Research Methodology
The research design of this study is introduced in this chapter. Three surveys are to be conducted for realization of the research aims. This chapter also presents the three types of questionnaires to be used in this study for the three surveys relating t
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Research Methodology
Abstract The research design of this study is introduced in this chapter. Three surveys are to be conducted for realization of the research aims. This chapter also presents the three types of questionnaires to be used in this study for the three surveys relating to SERVQUAL, the Kano model and QFD, respectively. Convenience sampling and face-to-face questionnaire administration are used in this study for data collection purpose. The findings from the pilot study are incorporated in the questionnaire design with corresponding changes to the attributes and their sequence. Data analysis methods for the three questionnaire surveys are also discussed in this chapter.
5.1 Research Design The research design is the “blueprint” for testing the research hypothesis or interpreting events (Tan 2012). A research design should fulfil two objectives; the first is to conceptualise an operational plan and undertake various procedures and tasks required to complete the study; the second is to ensure that these procedures are adequate to obtain answers to the research questions (Kumar 2011). Research designs include case study, survey, experiment and regression. Typically one design is dominant (Tan 2012). According to Tan (2012), case studies are used to test theories, explore the ground and offer new insights or interpretations by investigating a particular unit or entity or phenomenon; surveys are used to explore particular issues, describe phenomenon, determine preferences and ascertain reasons by collecting data based on a sample; experiments are used if possibility exists for manipulating the variables to determine the cause and effect relationship; regressions are used to determine if the independent variables have an effect on the dependent variables.
© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 L. Sui Pheng and Z. Rui, Service Quality for Facilities Management in Hospitals, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0956-3_5
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5 Research Methodology
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As stated in Chap. 1, this study addresses three research problems: (1) What are the service gaps in hospital FM in Singapore? (2) What are the categorisations of hospital FM service attributes? (3) How can hospitals close the service gaps in their FM services? Accordingly, there are three research objectives: (1) Identify service gaps and measure service quality of hospital FM in Singapore. (2) Categorise the FM service attributes. (3) Suggest effective ways to close the hospital FM service gaps. Thus, patients’ opinions about the service quality of hospital FM should be sought; the general public’s ideas regarding the classification of FM service attributes should be obtained; and facilities managers’ views on closing the service gaps are also required. This study is not focused on a specific hospital, so the case study design is not applicable. Experiment and regression cannot solve the research problems here; thus they are also not applicable to this study. The survey design provides a quick and efficient way to obtain data to answer the research questions
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