Asses the range of data and sources you can use to research a subject area and assess the reliability and validity of this information
To research any subject area, it is important to collect data. This data should be valid and reliable in order to make the research results useful.
To consider the job satisfaction, the research team should pay attention to the following information, salary, promotion, supervision, benefits, contingent rewards, procedures, coworkers’ work, communication, etc (Wood & Kerr 2010, p. 27). It is important to pay attention to any specific detail which can influence the results of the research, their reliability and validity. The errors may influence reliability and validity of the research results.
There are two main errors in the research, social desirability, “where the research subjects respond with what they believe is the positive social response whether or not it is true” (Wood & Kerr 2010, p. 199) and acquiescent response set “consistently agreeing or disagreeing with the questions” (Wood & Kerr 2010, p. 199).
Determining proposal areas
The information about the job satisfaction may be gathered from one of the gateways. The employees’ opinion (gateway 1), the work results (gateway 2) and the relations between supervisors and employees (gateway 3) are considered to be the central pointes in the research. Depending of the gateway, the proposal area is going to be changed.
One should remember about the shift of the focus with the choice of the specific gateway. One of the main reasons of this is the purpose and the area of discussion. The proposal area will be different if the gateway 1, gateway 2 or gateway 3 is chosen.
Best practice for designing questionnaires
There are a lot of different ways how questionnaires should be designed. To understand what the best practice in terms of designing questionnaires is, it is important to set the goals of the research and identify the main objectives of the questionnaire.
Questionnaires may be absolutely different, depending on the specifics of the research, thus the design should be based on a number of different aspects.
The following questions should be included in the questionnaire if the reliable and valid information is expected. The questionnaire designer should focus on the items the employees expected before they had got the job. Were their expectations met? The items which measure the relations between the supervisor and employees should be covered as well (Kronberg 2011, p. 61).
Ten-point best practice approach has been designed by Carey V. Azzara (2010) who points to the specific instruments in designing questionnaires, screen and open-end questions should b used with the specific instructions for respondents, etc.
Before using the questionnaires in practice, it is important to remember about the structure, the question order, the format and precise wording (Seale 2004, p. 167). Moreover, it is important to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the specific forms of the data collection.
Keeping in mind that the main purpose is to get valid and reliable information about the job satisfaction, the face to face interview is not the best choice of the form of data collection. Telephone is also not the way out. Regarding to the specifics of the research, an anonymous questionnaire is the best practice in this case (Brace 2008, p. 26).
Reference List
Azzara, CV 2010, Questionnaire Design for Business Research, Tate Publishing, New York.
Brace, I 2008, Questionnaire design: How to plan, structure and write survey material for effective market research, Kogan Page Publishers, London.
Kronberg, I 2011, Employee Satisfaction on Cruise Ships, GRIN Verlag, MĂĽnchen.
Seale, C 2004, Researching society and culture, SAGE, New York.
Spector, PE 1997, Job satisfaction: application, assessment, cause, and consequences, SAGE, New York.
Wood, MJ & Kerr, JC 2010, Basic steps in planning nursing research: From question to proposal, Jones & Bartlett Learning, New York.