Research consultancy

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter elaborated on the methodology that will be employed in this research. For instance, research design, population of study, the sample size and selection, sampling techniques and procedures, data collection methods, and the data collection instruments and it will also cover the pre-testing of data collection instruments, validity and reliability tests, data collection procedures, data analysis, measurement of variables and ethical considerations.

3.2 Research design

The study used descriptive research design method taking a form of cross-sectional survey.

According to Saunders (2016), this design allowed the researcher to gather information’s, summarized, presented and interpreted them for the purposes of clarification. The design was suitable for this study as it allowed the collection of information for (IV) and (DV) variables using structured and unstructured questionnaires (Creswell, 2013). Therefore, a mixed method using both quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted for this study.

Quantitative approach was emphasized; measurement and data analysis in numerical form  gave precise description, and in addition placed emphasis on methodology, procedure and statistical measures to test hypothesis and make predictions (Yin, 2014). Furtherance to this, quantitative approach strived for precision by focusing on items that could be counted into predetermined categories and subjected to statistical analysis (Ott & Longnecker, 2015).

Qualitative approach on the other hand enabled collection of data in form of words rather than numbers and provided verbal descriptions rather than numerical (Creswell, 2013).A mixed study methodology allowed researchers to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Ott & Longnecker, 2015).

3.3 Study population

The study population comprised employees and stakeholders of Paidha Town Council. Key in the study population will be overall supervisor of Paidha Town Council, Heads of departments, ordinary staff, and support staff, Lc3 Executives, DSC and Lc 1 Chairpersons. The Personnel officer of this Town Council would be key because he/she dealt directly with both administrative and non-administrative staff and was expected to know much about human resource practices and policies that affected the employees and their commitment towards their work. A total of 200 employees from the Paidha Town Council  in Zombo district was targeted; of these 15 were Head of Departments, 5 Lc3 Executives, 5 District Service Commission, 130 junior officers and 45 Local Council One Chairpersons as shown in table 3.1 below.

3.4 Sample size and Determination

The sample size for the study was 161 respondents determined using statistical tables of Morgan and Krejcie (1970).

Table 3.1. Sampling approach

Source: Researcher’s construct using Human Resource Department; Paidha Town Council (2021) and guided by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sampling table.

From the above Table 3.1:  a total of 200 respondents was targeted for this study and sample size of 161 respondents as determined from statistical table developed by Morgan and Krejcie

(1970).

3.5 Sampling techniques

The study used both simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques.

3.5.1 Simple Random Sampling

Junior officers under Administration, Finance, Production, Health, Works and Transport, Community Based Services, Audit, Education and Local Council One Chairpersons were chosen using Simple random sampling, a probability sampling strategy in which every subject or element in the population had an equal chance of being chosen for the sample (Amin, 2005). The researcher ensured that all elements had equal chance of being included in the sample, eliminating bias and increasing internal validity (Hennink et al., 2015). The lottery method was used to choose participants for this study. In this approach, the name of each employee and stakeholders was written on a tag and mixed in a bowl and then later picked by the researcher randomly until the required number of respondents was accessed.

3.5.2 Purposive sampling

Purposive Sampling was a non-probability sampling technique (Sedgwick, 2014). The researcher used purposive sampling to select respondents especially Head of Departments from Administration, Finance, Production, Health, Education, Audit, Community Based Services, members of District Service Commission and Local Council 3 Executives to participate in the study. The researcher used this technique to choose respondents from these departments basing on their level of knowledge, experience and engagement with regards to human resource practices and employee commitment in Local Government.

3.6 Data Collection Methods

In this study data was collected using face to face interview, questionnaire survey method and document review method as explained below:

3.6.1 Questionnaire Survey

Questionnaire survey method refers to a technique for gathering statistical information about the attributes, attitudes, or actions of a population by a structured set of questions (Saunders et al, 2016). The method involved the researcher preparing a set of questions pertaining to the field of enquiry.

The researcher used this method to enable him to collect quantitative data from respondents in the health and education departments of the two Town Council s. The advantage of this method was that it enabled the collection of vast amounts of data in a short time. In addition, it was cheap and easy to analyze data from the questionnaire survey method

3.6.2 Interview method

An interview method was a qualitative research technique which involved asking open-ended questions to converse with respondents and collect, elicit data about a subject. This method was used to collect data from the selected key informants especially heads of departments of the Town Council, members of the executives and district service commission. Face to face interview method was used to enable the researcher to collect qualitative data and elicit opinions, views with regards to the what, how, why of the phenomenon being studied. This method  enabled the researcher to judge the non-verbal behavior of the respondent and it gave the opportunity for the researcher to probe and clarify some of the study questions. Interviewing allowed key informants a wider chance to give detailed information that were not possible to obtain using questionnaires.

3.6.3. Document review

The researcher used the available literature related to the study topic. Such documents reviewed included but not limited to; Policy statements (2017 – 2021), annual HR reports (2017 – 2021), journals and conference papers and comprehensive data on HR trainings.  These were analyzed to collect the appropriate data related to the study topic.

3.7. Data Collection Instruments

The researcher used appropriate instruments for each method of data collection as explained below in the next subsections:

3.7.1 Questionnaire

The researcher used self-administered questionnaires to head of departments and junior officers because the researcher believed that these people could read and write. The questionnaire contained close ended questions which were be logically ordered so as to collect quantitative data. The researcher prepared both structured and unstructured questionnaires with two parts and set of questions. Section A contained background information such as age of respondent, gender, level of education and number of years of experience. Section B contained Human resource practices consisting of questions measured using an ordinal scale, Section C had

Employee commitment with questions measured using an ordinal scale.  This part was inform of a Likert scale anchored by a 5- point rating ranging from strongly disagree =1 to strongly agree = 5 that focus on the measures of the credit monitoring system and loan portfolio performance.  A sample of the questionnaire is attached as Appendix I.

3.7.2 Interview guide

A key informant interview guide was used to guide the researcher on the questions to pose to the key informants. The interview guide contained open ended questions which enabled the researcher to elicit opinions, views with regards to human resource practices and employee commitment in Local Government. Open ended questions enabled the researcher to probe for more details in relation to the questions being posed to the key informants. The interview guide contained questions structured based on the specific objectives of the study. The interview guide was administered to the key informants of the study selected among Local Council One Chairpersons of Paidha Town Council. Their oral views recorded and used in chapter four to supplement the quantified data obtained using questionnaire. The questions were attached in the appendix 2 of this report.

3.7.3 Document review checklist

This will be a list of documents that the study will consult in order to get relevant data for the study. The instrument is deemed necessary to guide the researcher to review relevant documents in order to collect data required to answer the research questions. It will also help the study to verify facts especially during secondary data collection. The document review checklist contains all relevant books such as journals, websites, and board reports, reports from the Zombo district website and any other related literature to the study.

3.8 Quality control of data Collection instruments

Quality control of data collection instruments will be used to examine the precision/quality for this kind of study; while the precision with which study instruments will be measured in a study and expressed in terms of validity and reliability (Yin, 2014) related because if a measure is valid then it is reliable. The validity and reliability approaches are described below:

3.8.1 Validity of Data Collection Instruments

According to Sekaran and Bougie, validity is concerned with the accuracy of the research instrument, as well as determining and confirming whether the instrument is measuring what it is supposed to measure or not (2016). To test and improve the validity of data collection instruments, the researcher will give them to academic supervisors, who will look over them and look for language clarity, relevance, and comprehensiveness of content, as well as the length of the questionnaire, and any errors will be edited.

The Content Validity Index (Coefficient Validity Index – CVI), which is determined by expert judgment, will be used to measure validity. (2005, Amin). The expert judgment makes a comparison between “what is to be included in the instrument, given in the intended purpose and what actually is included in the instrument.” The formula for measurement of validity is as follows: – CVI = Number of items declared valid/Total number of items. CVI = (N – ne)/N.  Where: N = Total number of items; ne = Number of items discarded. For an instrument to be accepted as valid, the average CVI must be 0.7 or above (Creswell, 2014).  For the instruments to yield relevant and correct data, they will be given to four team leaders of “Zombo Town Council” who are conversant with the study area to comment on the content, ambiguity, difficult and relevancy of questions to ensure content, construct and face validity.

3.8.2 Reliability of data collection Instruments

The degree to which a research instrument produces consistent outcomes or data after repeated trials is known as reliability (Sounder, 2016). To assess reliability, split-halves, test-retest, equivalent forms, and the internal consistency approach are utilized. This suggested study will use the Cronbach alpha (Cronbach, 1951) internal consistency approach based on 5-point Likert scale items. The researcher will conduct a pilot test on 10 respondents to check that questionnaires yield consistent findings when utilized under the same settings, and the results will be subjected to Cronbach alpha reliability. The questionnaires will be given to 10 respondents of Zombo Town Council to fill in and will be collected for analysis. Raw data from these questionnaires will be entered into a statistical program known as the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). Using this program, the internal consistence (reliability) of the instrument will be measured using Cronbach‘s Alpha coefficients for each variable, which will be compared to a recommended Alpha coefficient by Nunnally with acceptable cut off point

0.70 demonstrates that all attributes are internally consistent.

3.9 Data Collection Procedure

The researcher will present the introductory letter to the in charge of the Town Council seeking for the permission to distribute questionnaires and interview guides to the respondents. Anonymity and confidentiality of the respondents will be observed by not asking the respondents for their names and contacts on the questionnaires. The various areas of interest will be marked on the questionnaires to aid the distributors of the questionnaires from not picking one department only. Thereafter, a team of 3 research assistants led by the researcher with commence to collect data from the sample populations using the selected methods as appropriate.  Data collected will be edited with a view to check for completeness and accuracy.

3.10 Data Analysis

The data collected will be analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods

3.10.1 Qualitative data analysis

Qualitative data will be analyzed using manual content thematic analysis where similar texts, opinions and views will be identified as emerging themes. Analyzed data will be presented in a narrative summary (verbatim form) coupled with direct quotations of what the key informants exactly said (Creswell, 2013). There is no single or best way to analyses qualitative data, for you can adapt to your own extension evaluations. The common technique for qualitative data analysis will be used will be limited to direct interaction with the respondent and the responses recorded.

3.10.2 Quantitative Data Analysis

Quantitative data will be coded, edited and entered into SPSS (Statistical Package for Social

Scientists) data editor. Data will be analyzed using version 22 of SPSS. Descriptive statistics

(frequencies such as measures of central tendency and percentages) and inferential statistics (Spearman correlation and regression) will be used to describe and summarize the data (Hair et al., 2014). Data will be interpreted using the mean and standard deviation. Also, relational statistics like Spear Man’s Rank correlation coefficient (rho) and Pearson’s correlations Coefficients will be used to measure the strength of relationship between the variables (Creswell, 2013;Hair et al.,2014), cross tabulation in Microsoft excel will be used to establish the strength of the relationship between the variables. Other data will be presented using graphs and tables. The correlation coefficient (rho) will be used to determine the strength of the relationship between the variables because the scale (that is strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree and strongly agree) that accompanied the questionnaire is ordinal.The regression beta values (β) will be used to determine whether the indicators of both variables This will then be squared and adjusted to determine how much variance is in the dimension dependent variable caused by the independent variables.

3.11 Measurement of variables

The researcher will use both the nominal scale and ordinal scale in measuring the data.  Nominal scale will be used for capturing gender, age, occupation, and ordinal scale will be used in ranking the data. The researcher will use the Likert scale rate system to rate the opinions of the respondents because it measures people’s attitudes, beliefs, emotions, feelings and other psychological constructs (Spector et al., 2012). The Likert scale will be represented by 5- Strongly Agree; 4 – Agree; 3- Neutral; 2- Disagree and 1- Strongly Disagree(Likert, 1967; Joshi,2015).The respondents will express their opinion by ticking in the box along the question to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement using the scale.  This will be preferred because it eases coding and analyzing of the results.

3.12 Ethical Considerations

Anonymity and Confidentiality; In order to promote ethics in the study, respondent’s names will be withheld to ensure anonymity and confidentiality in terms of any future prospects and in-order to avoid bias. In addition, pseudo names and study codes will also be used so as to ensure anonymity and confidentiality.

Voluntary Participation; The researcher will give respondents reasons as to why he is interviewing them and that will definitely encourage voluntary participation of the respondent in the study. The researcher will also inform the participants about their rights to withdraw from the study at any point during the study and no harm will be fall them but a guaranteed privacy.

Informed consent; The researcher will inform the respondents about the nature of the study, purpose of the study, benefits of the study and will assure the respondents about no known risk associated with participating in the study and a verbal consent to participate in the study will be obtained from the respondent. This report will further be subjected to plagiarism test and all materials that will be used in this research will be properly cited and referenced, as acknowledgement of use.