Questionnaire Design - Investigating Internet Marketing Strategies among Hotels in Ghana

4.8.2 Questionnaire Design
Questionnaire is a collection of queries used by the researcher to collect and record needed information when conducting a study. The questions are arranged putting together all the important variables for the research and may be completed by the respondents in the presence or absence of the researcher (Cooper & Schindler, 2006)
Many researchers have agreed that, in the use of survey strategy, the main instruments used are self-administered/interviewer administered or structured/unstructured interviews and questionnaire or a combination of both (Saunders, et al., 2000; Neuman, 2003; Cooper & Schindler, 2006; Malhotra & Birks, 2007). They also claim that generally the questionnaire can be used for descriptive or explanatory study, and must have a good layout, unambiguous questions, complete items, non-offensive but relevant items, logical arrangements of items, and the ability to elicit willingness to answer in respondents (ibid).
Self administered questionnaire are usually completed by the respondents. It is further categorized into three sub groupings based on the method of administering the questionnaire; on-line questionnaire (delivering and returning the questionnaire electronically using the internet), Postal questionnaire (sending and receiving the questionnaire by post) and Delivering and collection questionnaire (delivering and collecting the questionnaire to and from the respondents by hand)
In contrast, Interviewer Administered questionnaire are recorded by the researcher on the basis of the respondent’s answer. This can be done through the telephone (Telephone questionnaire) or structured interview where the interviewer meets with the respondents face to face and asks the questions (Saunders, et al., 2000; Nauman, 2006)
Questionnaires can be open-ended and close-ended. In open-ended questionnaires, respondents are not restricted to a number of answers to choose from, they are at liberty to give any answer they want to the questions. Open-ended questionnaire forms give in-depth responses and unanticipated findings may be discovered but they are difficult to code. With close-ended questionnaire, respondents are restricted to a fixed set of responses from which to choose from. Close-ended questions are easier and faster for respondents to answer and they are also easier to compare, code analyse statistically. However close-ended questions may restrict respondents from giving in-depth response ( Neuman, 2006).
In this study a combination self administered questionnaire using method and interviewer administered using the structured questionnaire method were used. We used self administered questionnaires in certain cases because this method has advantages such as lower costs, sample accessibility more time to collect facts about the questions as well as enough time to complete the questionnaire without rushing through them. To ensure a good response rate and clarify any questions that might arise, we appeal to our respondents to fill the questionnaire in our presence. It was part of the strategy to directly explain the questions to the respondents and to provide additional information such as cover letter to introduce us students.
We also employed interview administered questionnaire because it afforded us the opportunity to probe further to ensure that questions are understood and also to avoid missing data as well as to have more correctly filled questionnaires within a shorter time.
The questionnaire was based on research questions and mentioned conceptual research model adopted from Sigala (2003). The questionnaire was constructed by the researchers using all the aspects under each of the five dimensions in the internet marketing mix model and was adjusted to fit the purpose of this study. There are two parts in the questionnaire. In the first part, demographic questions were asked to collect information about three key hotel characteristics; hotel size (number of rooms), hotel category (1,2,3,4, and 5 star) being the hotel ratings and management arrangement (independently, chain, or franchised managed hotel). Also the first part included the level of education of the hotel managers and the location of the hotel. The second part of the questionnaire asked respondents to indicate whether their websites are designed to include the aspects in the five identified marketing dimensions (i.e., Product, Price, Place, Promotion and Customer relation) as mention in chapter 3. All the questions took close-ended forms to capture many responses easily and faster. Also questions in this form are much easier to code and analyse statistically. The questions in the questionnaire are in the form of multiple-item scale for easier coding and analysis. However the questions in the second part of the questionnaire are dichotomous variables in the form of Yes/No in which respondents are to indicate whether their websites are designed for such activities or not. This format was chosen despite its disadvantage of providing less information because the objective is to gather information on whether the surveyed hotel web sites was designed and used for practices in any of the five internet marketing dimensions as shown in table 3.1.
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