Final Project

Research Methods (STA630)

Spring Semester 2007
Total Marks: 100
Instructions:

This assignment is the final part of a semester long project. Final submission carries
100 marks.

Last date for submission of Research Report is 22/06/2007.

No assignment will be accepted after the due date and time.

No credit will be given to copied assignments.

Your report will include:

o Title page (a sample title page is given at the end)

o Acknowledgement
o Table of contents
o Introduction of the topic
o Detailed research
o Findings
o One copy of your Questionnaire (sample questionnaires are given at
the end)

You will follow these guidelines for report writing.

i) Font size should be 12.
ii) Page size A4.
iii) Heading bold & or underlined.
iv) Margin Left..1.25
Right.1.00
Bottom.1.00
Top.1.00
The project evaluation will be made at the submission of this stage, when we will receive
the full report as final submission. So for the first submission stage, all the files are
marked as zero 0.

Kindly view the uploaded files and comments inserted in the project assignments.

In the first phase of the assignment you were asked to submit only the Research Topic,
Problem Statement, and a summary of Literature Review to support your problem
statement and research topic that it is researchable or not.

Those who have submitted full reports including even questionnaires are notified that we
have considered only the required parts from all your submissions. Now you are advised
to follow the instructions and make a full submission of up-to-dated report at this final
stage.

Unfortunately the result is not that much good and substantial. Most of the submissions
are only based on web search material that is not considerable. Now, be careful in the
submission of full report that you are not required to provide all the data about any said
topic that you come to find out on net.

The purpose of that Project is to make you apply all the learning of research methods and
then conduct a research; you are supposed to communicate findings of the research in the
form of Research Report.

So it suggests that your Research Reports are not going to be based on any net search
work, any prior made research, any internship report, or even any introductory book
about an organization.

It should be a practical work; either it is a very broad or narrow research. But it should be
based on your own effort.
To proceed in that phase, which is the final submission stage for your Project you are
required to follow the instructions bellow.

Those projects that are marked as not approved topics; for all of them, you can
change the research topic, and then accordingly conclude a problem statement.
You can communicate through mail for the selection of topic and the problem
statement and then proceed in research work to submit the full report as final
submission.

Your project topic should be researchable, and most important that researchable
by you as a student. As for many social phenomenons the topics are researchable
but these are not researchable as a student. So do care in this regard for the
selection of topic.

You should be clear about that who is going to be your research subject
(respondent), how will you collect data from your subjects. Etc

We have provided you a Research Sample Questionnaire. This is just to make you
clear the idea of Questionnaire. For a single research topic and problem statement
the respondents can vary and so accordingly the questionnaire will also differ.

You are supposed just to take help and not to copy the Questionnaire that is
provided to you as a research sample Questionnaire. Any such activity will make
a bad impact for your project evaluation and will be marked as ZERO.

Now in this phase you have to follow the learning of Research Method (Research
Process) and conduct a Research your self and then finally submit all the findings
in the form of a full Research Report.

THE RESEARCH PROCESS

1. Broad Problem Area

2. Preliminary Data Collection

Literature Survey
3. Problem Definition
Problem Statement
4. Theoretical Framework

5. Generation of Hypotheses

6. Research Design

7. Data Collection, Data Processing, and Analysis

8. Testing the Hypotheses; Answering the Research Questions

 9. Report Writing

This process is discussed in detail in the Lesson no 12 of the subject.

Consider the instructions provided in the first phase of Project and proceed in the
next phase accordingly.

If any problem in the research project proceedings, you are highly encouraged to
communicate through mail only.

Note: You are not allowed to select the topic of Child Labor and Career Choice
for MBAs for your research.
 Sample Title Page

A RESEARCH REPORT
ON
CHILD LABOR

SUBMITTED BY:
STUDENTS NAME
STUDENTS ID
SESSION

Virtual University of Pakistan

 Child Labor
In this case, you can have three types of respondents.
(You can not select this topic for research)
Questionnaire I

Respondent (Child)

Gender ____________ Skill ____________

Q1. What is your age?

5-8 9-12 13-15

Q2. Do you go to schools?

Yes No (go to Q4)

Q3. In which class?

1-5 6-8 9-10

Q4. Any other sibling who is studying? If yes how many?

One Two Three

Other ________

Q5. Your accommodation?

Family Owned House Family Rented House Some Relative

With employer At Workplace Any Other

Q6. What is your nature of work?

Agricultural Industrial Household servant

Shop Workshop Self employed

Other _____________

Q7. How many hours do you work in a day?

 7 8 9

Other _____________

Q8. What is the periodicity of payment from your job?

Daily Weekly Fortnightly

Monthly

Q9. Approximately how much money you earned during the last month?
Rs. _____________

Q10. Approximately how much is your monthly expense?

Rs. ________

Q11. How long you have been working?

Time Period _____________

Q12. What was the reason you joined work?

Earn to support family Social and cultural reasons Non availability of school

Support his/her education Debts Lack of interest in

education
No Wealth Support your education Larger Family Size

Other _____________

Q13. Have you worked anywhere else before? If yes, for how long and what was the
nature of that job?

No Yes _____________________

Q14. Other sources of income in family?

Who works? ________________

Approximately how much they earn? ________________
 Questionnaire II

Respondent (Parent)

Gender ____________
Education _________
Profession ________________

Q1. How many children between the ages of 5 to 15 are in your family?

One Two Three

Other ________

Q2. Are any of the children studying?

Yes No(go to Q4)

Q3. How many?

One Two Three

Other ________

Q4. How many children work and how much they earn per month?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
______

Q5. What is the nature of their work?

Agricultural Industrial Household servant

Shop Workshop Other

Q6. Have you ever been unemployed and for how long?

No Yes (Time Period) _____________

Q7. Approximately how much money you earned during the last month?
Rs. _____________
Q8. What is your average monthly expenditure?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
______
Q9. Approximately how much income approximately is spent on?

Food ___________ Health ___________ Education ____________

Housing ___________ Other expenses__________

Q10. How many dependents you (family head) support?

3 4 5

Other

Q11. What is the reason to send a child to work?

To earn to support family Debts Non availability of school

Larger Family Size No Wealth Lack of interest in

education

Shortage of adult labor Support his/her education Migration / Search for job

Social and Culture, Values (Helping hand)

 Questionnaire III

Respondent (Employer)

Gender ________ Education

___________
Q1. What is the nature of your work?
Agricultural Industrial Household (go to Q3)

Own Shop Workshop Any Other

Q2. How long have you been in this work?

Up to 5 years Up to 10 years More than 10 years

Q3. How many employees do you have?

1-2 3-4 5 or more

Q4. How many of them are children between the age of 5 and 15?
1-2 3-4 5 or more

Q4. From where did you hire them?

Nearest locality Personal links Through some labor office

Other (please specify)_________

Q5. Why have they joined you?

To earn to support family Debts Non availability of school

Larger Family Size No Wealth Lack of interest in

education

Shortage of adult labor Support his/her education Social and Culture, Values

Q6. How much salary you pay to them?

Less than Rs.500 Rs.500-1000 Rs.1000-2000
More than 2000

Q7. Do you give any facilities other then the salary to them?
No (go to Q 9) Yes

Q8. What type of facilities you provide to them?

Housing Food Clothing

Health/Medical Traveling any other

Q9. To whom you pay the salary?

Child Parent Relative

Q10. Why have you hired children instead of adults?

Easily managed than adults Cheaper than adults often non unionized
More learning ability Any other reason
 Career Choice for M.B.A. Students
(You can not select this topic for research)
Questionnaire

Gender:
Name of Institution:
1) Which of the following best describes the career of your choice?
o Finance/Accounting
o Marketing
o Management
o Human Resource Management

2) Where would you like to work and why?

o Public sector organizations
o Private sector organizations
o Self Employment
Reason __________________________________________________________

3) Would you like to work in groups or on individual bases? Why?

_________________________________________________________________

4) How would you rate each of the following while considering your job choice decision?
(Please assign numbers from1to99thus making the sum equal to 100)
o Job security
o Career growth
o Intellectual challenge
o Working environment
o Salary
100
5) What do you want in your job?
(Please tick the most appropriate answer for the following choices, where 1 means most
important and 5 is least important.)

i. Clean, comfortable and pleasant office setting 1 2 3 4 5

ii. Application of your knowledge 1 2 3 4 5
iii. Incentives offered by the organization 1 2 3 4 5
iv. Use of your analytical skills 1 2 3 4 5
v. Flexible working hours 1 2 3 4 5
vi. Closer working relations with colleagues 1 2 3 4 5
vii. Encouragement of your creativity 1 2 3 4 5
viii. Organization provided career paths 1 2 3 4 5
ix. Sense of achievement & recognition 1 2 3 4 5
x. Protection of delegates* 1 2 3 4 5
(*Protection of delegates means that the organizations protect the persons once empowered since it is believed that whatever they do is merely in favor of the
organization and will add to its goodwill).

6) How much importance do you give to the following benefits offered by your organization?
(Please tick the most appropriate answer for the following choices, where 1 means most
important and 5 is least important.)
Strongly Agree Agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

i. Pension
ii. Insurance
iii. Subsidized lunches
iv. Discount on companys products
v. Health benefits
vi. Company provide or Subsidized travel

7) Please mention any other factor that is worthwhile in your view but has not been asked in this
questionnaire.
Thank you!