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The purpose of the research proposal is to conduct an inquiry into the survey methodologies to be adopted by the Department of Education to carry out a survey to evaluate the public attitude towards higher education funding in England. The survey would involve a quantitative survey, which is proposed to be undertaken using face to face paper based survey questionnaire method, telephone and the postal method. The survey is designed to be completed within 30 minutes. The total number of questions in the survey will be between 10 and 15. The survey will consider a sample size of 3333 respondents who would be the households and the first year students in the universities of the UK. The first part of the report will deal with the problems in the two draft questions prepared by the Department and an analysis of why they are problematic. The second part deals with design elements of the survey and how it will be administered followed by a time table, showing the time in weeks to complete the survey.
The questionnaire has to be answered between 25 and 30 minutes and must therefore contain about 10 to 15 questions. If the postal mode of survey is chosen, the questionnaire can be ideally completed in 30 minutes, however the researcher cannot be sure if the respondents will complete the entire set in one sitting or in multiple sittings. In online survey, the completed questionnaire has to be submitted by clicking the “finish “ or “submit” button, and the researcher can be sure that the respondents have finished answering. The questions in the survey will understand the attitude of the public to the higher education funding by asking them about their understanding of the importance of higher education and whether a graduate has better employability than a non-graduate. The questions would also probe the respondents’ attitude towards debt taken to fund higher education and if debt should be a hindrance in pursuing higher education. Some questions would also ask the participants on reduction of interest rates taken on loan for education and the scholarship or government funding available to students for pursuing higher education.
There are two draft questions that are proposed by the Department of Education to understand
the public attitudes to the funding of Higher Education in England. The two questions are
problematic. For instance, the first question asks the respondent on how much he earns. This
question is not valid here. Although earning is directly related to the attitude towards funding
of higher education, one cannot say that earnings are the sole determining factor. An
individual may earn a lot but may not invest in finding higher education due to some personal
or socio-economic reasons. Some papers like, “Does the fear of debt deter students from
higher education? “ by Callender and Jackson(2005), concentrates on the role of debt in
students’ higher education attainment decisions. Many students do not pursue higher
education because of the debt component involved. Student loans are given to students who
want to pursue higher education but cannot afford to maintain the tuition fees and the living
costs. Students whose family income may be less may opt for debt for higher education and
the ones who have a higher family income may not take a loan to fund the education or may
take a less amount. Hence the question can be redrafted as “what is your family income?”
Moreover the open ended question drafted by the Department does not qualify as a question
for a quantitative survey (Nardi, 2013) . The question can be made as a close ended one by
giving the range of income for the family. This question sets the base for further questions as
the decision to take up higher education primarily relates to the family income of the student.
Open ended questions could be difficult to analyse statistically as the data is not uniform and
cannot be coded. On the other hand, close ended questions can be used for gathering data
related to age, education or income. Using close ended questions would enable the researcher
to compare the response with various groups. However, sometimes the responses could be
biased or invalid.
The second question asks the respondents’ opinion on a scale of 3, that is strongly agree,
agree and disagree, on the fact that students should pay for higher education as they will get a
better job and pay than the non-graduates. The problem with this question is that it considers
all graduates to get higher pay or better job than non-graduates, where even vice versa is also
possible. Instead of comparing the graduates to non-graduates, the questionnaire mist be
redrafted to ask the respondents if they think that they should pay for University education due to better employment and income prospects associated with it. Also in a qualitative
survey it is advisable to use the Likert 5 scale rating where the respondents could rate their
opinion on the scale of 5, the 5 scales being “Strongly Agree, Agree, Indifferent, Disagree,
Strongly disagree”. The amended questions are attached in the appendix as well (Kothari,
2004) .
Once the questionnaire is designed, the survey questionnaire must be tested before putting it to actual use. The pretesting and piloting will help the researcher identify questions that do not make much sense to the participants. Therefore in order to pre-test, the questionnaire forms will be given to 5 people from the target group. The idea of doing this is to get the respondents’ opinion on the questions, as to what they understood or did not understand about the question. Based on the inputs of the participants in pretesting, the improvements could be made for the survey. Since this is a large survey, piloting will also be needed before starting the original data collection process. The size of the pilot sample could be 35 people who are capable of identifying the major bugs in the system.
The study would be designed on students who are enrolled in a university and aspiring for higher education and the households of the prospective university students. Instead of focusing on a large database of students pursuing higher education, the survey would focus on a small number of institutions which varied according to the nature of institution, degrees awarded, location and region and student support arrangements. Given the context of the study which was to gauge the public attitude towards higher education funding in England, it was decided that the survey would be conducted only on sample of students from the first year of the undergraduate programme. The public attitude towards funding would also evaluate the role that debt associated with higher education affected the decision making process of the students. The chosen mode for the survey would be a mixed mode. There are several modes of survey. One of the methods is the postal survey mode, wherein the invitation for survey as well as the enclosed questionnaire for the research would be sent by post to the prospective respondents. The survey would be use postal mode. The benefits of postal survey would be the low costs of administering the survey, higher outreach and better response rates if sent to a large number of participants. One of the major drawbacks of the postal mode of survey is the slow data collection process, Again with the use of postal mode one cannot be sure as to how many respondents actually filled the form, even if they did not return. However since postal mode may not prove successful if administered alone, as the response rate may not be as much as expected. In order to complement the postal mode of survey, the telephone calling would also implemented (Nulty, 2008) . The process of gathering responses through telephone calling is a long drawn process that would involve significant costs. However the advantage is that the response rate would be increased and meet the expectations of the researchers conducting the survey. It is expected that the usage of multiple modes would improve the response rate to the survey. The usage of mixed modes of survey will help in carrying out the research activity at lower costs.
The samples would comprise of 3333 households across the country. For a sample size of
3333 students about 3333 forms would be sent and almost 1000 forms are expected to come
back filled. There are two types of sampling strategy that would be adopted by social
researchers. One is the probability and the other is the non-probability sampling. The
probability sampling technique is the one which is used to ensure that all the elements in the
sampling frame have an equal chance of participating. The non-probability sampling is
the strategy that would ensure if all the elements in the survey have equal opportunities of
being included in the sample. This study will adopt the non-probability sampling strategy.
Convenience sampling is a non-probability sampling technique where the samples are chosen
because of the convenience with which the researchers can reach the participants. The current
research employs convenience sampling technique as the university students who are the
sample representatives for this research are conveniently located. The survey would be
conducted on the first year graduate in select universities in the UK. Using the convenience
sampling, the researcher would be able to exclude a major portion of the population from the
research and only the ones who are willing to participate in the research are chosen. In this
case non-probability purposive sampling is employed as the data would be obtained from
specific individuals whose inputs can put validity to the survey. This data is only to be
collected from first year graduate students from universities in UK. This means that only the
particular target group of respondents would be sent the mail or phone call to take part in the
survey (Chaudhuri & Stenger, 2005) .
The sample population would be divided into different stratas or groups which are known as
stratified sampling. The variables that would be used to divide the strata would be age,
education attainment level of candidate (whether in the first year or second year of the
university education program) and the income of the household ( the range of income would
be considered). The advantages of sampling the population in this manner would facilitate the
researcher to identify a specific subgroup within the sample population and observe their
attitude specifically.
Representativeness means testing a small sample group from a large group, where the small sample group resembles the larger group. Hence the small group is said to be representative of a large group. However in certain cases, it cannot be taken for granted that the small group is representative of the larger group and researcher has to exercise caution in selecting and testing the samples. Assessing the sample representativeness is a critical inclusion in any form of social research. Deming (1986) in his book “Out of the Crisis” conceptualised representativeness. According to him, anything that could answer the research question like data can be considered representative. The sample representativeness in this case is an unbiased indication of the larger population that has not been under the ambit of the survey. In this case the attitude of the sampled population towards funding for higher education will be representative of the larger population of university students. When sample is not representative, then there would be a sampling error. However if the researcher chooses to include only the first year university students in the survey, then there would be no sampling error (Kalton, 1983) . In this survey of 3333 households 1000 forms are expected to be filled and if the confidence interval is 95 %, then the sample that would be representative will be 1563.
The surveys administered on paper evoke a higher response than the surveys administered through the web. This is mainly because of the virtual presence of the respondents. In case of survey administered by paper, the academic researcher who would be carrying out the research will hand out the survey questionnaire to the respondents. However in case of online surveys, the questionnaire form would be uploaded online and the link will be sent across to the respondents. This research will use paper based survey and therefore it is expected to achieve a fairly good response rate (Babbie, 1973) . The sample size for the survey is 500 students, out of which 450 survey response forms are expected to be filled and sent back. Therefore the response rate of 90 percent is expected to be achieved through the survey. Generally, paper based questionnaire survey is expected to achieve response rates between 50 and 90 percent.
The increase in the response rates would determine the success of the business. The higher the response rate the more the sample would be representative. The Department can increase the response rates by providing prior notification to the participants through email, phone, social media, newsletters and other forms of communication. If the survey is made through channels like paper or mobile, then it will get better response. The survey or the purpose o he survey should make a good impression on the participants in order to improve participation. In case the current study chooses a paper as a form of distribution, then wherever possible the researcher should hand deliver the paper and collected the competed form personally. The researcher should also disclose the ethical aspects of the survey and assure the participants that their answers will be kept confidential. The content should be personalised wherever possible so that better responses could be elicited. The survey should be of high quality in order to generate more responses. It is generally found that open questionnaires tend to dissuade respondents from answering (Zúñiga, 2004) . This is so because open-ended questions do not have a definite answer, usually in multiple choice. Also they take a lot of time to think and complete.
The degree of precision is defined as the degree of accuracy to which the correctness of quantity is expressed. The estimates from probabilistic samples will have some error that can be attributed to the sampling process. The degree of precision of key survey estimates is measured by using confidence interval. The sampling error is quantifiable and is represented as confidence interval or confidence bounds. The universally used confidence interval is 95 percent but in some cases it could be even more than that. In designing the current research, if 50 percent of the sample population consider higher education finding necessary and important, then the researcher would be confident about the survey result. If the survey is conducted on 500 samples then at least 95 percent of the population will result in estimates between 49 and 58 percent of the total sample population who believe that higher education funding is essential. If the researcher wants to accurately compare the two sample estimates to determine if they are different, then a statistical test would be required. The significance test would give rise to the probability P value where two sample estimates are being compared and they are no different from one another. The study must have actual data that is collected in the sample in order to get the P value. A complex sample design must be used to make the sample more efficient and economical. If the sample size is 3333 for a 50 % estimate, the S.E is 1.6 and this results in a 95 % confidence interval of 46.9 – 53.1 % and a 99% confidence interval of 45.9-54.1%. The representative sample is thus 1563.
The proposed design elements will have to be incorporated into the cost and so the proposed design has to be cost effective in order to be implemented. The table below shows the expected response rates for the sample using face to face, postal, web and telephonic surveys.
| Mode | Cost per complete d interview | Indicative response rate |
|---|---|---|
| Face to face | GBP 90 | 75% |
| Telephone | GBP 110 | 45% |
| Postal | GBP 85 | 30% |
| Web | GBP 45 | N/A |
From the above table it is seen that the response rate is highest in the face to face paper based survey method. The response rate of 75 percent indicates that at least 375 participants would respond to the survey completely. The other alternative method of conducting the survey is to use the postal based method of survey. The researcher expects that out of the 90 participants in the survey about 27 participants are expected to provide completed response forms. The total costs in administering the two different surveys thus come to GBP 36180. The table below shows the estimated costs breakdown for the survey. The rough costs estimates for the survey is presented in a tabular form as below:
| Cost calculations | In GBP |
|---|---|
| Cost of planning the survey | 30000 |
| Interview briefing | 30000 |
| Drafting and sending Advance letters | 40000 |
| Designing the programme | 60000 |
| Cost of the researcher | 100000 |
| Administration | 35000 |
| Preparation of envelopes by hand | 55000 |
| Travelling and miscellaneous expenditure(Including telephone bills) | 75800 |
| Total cost of survey | 361800 |
From the above costs estimates, it can be said that the overall cost to the Department of Higher education in carrying out this survey is likely to be GBP 38500. As the Department, through this proposal, has a fair amount of information regarding sampling design and survey methodology, the estimates of costs have not been very difficult to arrive at. Moreover it is important to estimate the survey expenses as close as possible.
The particular study focuses on the public attitude towards the funding of higher education programme at the universities in the UK. It is seen that there are certain methodological issues in this study. The non-participation of the students in the higher education programme in the country is mainly due to their attitude towards debt. Financing the higher education programme becomes a familial commitment as the students are not yet independent to finance their higher education on their own. Most of them would require the financial support. Decision making regarding funding higher studies is a collective process and hence an investigation into the decision making process of students and their families would be made. There is a difference in the thought process across generations and this difference in the intergenerational aspects. In this study, the sample respondents comprise of only the university students and do not comprise their families. However some questions that would evoke the response regarding the family’s attitude towards higher education funding have to be incorporated in the survey in order to address this area. These methodological issues have to be addressed using primary and secondary data related to decisions regarding higher education finding.
| Activities | Week1 | Week2 | Week3 | Week4 | Week5 | Week6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drafting research proposal | ||||||
| Sampling | ||||||
| Choice of the survey methods | ||||||
| Sample assertiveness | ||||||
| Drafting questionnaire | ||||||
| Administering the survey | ||||||
| Collecting the results | ||||||
| Analysis of the results |
Babbie, E. R., (1973) Survey research methods. s.l.:Wadsworth.
Chaudhuri, A. & Stenger, H., (2005) Survey Sampling: Theory and Methods. Second Edition
ed. s.l.:CRC Press.
Kalton, G., (1983) Introduction to Survey Sampling. 35 ed. s.l.:SAGE.
Kothari, C. R., (2004) Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. s.l.:New Age
International.
Nardi, P. M., (2013) Doing Survey Research: A Guide to Quantitative Methods. s.l.:Peter M.
Nardi.
Nulty, D. D., (2008) The adequacy of response rates to online and paper surveys:what can be
done?. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(3), p. 301–314.
Zúñiga, R. E., (2004) Increasing response rates for online surveys, s.l.: BeTA.
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