CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research means a search for knowledge. It refers to scientific and

systematic research pertinent information on a specific topic. Research methodology is a
way to systematically solve the problem. In this the researcher studies about the various
steps that are generally adopted in studying is research problem along with logic behind
them. Research methodology has many dimensions and research methods to constitute
the part of the research methodology. It is necessary for the researcher to know not only
the research methods/techniques, but also the methodology.

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

A research design is purely and simply the framework or plan for a study that
guides the collection and analysis of data. It is a blue print that is followed in completing
a study.
Descriptive Research Design
Descriptive research design includes surveys and fact findings, enquires of
different kinds. The major purpose of Descriptive research is description of state of
affairs, as it exists at present. In social business research we quiet often use the term Ex
post facto research for descriptive studies. The main characteristic of this method is that
the researcher has no control over the variable; he can only report what has happened or
what is happening. Most Ex post facto research projects are used for descriptive studies
in which the researcher seeks to measure such items, for example, frequency of shopping,
and consumer preferences on products or services. When the researcher is interested in
knowing the characteristics of certain groups such as age, occupation, experience etc, a
descriptive study is necessary. Hence the researcher has chosen descriptive research
method for the study.
3.2 SAMPLING METHODOLOGY

a) Population:
The study of various characteristics relating to items \ individual belong to a particular
group is called as population. The population of the study consists of the different
consumers like self employed, Businessmen, Students and professional having
banqueting at Palmshore multi cuisine BBQ restaurant in Chennai city.
b) Sampling frame:
The frame describes the population in terms of sampling units. Samples are
drawn from lists are called as sources lists \ sampling frames. The source list of existing
consumers visiting Palmshore multi cuisine BBQ restaurant in Chennai city.

c) Sampling Unit:
It is a set of elements considered for selecting a sample. In this research, we have
taken survey from consumers visiting Palmshore multi cuisine BBQ restaurant in
Chennai city.
d) Sampling Method/ Technique:
The sampling technique used was non-probability sampling method is
adopted in this study. It refers to the technique where the probability of each cases being
selected from the total population is known.
Convenience sampling:
The sample comprises subjects who are simply available in a convenient way to
the researcher. It is also called as chunk.

e) Sample Size: A total of 145 respondents were chosen for the study.

3.3 DETERMINATION OF SAMPLE SIZE USING THE FORMULA:

To determine a representative sample size from the target population, different
strategies can be used according to the necessity of the research work. Use of various
formulae for determination of required sample sizes under different situations is one of
the most important strategies.
There are two approaches to sample size calculations:
a. Estimating the sample size based on proportion
b. Estimating the sample size based on Standard deviation
Formula for proportions:
Cochran (1977) developed a formula to calculate a representative
sample for proportions as
Z 2  P (1  P )
n
d2
where
n = Sample Size
Z = Z Statistic for a level of confidence
P = Expected prevalence or Proportion (p is 10%)
d = Acceptable Amount of Sampling Error is 5%

n = (1.96)2 * 0.6 * (1-0.6)

(0.07)2
= 3.8416 * 0.6 * 0.4
0.0064

= 0.921984/0.0064

n =145 sample size

3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHODS

 Primary Data
Primary data are generated by a study specifically designed to
accommodate the needs of the problem at hand. The methods used were direct survey
from the Consumer visiting Palmshore multi cuisine BBQ restaurant in Chennai city.
 Secondary Data
Secondary data are those, which are not collected specifically for solving
the problem currently being investigated. Here secondary data were collected from the
records available in the company website, books, journals and through the internet.
3.5 DATA COLLECTION RESEARCH INSTRUMENT:
Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and

other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. It is a device
for securing answers to questions by using a form which the respondent fills by himself.
In this method, pre-printed list of questions arranged in a sequence which is used by the
researcher for collecting data. The questionnaire schedule is filled by the respondents.
The questionnaire is considered as the heart of the survey. Hence it should be very
carefully constructed. If it is not properly set up, then survey is bound to fail. By keeping
the objective set as base a list of questions are framed consisting of open-ended,
dichotomous, ranking and multiple choice questions.

3.6 PILOT STUDY:

The term 'pilot studies' refers to mini versions of a full-scale study (also called 'feasibility'
studies), as well as the specific pre-testing of a particular research instrument such as a
questionnaire or interview schedule. A pilot study consists of 10 sample size were carried
out which shows the research instrument is found to be more reliability and validity.
. Reasons for conducting pilot studies
 Developing and testing adequacy of research instruments
 Assessing the feasibility of a (full-scale) study/survey
 Identifying logistical problems which might occur using proposed methods
 Estimating variability in outcomes to help determining sample size
 Collecting preliminary data from friends, relatives and neighbor.
3.7 HYPOTHESIS & STATISTICAL TOOLS
Hypothesis 1: There is no association between the overall satisfaction towards
servicescape of Palmshore BBQ Restaurant and occupation of the consumers.

Hypothesis 2: There is no association between the frequency of visiting Palmshore

BBQ Restaurant and marital status of the consumers.

Hypothesis 3: There is no significant difference between consumer loyalty towards

Palmshore BBQ Restaurant and their gender class.

Hypothesis 4: There is no significant difference between their perception towards

servicescape dimension of Palmshore BBQ Restaurant and age group of the
consumers.

Statistical Tools:
1. PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS
2. RELIABILITY TEST
3. CHI SQUARE ANALYSIS
4. ONE WAY ANOVA ANALYSIS
5. MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS
6. MANN WHITNEY / U-TEST
3.7.1 PERCENTAGE (%) ANALYSIS
% refers to a special kind of ratio. % is used in making comparison
between two or more serried of data, % are used to describe relationship. It can be used to
compare the relative terms, the distribution of two or more series of data.
% of Respondents = (No. of respondents/Total) * 100
3.7.2 RELIABILITY TEST
It refers to the degree to which a test is consistent and stable in measuring what it is
intended to measure. Cronbach’s alpha is a measure used to assess the reliability, or
internal consistency, of a set of scale or test items. Reliability tests, like Cronbach’s alpha,
are most commonly used to see if questionnaires with multiple scale questions are
reliable. These questions are designed to measure latent variables. A latent variable is a
hidden or unobservable variable, like a person’s conscientiousness, neurosis or openness

3.7.3 CHI – SQUARE ANALYSIS

The objective of the chi-square test is to determine whether real of significant differences
exist among the various groups. Chi-square rest involves comparison of expected
frequency (Ei) with observed frequency (Oi).

To determine whether the difference between the two in greater than which might occur
by chance.

There are 5 steps in using chi-square test.

1. The difference between each observed frequency and each expected frequency is
computed.

2. The differences are squared.

3. Each squared difference is divided by its respective expected frequency.

4. Their quotient is added together to obtain the computed chi-square.

5. This computed value is then compared to tabulated chi-square.

If the computed X2 values are greater then the tabulate X2 values at the predetermined
level of significance and degree of freedom, the hypothesis rejected.On the other hand if
calculated X2 value is less the tabulated values, the hypothesis is accepted.

The formula is

X2 = [(O-E) 2] / E

Where,

X2 = Chi-square

O = Observed frequency

E = Expected frequency

3.7.4 ONE WAY ANOVA ANALYSIS

For managerial decision making, sometimes one has to carry out tests of significance.
The analysis of variance is an effective tool for this purpose. The objective of ANOVA is
to test the homogeneity of the means of different samples. A one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) is used when you have a categorical independent variable (with two or more
categories) and a normally distributed interval dependent variable and you wish to test for
differences in the means of the dependent variable broken down by the levels of the
independent variable.

Calculating F

The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to determine whether there are any
significant differences between the means of three or more independent groups, also
called treatments. ANOVA compares the means between the groups and determines
whether any of the means are significantly different from each other. The term “analysis
of variance” is a bit of a misnomer. In ANOVA we use variance-like quantities to study
the equality or non-equality of population means. So we are analyzing means, not
variances.
3.7.5 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS
It is a powerful technique used for predicting the unknown value of a variable from the
known value of two or more variables- also called the predictors. It is a flexible method
that may be appropriate whenever a dependent variable is to be examined in relationship
to any other independent variable. The purpose of multiple regressions is to analyze the
relationship between metric or dichotomous independent variables and a metric
dependent variable.  A multiple regression equation for predicting Y can be expressed a
follows: (1) Y'  A B1X1  B2X2  B3X3
Where Y1 = Dependent variable
X1, X2 = Independent variable and A, B1, B2 = constant
3.7.6 MANN WHITNEY / U-TEST
The Mann-Whitney test, also called the rank sum test, is a nonparametric test that
compares two unpaired groups. To perform the Mann-Whitney test, Prism first ranks all
the values from low to high, paying no attention to which group each value belongs. If
two values are the same, then they both get the average of the two ranks for which they
tie. The smallest number gets a rank of 1. The largest number gets a rank of N, where N is
the total number of values in the two groups. Prism then sums the ranks in each group,
and reports the two sums. If the sums of the ranks are very different, the P value will be
small.

FORMULA:
Where,

n1, n2 = number of samples of the two categories

R1, R2 = summations of ranks of the two categories

mu = mean

σ = standard deviation

FRIEDMAN’S TEST

The Friedman test is a non-parametric statistical test developed by Milton Friedman. It is

similar to the parametric repeated measures ANOVA; it is used to detect differences in
treatments across multiple test attempts. It is used to test the differences between the
groups especially when the dependent variable is being measured is ordinal. A continuous
data that has violated the necessary assumptions to run one-way ANNOVA with repeated
measures can also use this test. The following assumptions have to be made while using
Friedman test • Group is a random sample form the population • Dependent variable
should be measured at the ordinal or continuous level. • Samples should not be normally
distributed .For the data collected in the rank form and to test the ranking given by the
respondents across groups, Friedman test is used. As the groups and the number of
respondents are becoming larger, the hypothesis testing of Friedman’s test can be used.

KENDALL’S W TEST

Kendall's coefficient of concordance is a non-parametric statistic. It is a normalization of

the statistic of the Friedman test, and can be used for assessing agreement among raters.
Kendall's W value ranges from 0 that is no agreement to 1 that is complete agreement.
Suppose, for instance, that a number of people have been asked to rank a list of political
concerns, from most important to least important. Kendall's W can be calculated from
these data. If the test statistic W is 1, then all the survey respondents have been
unanimous, and each respondent has assigned the same order to the list of concerns. If W
is 0, then there is no overall trend of agreement among the respondents, and their
responses may be regarded as essentially random. Intermediate values of W indicate a
greater or lesser degree of unanimity among the various responses

Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, represented by the symbol W, is an important non-

parametric measure of relationship. It is used for determining the degree of association
among several (k) sets of ranking of N objects or individuals. In other words Kendall’s
coefficient of concordance for ranking (W) calculates agreements between 3 or more
rankers as they rank a number of subjects according to a particular characteristics.
Kendall’s coefficient of concordance is used to test whether there is any agreement
between respondents’ ranking in terms of their objectives in managing risk.

Kendall’s W test It is one of the non-parametric tests among the several. The objective of
this technique is to find out ranking hierarchically. This rank helps to identify foremost
attribute on adoption of M-Banking among the others Example: The above tool is applied
to find out the primary reasons for usage of M-Banking and reasons (perceived obstacles)
of the non-usage of M-Banking technology-enabled financial information of the
customers. The collected primary data on Five-point scale in the form of Likert method
like, strongly agree is scored five, agree is scored four, neither agree nor disagree is
scored three, disagree is scored two and strongly disagree is one.Based on this technique,
frequency of each opinion towards variables of the customers multiplied to its
representative score. This is followed by total score is find out each variable. Further,
weighted average (WA) is computed through the following formula WA=Total score of
each variable/No. of respondents

3.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

 Time constraints has prohibited from going depth in to the subjects

 The information obtained or the collection of data is limited

 The inexperience makes analysis less precise compared to professional analysis

 Only the customers of 145 considered as respondents

 The geographical limit of the study was restricted to Chennai.

  Since the study was conducted during a particular period, the outcome may not
reflect the dynamic nature of level of satisfaction and the sample size was also
limited.

 All the findings and observations made in this study are purely based on the
respondents’ opinion and therefore there is a possibility for personal bias.

PEARSONS CORRELATION ANALYSIS

The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson’s correlation, for short) is a

measure of the strength and direction of association that exists between two variables
measured on at least an interval scale. Pearson’s correlation coefficient is a statistical
measure of the strength of a linear relationship between paired data. In a sample it is
denoted by r and is by design constrained as follows

 Positive values denote positive linear correlation;

 Negative values denote negative linear correlation;

 The closer the value is to 1 or –1, the stronger the linear correlation.

4 KRUSKAL-WALLIS TEST/ H-TEST :

The Kruskal-Wallis test is a nonparametric test that compares three or more unpaired
groups. To perform the Kruskal-Wallis test, Prism first ranks all the values from low to
high, disregarding which group each value belongs if two values are the same, then they
both get the average of the two ranks for which they tie. The smallest number gets a rank
of 1. The largest number gets a rank of N, where N is the total number of values in all the
groups. Prism then sums the ranks in each group, and reports the sums. If the sums of the
ranks are very different, the P value will be small.

FORMULA:

Where,

n = number of samples

ni = number of samples of the ith category

Ri = summation of ranks of ith category