Business Research Methodology: Face-to-Face Survey Administration

This reflective report discusses the experience of conducting a face-to-face survey to identify the socio demographics, culture values and aspects that influence tourists to buy luxury goods while traveling. It includes reasons for selecting the method, advantages and disadvantages, success of the administration procedure, suggestions for improvement, changes made in the questionnaire, and key lessons learned.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Business Research Methodology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
2.0 Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
2.1 Reasons for selecting the particular method of survey administration used and advantages and
disadvantages of using this method.............................................................................................2
2.2 Success of the administration procedure.....................................................................................3
2.3 Suggestion for improving the administration procedure used.....................................................3
2.4 Changes made in the questionnaire before administering it to a larger group of respondents....4
2.5 Key lessons learnt from the survey administration process.........................................................5
3.0 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
4.0 Reference List and Bibliography.....................................................................................................7

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1.0 Introduction
This reflective report will illustrates the experience of conducting a survey taken from a
small group of people, who love to travel and like the consumption of luxury goods
consumption. This survey aims for finding the socio demographics, culture values and the
aspects that influences them to buy luxury good while traveling to other places. This reflective
report will demonstrate the reason for selecting the face to face survey, the advantages and
disadvantages of using face to face survey method. The report will also followed by the success
of the administration procedure, changes made in the questionnaire so that it can be represented
to the larger group of people. Lastly, the key lesson from the survey administration process will
be demonstrated.
2.0 Discussion
2.1 Reasons for selecting the particular method of survey administration used and
advantages and disadvantages of using this method
All the survey questionnaires based on the trips of the customers, shopping activities,
shopping motivations, cultural values, aspects of the future visits to the tourist’s destination and
demographic questions is conducted through face-to-face survey. The main reason for selecting
the face-to-face survey is that all the survey respondents can be collected directly with
comprehensive understanding.
The main advantage of the face-to-face survey is that the facial expression and body
language of the research respondents can be assessed properly (Veal, 2017). Bryman and Bell
(2015) also stated that the survey conductor can also use stimulus material and visual aids, which

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can be used if any respondent cannot understand any questions. In this survey, the respondents
are also assisted in case they do not understand any questions that cannot be obtained in case of
online survey or telephonic interview. However, the problem that can be occurred due to this
type of method is that this procedure is time consuming (Marcano-Belisario et al., 2014). In this
survey also, I have faced the same difficulty and have to give effort to make every respondent
understand the meaning of the research question. Another disadvantage of this type of research is
that respondent might not get the courage to answer in negation even if they feel like that as the
survey conductor is present in front of them. This approach thus results in biased answer.
2.2 Success of the administration procedure
The survey outcome is a success overall but I have to face some problems like asking
meaning of a research question, blank answers and improper answers. I have observed that most
of the respondent asked the main idea of the research question “Some of the most impotent
achievements in life include acquiring material possessions like luxury goods”. Thus, I came to
know the language used in this research question is too difficult to understand. Another problem
that gets highlighted throughout the survey is that some of the respondent hesitate to ask the
meaning and hence gave no answer or mark an incorrect option. However, most of the
respondent understands the question and gave genuine responses. Thus, it was easier for
depicting the outcome of the research and identifying the socio demographics, culture values and
the aspects that influences the tourists to buy luxury good while traveling to other places.
2.3 Suggestion for improving the administration procedure used
The problem of understanding the question in the survey is the problem that is identified.
This problem can be solved by illustrating the question in simpler terms or present the same
question in the local language where the study has been conducted. This decision is taken as not

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all people know English and they might not get the meaning of the questions. Another problem
that is highly visible in the survey is that many research respondents left some of the question
unanswered. As a result, I cannot consider those responses in count even if a single question
remained unattended. This reduces the sample size that I have considered and diminishes the
effectiveness of the research outcome. This problem can be resolved by formulating digital
survey where all the questions remained mandatory so that of anyone skips any question or
remained any question unanswered; the survey will not be submitted. This will allow all the
response to be fully answered.
2.4 Changes made in the questionnaire before administering it to a larger group of
respondents
In this existing face to face survey, there are 18 research questions among which some of
the questions also have sub parts and some of the questions are subjective. Thus, the current
survey questionnaire took at least of 1 hour which on present for larger group might results in
dissatisfaction among many research respondents. Thus, the research question need to be focused
on the main aspects through which the socio demographics, culture values and the aspects that
influences them to buy luxury good while traveling to other places can be easily attained In
addition to that, the language is a problem when a larger sample size will be considered. This
will allow all the tourism from other geographic location to understand the question and they can
easily answer all the research questions without skipping anything. Additionally, if larger group
will be considered, presence of both the quantitative and qualitative response will be time
consuming and need more effort to extract the research outcome. Thus, in case of larger sample
size, only the objective questions should be present in the survey so that the evaluation can be
easily attained. Moreover, the administrator needs to present the main research purpose so that

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research respondents can understand the benefit of the research. The guidelines related to the
research should also be presented prior starting the survey so that the respondent can follow the
rules while answering to the survey and can relate the research question with that of the research
topic.
2.5 Key lessons learnt from the survey administration process
The main lesson that I have gathered is that in order to identify the genuine result of a
research, primary data collection is important. It is because, the primary data collection allow the
research to present an unbiased outcome which will help to identify the main objectives of the
research. In this research study, my aim is to identify the socio demographics, culture values and
the different aspects that influence the travelers to buy luxury good while visiting other regions. I
have learned the importance of the demographic question that comprises of the personal
questions like age, gender, highest education and their income. This will help to identify the
nature of the people or identify the group of respondent prefer to buy luxury things. Through this
research I have also attained the importance of simplified respondent. I have faced problem
during face to face survey as many people asked for the meaning of some research questions but
I have learnt that when this survey is conducted for larger groups or conducted through other
media like telephonic interviews and online surveys, they might not ask someone to clarify their
doubts. Thus, it is better to use simplified language or make the questions available in the local
language. In addition to that, I have also learnt that the research ethics need to be maintained. IN
this survey I have followed the ethics that not to use the research data for other purpose and all
the data will be protected and remain anonymous.

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3.0 Conclusion
Thus, it can be stated that the survey is related to find the preferences and motive of
buying luxury items while they are travelling to other places. The research question is designed
for pilot study, where only smaller number of respondents is considered. The survey question
comprised of different demographic questions, their preference to travel and the reason why they
like to buy luxury things However, this the survey suffers from some drawback that language of
some questions are not simple and hence create confusion. Another thing that has been found is
that the questioned designed for the survey is applicable for pilot study only. This is because,
face to face survey take much time and presence of both objective as well as subjective type
questions makes the entire face to face survey procedure more time consuming. Thus, in order to
present this survey to larger group, it is better to formulate only objective type questions so that
less time will be taken by a respondent to answer all the questions. It is also found that the
problem of skipping answers to some questions can be overcome by conducting the survey on
digital media and make all the questions mandatory. This approach will not allow the respondent
to submit the questionnaire until they answer all the research questions. This incorporation of
thee digital technique also helps in evaluating the research data more easily. Additionally, it has
been also found that the research ethics need to be maintained and all the respondents should be
make aware of the purpose and guidelines of the research. In this survey also, all the research
ethics is followed.

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4.0 Reference List and Bibliography
Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.
Flaherty, T. B., Honeycutt, E. D., & Powers, D. (2015). Exploring text-based electronic mail
surveys as a means of primary data collection. In Proceedings of the 1998 Academy of
Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 260-264). Springer, Cham.
Holzbaur, E., Ross, J., & Rothrock, T. (2016). Why Aren’t All Pro/Coa Clinical Trials Using
Electronic Data Collection To Optimize Data Integrity And Patient Experience?. Value in
Health, 19(3), A105.
Johnston, M. P. (2017). Secondary data analysis: A method of which the time has
come. Qualitative and quantitative methods in libraries, 3(3), 619-626.
Lawson, C. (2016). Innovative Data Travel Collection (No. Z-14-04).
Marcano-Belisario, J. S., Huckvale, K., Saje, A., Porcnik, A., Morrison, C. P., & Car, J. (2014).
Comparison of self administered survey questionnaire responses collected using mobile
apps versus other methods. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 4.
Nardi, P. M. (2018). Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods. Routledge.
Neelankavil, J. P. (2015). Primary Data Collection: An Introduction to Conclusive Research.
In International Business Research (pp. 146-163). Routledge.
Ostrow, L., Penney, D., Stuart, E., & Leaf, P. J. (2017). Web-based survey data collection with
peer support and advocacy organizations: implications of participatory methods. Progress
in community health partnerships: research, education, and action, 11(1), 45-52.
Schoenherr, T., Ellram, L. M., & Tate, W. L. (2015). A note on the use of survey research firms
to enable empirical data collection. Journal of Business Logistics, 36(3), 288-300.
Veal, A. J. (2017). Research methods for leisure and tourism. Pearson UK.

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Wong, S. T., Chau, L. W., Hogg, W., Teare, G. F., Miedema, B., Breton, M., ... & Cooke, T.
(2015). An international cross-sectional survey on the Quality and Costs of Primary Care
(QUALICO-PC): recruitment and data collection of places delivering primary care across
Canada. BMC family practice, 16(1), 20.