A Qualitative Exploration Case Study of Obesity and Weight management amongst Professional African American women in Austin Texas
by
Libby Dunbar
A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Health Administration
UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX
March 11, 2016
Chapter 2
Table of Contents
Potential data collection tools and techniques. 2
Selected data collection tool 2
Description of data collection Tool 3
Problem Statement
The problem which is studied by the researcher is as follows:
Research Question: What are the various factors that affect responsible for obesity among the African American teachers who suffer from overweight identification in an Austin suburb?
Potential data collection tools and techniques
Following section will aim to elucidate the various steps that were followed in order to carry out the primary research to find out the answers to the research question and enable the researcher to carry out further analysis to frame the informed recommendations. The study will involve field study because the participants are supposed to answer in the actual setting which is not modified for the sake of carrying out the observations particularly to study the factors that play an important role in this research (Bogdan, 1975).
Selected data collection tool
Multiple choice questions have been used throughout the survey because they are easy to understand and are very convenient to answer. Also, when a respondent is asked an open ended question which needs to be answered in his own words, it takes more time and hence respondents get bored along with wastage of time. Multiple choice questions also provide a channel for thoughts and hence make the context clearer to the respondent. The number of scale items selected for the survey is five out of ten because they are used to balance the questions which are just one best option multiple choice questions. The survey cannot be just filled with all the items having scale because it will be time consuming and certain items do not require to be measured according to the scale (Gregory, 2003).
Description of data collection Tool
The questionnaire has used the questions based on the scales which are mixture of Nominal and Ordinal. Most of the questions have multiple choice questions with one best possible answer. The survey is based on the opinion of the respondents and thus has to have the subjective terms rather than quantifiable attributes. Thus most of the questions are ranking, rating or opinion based. The questions are well balanced in their scale which range from subjective ratings to ranking and Likert scale. This is done to break the monotonous nature of the survey and to make it more attractive.
The scale points used in the survey are miscellaneous depending upon how best the attribute can be measured. This is done to make sure that the respondent has enough time to think and answer and not just mark any choice. The scale points used for four questions are 4 and for one question it is 5 point Likert scale. The suitability of the scale points is the best criteria used to measure that attribute. For example, in order to know how exactly the consumers think about the health attribute of the brand, they have been asked opinion question rather than closed ended questions with multiple choice (Grant, 2013).
Data
The sample collected for the questionnaire was from the 50 respondents and is given below:
| 1 | How often do you have breakfast? | ||||||
| Everyday | Occasionally | ||||||
| Never | Do not like them | ||||||
| 2 | What often do you exercise? | ||||||
| Everyday | Occasionally | ||||||
| Never | Once in a week | ||||||
| 3 | What is your BMI? | ||||||
| 19-20 | 21-24 | ||||||
| 25-27 | 28-30 | ||||||
| 4 | What according to you is the major factor that affects leads to obesity? | ||||||
| Diet | Lifestyle | ||||||
| Genetics | Health problems | ||||||
| 6 | What could be the reason of African American women suffering more from obesity than an average citizen? | ||||||
| Unhealthy lifestyle | Lack of heathy food | ||||||
| Socio-economic status | Genetic predisposition | ||||||
| 7 | What according to you can be the suggestion to reduce cases of obesity among African American women? | ||||||
| Access to organic and fresh produce | Avenues for exercise | ||||||
| Regular health checkups to rule out health problems | Balanced lifestyle | ||||||
| 8 | What according to you is the role of genetics in obesity of Africa American women | ||||||
| No role | Moderate role | ||||||
| Decisive role | Influenced by lifestyle choices | ||||||
Data Analysis
The data type used for the survey will be a mix of nominal and ordinal data. For the questions which have multiple choice answers, it will be nominal data and for the rating and ranking questions it will be ordinal data. Both the data types have their own importance and suitability regarding the features to be measured. The data type which will be generated from the survey questions will be as follows:
| Typical Survey
Question Type |
Data Type |
| 1 to 4 Scale | Interval |
| Rank Ordering | Ordinal |
| Select all that apply | Nominal or categorical |
| Likert Scale | Interval |
References
Bogdan, R.C. and Taylor, S.J. (2005), Introduction to qualitative research methods: A phenomenological approach to the social sciences, Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Bryman, A. (1989) Research Methods and Organization Studies, Unwin Hyman, London.
Grant, R. M. (2013) Contemporary Strategy Analysis – Text and Cases (8th ed.) Oxford: Blackwell.
Gregory G. Dess, G. T. Tom Lumpkin, Marilyn L. Taylor, (2003) Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages
Johnson, Gerry; Scholes, Kevan; and Whittington, Richard (2005) Exploring Corporate Strategy Seventh edition Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education. Print ISBN 0 273 68734 4.
Taylor, S.J. and Bogdan, R. (1984) Introduction to qualitative research methods: The search for meanings, John Wiley, New York.