System Analysis and Design 9th edition problem 9 “Every time we get consultants
ID: 3604679 • Letter: S
Question
System Analysis and Design 9th edition problem 9
“Every time we get consultants in here, they pass out some goofy questionnaire that has no meaning to us at all. Why don’t they bother to personalize it, at least a little?” asks Ray Dient, head of emergency systems. You are discussing the possibility of beginning a systems project with Pohattan Power Company (PPC) of Far Meltway, New Jersey.
a. What steps will you follow to customize a standardized questionnaire?
b. What are the advantages of adapting a questionnaire to a particular organization? What are the disadvantages?
Explanation / Answer
a) Steps to be followed for customising a questionnaire:
Even after achieving a standardized questionnaire that has all the required qualities , we should check whether it is suitable for our industry and satisfies our demands. In case we wish to customize the questionnaire, we should do in such a way that it does not hamper or affect in any way the qualities of a standardized questionnaire. It should still possess the required qualities, validity, sensitivity and reliability. We should follow the below steps before customising a questionnaire :
i) We should know or we should be very sure of what we are measuring.
ii) Make sure that the changes are necessary - Everytime we feel changes are needed for a questionnaire, we should not proceed just based on our opinion or a smaller group's opinion. We should gather responses from a larger cowd, analyze and examine them and then make sure whether it needs a change.
iii) We should always test the alternate solutions with the original ones. If we feel a change is necessary for a particular item or ot should be replaced , we should consider testing the new item with the original copy. If we feel the new item is better in terms of all the abve mentioned qualities, we should opt for the new item.
iv) We should correlate the changes. We should evaluate the correlation between the new changes and the original copy. High value of correlation indicates that the new changes and the original ones are almost similar . It suggests that since the new changes are almost similar to the original ones, it does not demand changing and the original copy is enough.
b) Advantages of adapting questionnaire :
Standardized questionnaires offer the below advantages :
i) validity - A questionnaire possesses this quality based on how well it can measure something which it is actually meant to measure. It is measured by comparing the scores of a particluar questionnaire to other available questionnaires.
ii) sensitivity - A questionnaire is said to possess this quality based on how well it is able to distinguish between good and bad.It should be able to detect even the smallest differences.
iii)reliability - It refers to the repeatability of the questionnaire or in other words, it is based on the consistency of responses received for the questions in the questionnaire
iv) Communication of results is easier if we have a standardized questionnaire. Just by knowing the score of an interface , we can understand the quality.
v) Some of the standardised questionnaires have other normalized databases as reference . So, it is an efficient method to compare how well our interface fits to a larger set of comparable items.
vi) Standardization helps in analysis and reporting to a more detailed level, which is far better than our judgement or judgement of a smaller group of participants.
Disadvantages :
i) People are likely to be dishonest while giving their responses. This might be to protect privacy or may be the users do not want to reveal their personal opinions.
ii) People might interpret or understand the questions in a different manner, which might , in turn, affect the results.
iii) It is diificult to analyze some kind of questions like open ended questions as these require the reviewal of individual answers compared to multiple choice questions which can be interpreted in the form of graphs or pie diagrams. This can be rectified by reducing the number of open ended questions.
iv) If the questions are too lengthy or complicated, people will have a tendency to just skip the question or give random answers without even reading the questions. It is better to keep the questionnaire short and simple.
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