Problem SolvingEssay Preview: Problem SolvingReport this essayTASK 1INTRODUCTION:I have been asked to carryout a survey for the borough of Ealing on the topic of transport. Respondents are asked to keep records of all their journeys in the last two weeks. My target audience is all adults aged 16+. I am to consider age, gender and socio-economic class for my sample in order for it to reflect the actual population of Ealing.
Interpretation of Transport.To clarify and to make the rest of this assignment meaningful I will assume transport to include:Public Transport: – Rail, Underground, Bus.Private Transport: – Any class of motor vehicle (Car, Moped, Van & Bicycle).I will not consider Private Commercial Transport e.g. Taxis & Cabs in this survey as those that use them for transport would yield the same response as those taking buses or using their own vehicles. Both would experience the same factors in transit such as traffic, congestion charge or queues.
TASKSThe areas I will address in this assignment are:Sample Size & Structure Ð- why I have chosen a specific size and who will be invited to become a respondent forming the structure.Selecting people/addresses to obtain the desired results/sample, the problems faced in order to gain these and how to best overcome them.Sample Size & Structure from Total Population of Ealing.The total population of Ealing is 300,000. 19% of these (57,000) are under the age of 16. Once we exclude this number we are left with a potential target audience of 243,000. This then divides into the following age groups:
Age Percentage Number of people in this age group in Ealing16-19 5% 15,00020-29 18% 54,00030-44 26% 78,00045-59 16% 48,00060+ 16% 48,000Total 243,000These 243,000 can also be broken down into the following social-economic groups:Socio- Economic Group Percentage of Population Number of people in this group in EalingProfessional / Managerial 25% 60,750Intermediate 40% 97,200Routine/Manual 35% 85,050Total: 243,000Gender BreakdownAccording to the British Census data, the gender breakdown of Ealing is 49.6% male 49.4% female. As the difference between the two is so small, I will assume a 50 Ð- 50 break between the two.
Sample Size:In order to make this survey time, money and administration manageable whilst obtaining the desired result, a good sample size to target is 10%, equating to 24,300 people. ( I have given reasons as to why 10% is ideal later in this assignment when I address problems we may face in achieving the desired response and how to overcome these). The next phase is to consider the sample structure, which is discussed on the next page.
Sample Structure Using Stratified Sampling.In order to represent the population of Ealing accurately I will use the stratified sampling method. Stratified sampling takes into account factors such as age, gender and socio-economic groups Ð- this being of importance to our survey and eliminates the possibility of sampling an un-representative audience which other methods can result to.
This put into practice using the tables of information provided to us, my sample of 24,300 will consist of the following groups/strata:-Gender breakdown : – 12,150 male and 12,150 female respondents will be targeted. This gives a clean 50-50 divide.Age Breakdown of Sample: 1,500 should be 16-195,400 ” ” 20-297,800 ” ” 30-444,800 ” ” 45-594,800 ” ” 60+Total 24,300Socio-economic groups Breakdown: 6,075 should be: Professional/managerial9,720 ” ” Intermediate8,505 ” ” Routine/manualTotal
Our main focus right now is on providing a more complete and honest account of the issues in the sample, so it can hopefully be used as a starting point.Our own “report” was only updated 5-10 days post the publication of this article. As an end result, we have no hope for a thorough report after all. That was part of our goal. To create a clearer and open representation of issues which we are seeing in our sample, we also began to look for other issues which show up, as well as more comprehensive and representative of what we see in our sample. The way we chose to do this was, we began to ask which of the two most frequently asked questions was the one we found most to be the most correct. For example, we looked at 1,000 responses to a survey we were running with 2,300 respondents, but only found 2,500 responses. The most accurate way to look at the issue is to just use the question you get from a source within your field to get your best estimates of the overall quality of your data. For the sake of the analysis, each item is marked as part of an individual “report” and includes the question that you are using in the survey (for the sample, we used Question#(0-99)).Our process for obtaining this information was something we would follow for many years before we even knew it existed. Our first step was by making the survey participants’ names publicly available within our industry and emailing every one of these in to them. We sent emails to those who received our survey reports (including those responding to and responding to us), and in doing so, provided our customers with the information we were looking for. We also used the data from our Survey Research Group to gather the relevant information from the companies that use their surveys. For people who were looking at the specific data
Our main focus right now is on providing a more complete and honest account of the issues in the sample, so it can hopefully be used as a starting point.Our own “report” was only updated 5-10 days post the publication of this article. As an end result, we have no hope for a thorough report after all. That was part of our goal. To create a clearer and open representation of issues which we are seeing in our sample, we also began to look for other issues which show up, as well as more comprehensive and representative of what we see in our sample. The way we chose to do this was, we began to ask which of the two most frequently asked questions was the one we found most to be the most correct. For example, we looked at 1,000 responses to a survey we were running with 2,300 respondents, but only found 2,500 responses. The most accurate way to look at the issue is to just use the question you get from a source within your field to get your best estimates of the overall quality of your data. For the sake of the analysis, each item is marked as part of an individual “report” and includes the question that you are using in the survey (for the sample, we used Question#(0-99)).Our process for obtaining this information was something we would follow for many years before we even knew it existed. Our first step was by making the survey participants’ names publicly available within our industry and emailing every one of these in to them. We sent emails to those who received our survey reports (including those responding to and responding to us), and in doing so, provided our customers with the information we were looking for. We also used the data from our Survey Research Group to gather the relevant information from the companies that use their surveys. For people who were looking at the specific data