that the

population may experience in the area of physical, psychological, or

socioeconomic concerns. It will be protected and secured the rights of

the individ uals in the study.

Benefits. The results of this study can help the food cart franchisers

and the franchising owners since the findings of this study will give

them new information in planning and implementing new

methodologies or social media marketing strategies based on the

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recommendations. Also, the social media marketers or assistant will

have a better perspective on how to look at the factors that could affect

the effectiveness of social media marketing that may help the food cart

business.

Plagiarism. The researcher will make sure that the correct and

accurate way of citing ideas from other writers and scholars will be fully

observed. To be able to do this, this paper will undergo in grammar

and plagiarism checking via Grammarly and plagiarism checker.

Fabrication. As this study is based on several existing studies, the

researcher will make sure that she did not make any tale from her

literature. Thus, all the information presented will be carefully written

and cited. All sources used in this study will be came from reliable

journals and other scholarly works.

Falsification. This research will comply the citation rules set forth of

APA 7th edition citation format hence there are no misrepresentation of

work or alterations of any data gathered in the study. The data and

information obtain will be presented in the most accurate way of

writing.

Conflict of Interest. The conflict of interest (COI) wherein no trace of

COI, wherein there will be no set of conditions in which a professional

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judgment concerning primary interest such as the respondent’s welfare

or the validity of the research tends to be influenced by a secondary

interest such as financial or academic gains or recognition.

Deceit. The writings in this paper will not be utilize any form of

untruthfulness to harm the welfare of the respondents. All the

information written will be checked and validated by the panel of

experts.

Permission from Organization/Location. The research will be

conducted with formality and clear adherence to the ethical standards,

thus a formal letter is send to the authorities of the Administration of

Medical Mission Group College of General Santos City, Inc, the LGU of

General Santos City, barangay captains of selected barangays in

General Santos City will be gathered. Further, the research will be only

conducted after the approval from the authorities.

Authorship. Lastly, this study considers authorship qualifications in

conduct of the study. The researcher together with the help and

guidance of the research adviser will have a substantially contributed

to the conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and

interpretation of data. The researcher and adviser will collaboratively

draft the article and revise it critically for important intellectual content.
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Both will be contributed to the study leading to the publication of the

research.