Research Methodology: A Survey

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A survey/ex post facto design was used in this research. Survey research is a study designed to determine the incidence, frequency, and distribution of certain characteristics in a population. It is especially common in business, sociology, and government research. Ex post facto refers to an approach in which conditions that have already occurred are considered and then data collected to investigate a possible relationship between these conditions and subsequent characteristics or behaviours.

Before this final report I split this study into four parts. Phase one consisted of identifying a research problem, drawing up a list of people who will assist with the research, explaining why this specific problem was chosen, explaining why the research will serve a purpose, looking for literature and compiling a list of interviewees.

Then in the second phase I proceeded to read through literature, watch the series and make notes. Once this was complete an interview schedule was drawn up, interviews were arranged and conducted, and I then had to reflect on the interview process and record the results.

Respondents are selected because they are accessible and articulate. The advantage of using sampling in this type of research is that it saves time and simplifies the process. It is easier to study a representative sample of a population than to study the entire population. Whilst studying an entire population can be time-consuming, especially if the population is large or distributed over a large geographical area. The non-probability sampling method seemed the most appropriate as students were invited to participate in the research by completing a survey questionnaire anonymously. They were asked to voluntarily complete the questionnaire.

The questionnaires were an advantageous aspect of collecting data, because they allowed me to cover more questions than the interviews in a shorter period of time. I did not have to be present when respondents filled the questionnaires, as some took them home and returned them to me at a later stage. My questionnaire was simple and straight to the point. It contained various multiple-choice questions, which allowed respondents to express their opinions by marking the relevant answers. The multiple-choice questions also made it easy for me to classify and tally results whilst collecting

Chapter 4 presents the findings obtained from the questionnaires distributed. The questionnaire created was to investigate more on the views of the Game of Thrones audience.

To make sense of the data obtained from the questionnaire, it is important to first summarise the data (Struwig & Stead, 2001). By following certain procedures, the data is first coded and then entered on a spread sheet or a database file.

This chapter consists a number of tables and graphs formulated to display the results of the data collected throughout the research.

4.2.1 Biographical Data

The biographical data included sex, age, income, and highest level of education. The sample group was equally split in half with 87 female participants and 88 male participants.

It was necessary for all the participants to be youth, so all respondents had to be over the age of 16, but under the age of 35 for this research to be valid and accurate. Majority of my sample were students, so 50% of the respondents earn between R1000 and R2999. 33% of respondents earn over R5000 and the remaining 17% earn under R1000 a