Development And Analysis OF A Questionnaire Report Samples

Distribution Method

Questionnaires can be distributed using different methods of distribution. For example, they can be sent by post or via e-mail. Also, the questionnaire can be personally administered or questions can be asked using telephone. This questionnaire will be sent via e-mail because this method does not require a lot of time. Besides, it does not require many costs and can be distributed fast. Besides, this method allows for the development of the necessary level of anonymity (Kopp, Zinn, Finney and Jurich, 2011).
However, this method is characterized by low response rate and does not contribute to the development friendly relations with the respondents. Also, the detailed questions are not typically answered by the respondents if the questionnaires are sent via e-mail. As this method does not suggest answering complicated or detailed questions, the questions should be simple and well-thought so the respondents spend little time on answering them. The response rate can be increased by sending questionnaires to a larger number of potential respondents (Groves, 1987).

Critical Evaluation of the Questionnaire

The audience for the questionnaire are the customers using LRT trains to reach their destinations. Therefore, the questionnaires will be sent to the customers via e-mail to derive their opinions. The questions can be easily understood because they were simplified so the customers can understand them without any difficulties. The questions are not vague or precise and target common people. The questions are not biased and aim to reflect the target of the survey. The purpose of the questionnaire was explained to the potential respondents. The respondents are supposed to provide the information needed without any constraints. The questions are applicable to all respondents. The introduction and the first questions are designed in a way so not to putt off potential respondents. The first question is a general one so everybody can easily answer.
The questionnaire is divided into two parts: the first part relates personal data and the second part contains the initial questions related the issues that are interested for LRT company. The questions are built according to the company’s areas of interest: extension the system to outlying areas, running more trains, and updating the current stock used. The division between personal data and the questions helps distinguish between independent and dependent variables that makes statistical analysis easier (Groves, 1987). The questionnaire is attached in Appendix 1. The coding plan is attached in Appendix 2.
The questionnaire was developed according to the ethical norms. The customers were notified that their personal data will be used only for the purpose of the current survey. The purposes of the current survey were explained to the survey participants. At the end of the paper I placed a thankful note for those who agreed to participate in the survey. The testimonial note is supposed to contribute to the development of the relations with the customers (Groves, 1987).
There were three types of closed ended questions used in the questionnaire that was developed, namely: leading questions, importance questions, and Likert questions. Closed format question is a type of multiple choice questions where survey participants are restricted to choose among given answers. The main advantage of this type of questions is that this design of the questionnaire helps ease preliminary analysis. These questions are usually used for calculating statistical data and percentages (Kopp, Zinn, Finney and Jurich, 2011). Closed ended questions can be used for tracking customer opinion about a service over time. Leading questions force target audience to answer the questions in a particular way. These questions are meant getting an audience opinion in limited words thus making the process of questionnaire analysis easier. For example, this type of questions will help evaluate service quality provided by the Light Rail Transit (LRT). Importance questions are used to rate the importance of an issue using rating scale from 1 to 5. These questions help understand significance of the issues to the respondents thus allowing the company to make critical business-related decisions. These questions will help identify priorities among available choices. For example, choose between increasing the number of trains to either North or East direction. Also, importance questions will help prioritize between running more trains during morning or evening time. Likert questions help identify the strength of agreement or disagreement with certain statements. These questions help assess how the customers feel about certain issues or service aspects. For example, these questions will help assess reliability and safety or the services provided by LRT.
The questionnaire consists of standardized questions that the respondents should answer. The purpose of the questionnaire is to gather the information regarding satisfaction level of the customer using the services of LRT. The questions are related safety, reliability, and comfort of those who travel using the services of the LRT company. The current questionnaire consists of simple and meaningful questions. The well-designed questionnaire is supposed to generate worthwhile information and beneficial ideas. The questions are simple and relevant to the company goals. For example, LRT is willing to develop the strategic plan for the next 10 years that include the development of the new routes in the North and East directions, increasing the number of trains, and improving the schedule. Therefore, the questions relate the routs the respondents usually follow, the time and days they follow their routes, and the perceived service quality (reliability, cleanness, and safety during their traveling) (Groves, 1987).
Some of the questions contain supporting instructions for the potential respondents. The supporting instructions are supposed to generate better data quality and avoid uncertainty in evaluation of the results. For example, rating scale is explained to the respondents so they do not mix rating options.

Data Analysis and Research Design

Data set was analyzed with the help of descriptive analysis of differences using parametric analysis as the sample is greater than 30 individuals. One-sample t-test was chosen for analysis of the sample of 200 respondents. The typical customer was revealed using personal characteristics provided the customers. The questionnaires were distributed across adult current service users. The following aspects of services provided by LRT were analyzed: safety, value, cleanness, reliability, and overall satisfaction. Data was analyzed with the help of Excel functions. The results of statistical analysis were presented in the tables and graphs.

There were four hypotheses developed in the course of the current research:

• Safety on the system varies by gender;
• Safety on the system varies by the time of the day when travel takes place;
• The day of the week when travel take place is linked to time of travel;
• Travel time is linked to the number of people traveling together;
• The level of overall satisfaction varies according to the type of ticket used;
• The level of overall satisfaction varies according to the time of the day when travel takes place;
• Overall satisfaction varies by high scores of safety, value, cleanness, and reliability;
• Overall satisfaction varies by low scores of safety, value, cleanness, and reliability.
Findings
i) Statistical analysis showed that the typical traveler on the system is female traveling alone from Monday to Friday mostly during the evening time, using monthly pass. As it can be seen from the Table 1, 57.0% of travelers are female. Besides, 41.5% of the respondents answered that they traveled alone. Roughly 26.0% of the travelers prefer to travel with somebody (two people). The number of people using LRT trains from Monday to Friday made up 65.5% of total travelers. Approximately one-third of all travelers surveyed use the trains during weekend time. Interestingly, 47.5% of travelers use the trains in the evening time, but only 22.5% travel in the morning. Thus, the peak hours are from 4:30 PM till 9:00 PM. Roughly one-third of the travelers spend 20-30 minutes to reach the destination. Also, 31.0% of the respondents have relatively shorter traveling that lasts 10-20 minutes. Approximately 27.0% of the travelers spend 31-40 minutes to travel. Therefore, for the absolute majority of the users of LRT trains traveling time made up more than 10 minutes (long distance).
ii) As it can be seen from statistics summary, few people feel very safe, safe, and not at all safe (those people who assigned the ranks of 10, 9 and 1 respectively). The percentage of these people made up 7.5% in total. The central tendency is that people tend to assign a rank of 5 meaning that they feel safe enough when traveling: 21.5% of the respondents assigned the rank of 5 to safety of traveling. Roughly 70.0% of the travelers assigned the rank of 5 and lower to travel safety that is a warning sign. Only 30% of the customers consider traveling safe (Table 1).
Obviously, the perception of safety on the system varies by gender and by the time of the day. Low level of safety perceived is connected with the fact that the majority of the travelers are women traveling during the evening time (Table 1).
iii) There is a strong correlation between afternoon and evening time of traveling during week days (Monday to Friday). The majority of the respondents use the trains during the evening time from Monday to Friday. Interestingly, the morning flow of travelers is half as large as the evening flow. It may mean that the respondents are using the trains visit their relatives or friends during the weekend and then return back in the evening time. The correlation between travel time and number of people traveling is weak meaning that travel time does not depend on the number of people traveling. It means that the purposes of traveling are different (Table 1).
The major travels (roughly one-third) are performed by one person and the duration of the travel is long (more than 20 minutes). Approximately 42.0% of the respondents had long travels with family or friends. The percentage of the travels when two people traveled fast is very low (4.5%). A significant percentage is assigned to single travelers having short trips (16.5%).
iv) Overall satisfaction level with the services provided by LRT varies from 3 to 10. No respondents assigned the rank of 1 to overall satisfaction and 1% of the respondents assigned a rank of 2 to overall satisfaction. Only 12% of the people surveyed evaluated overall satisfaction with the services from 2 to 4 meaning that the services are poor or somewhat satisfactory. The rest 78% of the respondents evaluated the services as good “enough”, “relatively good", “satisfactory”, “good”, “very good”, and “excellent by assigning the rank of 5 and higher. The ranks of 8, 9, and 10 can be described as exceptional services. Roughly one-third (29%) of the respondents stated that the services were exceptional. Upper-middle rankings made up 49% meaning that the services provided by LRT are perceived by the customers as “satisfactory” and “good enough”.
The majority of the respondents prefer to buy either weekly or monthly or annual pass. The number of the respondents in these three groups of the customer presents 83.5% of the sample. More than one-third of the customers – 32.5% - buy monthly pass. The number of the respondents buying weekly and annual pass is almost equal – 26.5% and 24.5% respectively. The percentage of those using either single-return tickets or free pass for retired is less than 10 (9 and 7.5% respectively).
The level of satisfaction does not vary according to the type of the ticket: the levels of satisfaction were proportionally distributed with respect to the types of the tickets. For example, the majority of the customers prefer to use monthly pass and the level of satisfaction is the highest in this group. Surprisingly, the level of overall dissatisfaction is relatively low: the percentage of dissatisfied customers does not exceed the value of 6.5. The lowest level of dissatisfaction is observed in the groups of those who bought single pass or had free pass for retired people.
The same conclusions can be drawn regarding the links between the level of overall satisfaction and the time of travel. The level of dissatisfaction is proportional to the total number of the travelers that travel during certain time of the day. Typically, the level of dissatisfaction constitutes one-fourth of all people in a group. For example, among 77 travelers that traveled during the evening time, 18 are not satisfied with the trip conditions. However, the highest level of dissatisfaction can be observed among the respondents that traveled late evening: more than one-half of the travelers were not satisfied with travel conditions.
The first regression model showed that the more factors coincide in certain assessment, the higher is the score for overall satisfaction. If the parameters of safety, value, cleanness, and reliability are equal to 4,5,6,7 and 10 respectively, the level of overall satisfaction is not lower than 5. The highest level of correlation was revealed between reliability and overall satisfaction: the higher the level of service reliability the higher scores for overall satisfaction are revealed. The second strongest correlation was reveled between value and overall satisfaction: the higher the rating for value satisfaction, the higher overall satisfaction. The weakest correlation was revealed between safety and overall satisfaction, cleanness and overall satisfaction.
The second regression model supported the conclusions drawn in the first regression: there is strong correlation between value and overall satisfaction, reliability and overall satisfaction. The rating of overall satisfaction weakly correlates with cleanness and safety. Therefore, LRT should emphasize the improvement of schedule connected with service reliability and the perceived and real value for the customers.

Managerial Implications

The survey analysis revealed that the customers tend to pay more attention to value and reliability of the services provided to them. Having this in mind, updating the current old stock used on the system is not necessary to do in the near future. Old trains can serve the customers during the next 10 years since the customers pay little attention to comfort during their trips. Besides, the trips do not last more than 40 minutes. Therefore, the issue of comfort is not acute.
Reliability of the services is a crucial factor for overall satisfaction of the customers. However, 39% of the customers assigned the ranks from 3 to 5 for reliability of the services. It means that the services provided by LRT are not very reliable. This problem may lead to losing customers and profit reduction. Therefore, the company should reconsider existing schedule and run more trains during the peak time.
Another problem is value perception by the customers: roughly 48% of the customers assigned the ranks from 2 to 5 to the value. It means that almost one-half of the customers using the services of LRT are not satisfied with the value provided to them. Therefore, the company should reconsider its pricing policy and offer more services for money paid by its customers. However, further research is needed in this area.
LRT would definitely benefit from improving the services during evenings from Monday to Friday since the majority of the customers used to travel during this time: 47.5% of the customers travel during the evening time from 16:30 PM to 9 PM. Thus, it is necessary to run more trains during the peak times.
As the customers specified service reliability and value the main factors influencing overall satisfaction, the schedule of the trains must be improved according to the customers’ needs. However, another survey is needed to reveal whether the customers need more trains to serve in the night time. Also, LRT may earn extra money if it offers special night prices for the tickets with a discount added to regular passes. Similarly to this offer, LRT could offer the discounted prices for morning and weekend travelers. It may cause untimely depreciation of existing stock, but the company can earn money for its updating faster.

Appendix 1 Questionnaire

Questionnaire
The current survey is initiated to improve the service provided by Light Travel Transit. The questionnaire consists of 14 short simple questions. Therefore, answering the questions will take 5-10 minutes of your time. Your personal data will be only used for the current survey.
Personal Data
Please, specify your age
10-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
More than 60
Please, specify your gender
Male
Female
Please, specify your family status
Single
Married
Separated
Please, specify your income level
Up to $10,000
$10,000-$20,000
$30,000-$40,000
$40,000-$50,000
$50,000-$60,000
More than $60,000
Questions
How often do you travel the North part of the city?
1-2 times a week
3-4 times a week
5-7 times a week
How often do you travel the East part of the city?
1-2 times a week
3-4 times a week
5-7 times a week
What days of week do you usually travel these directions?
Weekend
What time do you usually travel?
Morning
Afternoon
Evening
Late evening
If several trains are added to existing routes, what time do you think would be better to travel?
How many people do usually travel with you?
1-2
3-4
5-6
More than 6
Traveling by train is safe. Please, rate your answer according to the following: 1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree (tick square that comply):
Trains are clean. Please, rate your answer according to the following: 1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree (tick square that comply):
Thank you for taking time and participating in our survey. Your opinion is very important for us. It will help us improve our services and better satisfy your needs.
Appendix 2 Coding Plan
The ID number of the respondents will be recorded as 1 to 50 inclusive;
Gender of the respondents (1-male, 2-female)
Frequency of traveling is recorded in real numbers;
Day of the week (0-Week Days, 1-Weekend);
Time of day (1-morning, 2-afternoon, 3-evening, 4-late evening);
Rating for density of travel routs (1-not at all dense, 10-very dense);
The number of people traveling together is recorder in real numbers;
Rating for safety (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree);
Rating for cleanness of the system (1-very dirty, 10-very clean);
Rating for reliability of the system (1-not at all reliable, 10-very reliable).
References
Groves, R. M. (1987). Research on survey data quality. Public Opinion Quarterly, 51(4), pp.
156-172.
Kopp, J.P., Zinn, T.E., Finney, S.J. and Jurich, D.P. (2011). Measurement and evaluation in
counseling and development. Sage Journals, 44(2), pp. 105-129. doi: 10.1177/0748175611400292