As I am a leader of the company, I should make a decision on whether the company will start a new initiative. In order to make an informed decision, I am going to perform some research. I have a list of 2700 employees in the company and I have to select 30 participants for the given study. I am going to use the systematic sampling method to make the right choice. Systematic sampling is a simple and convenient technique used to select a random list. The method can be generalized to include the schemes of systematic sampling with probability, proportional to an auxiliary variable . The systematic sampling method typically includes a fixed point selection in the larger group of people and getting the subsequent choice by using a constant interval between samples (in our case, employees). Hence, the total number of employees is 2700, a systematic sampling of 30 employees within the overall number would involve taking every 90th person. Having a list of all employees, I will choose every 90th.

There are fewer male employees in the company. In order to make sure that these male employees are equally represented in the study, I will use the random sampling procedures. Hence, every person in the list has equal chances to be a part of the sample. The selected male employees will be given surveys. The provided survey will aim to reveal their attitude towards the possible new initiative. However, there may be some threats to the internal validity of this design, meaning that factors outside of the study could account for the evaluation results. First of all, survey participants selected for the study may have different characteristics. Another threat is that different participant proportions may drop out from the control groups. In addition, some aspects of the evaluation survey may change between pre- and posttest. Sometimes the validity may be threatened due to the number of surveys the participant has taken part in. The survey itself may add to the participant’s knowledge or change his attitudes. Finally, the participant may provide unreliable information.

The survey results indicated that employees have mixed attitudes towards the new initiative. To be on the safe side, I would like to run a pilot study to examine the impact of the new initiative on employees’ productivity. A pilot study will help to get a clearer idea of what participants want to know and how they can best find out this information without the additional efforts and expenses. I will start with the qualitative data collection and analysis of the topic. Then, a subsequent quantitative study phase will be designed using the results . The pilot study will include several phases. Hence, the first phase might involve the use of in-depth interviews or focus groups to address research questions in a large-scale survey. The next phase will be a questionnaire and a final pilot could test the research process.

To analyze the quantitative data I have collected from the pilot study to address the research question, I have followed a certain statistical procedure. Analyzing the quantitative data involves examining it to reveal patterns, trends and more. It may also provide accurate information to get a better understanding of the new initiative and the overall situation. I will transform the data into numbers which will be mathematically analyzed. I will tabulate the results in the data set. I will do it by constructing frequency (the number tabulation) and percent distributions (the participant proportion).  

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