Data Collection
Veronica Rodriguez, Christopher Nieto Vanessa Monge, Rocio Valenzuela
QNT/351
March 24, 2014
Victor Ornelas

Data Collection
Present the BIMS situation as an overview—problem, purpose, research questions, and hypotheses.
Problem: Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS) has questions in the past months why the turnover over employment has increased drastically.
Purpose: BIMS typically experience an annual turnover rate of 55 to 60%, this is common for the industry in general. However, the company’s’ turnover has increased in the past 4 months and it has climbed to over 64%. Managers and supervisors do not understand why the turnover rate has increased and to all management this remains a puzzle. (University of Phoenix, 2014).
Research questions:
BIMS Employee Survey
Using the scale provided, record your answer by circling the number that is closest to your view where 5 is a very positive response and 1 is a very negative choice.

Very Negative Very Positive 1. How well do you enjoy working for BIMS? 2. You enjoy your assigned shift. 3. Your request for your desired shift was fulfilled. 4. How many times have you called in sick in the last month? 5. You are well trained for your work. 6. You are paid fairly for the work you do. 7. Your supervisor treats you fairly. 8. Your supervisor’s boss treats your division fairly. 9. The company is good at communicating. 10. You do not fear that you will lose your job. A. In which division do you work? B. How long have you worked for BIMS? C. What is your gender? D. Are you a manager or supervisor? | 1 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 5Food: _ Housekeeping: _ Maintenance: _Years: _____ Months: _____Female: _____ Male: _____Yes: _____ No: _____ |
(University of Phoenix, 2014).
Hypothesis:
The hypothesis for this survey is to be able to analyze the reason why employees are leaving the company. As an employer it is very important to understand why our employees leave the company and if there is anything that we can do to accommodate them.
Describe the instrument used for data collection.
Debbie Horner, the HR manager of one of the divisions has developed an employee survey instrument that will help the organization find the root cause of their problem. The survey incorporates ten different questions related to shift hours, working conditions, job security, and training quality. The second part of the survey is composed of four questions related to gender, division worked on, years worked at BIMS, and if the employee is a manager or supervisor. The data collected on the employee survey is quantitative and qualitative. Questions 1-10 and B are quantitative data due to numbers being collected. Questions A, C, and D are both, due to employees answers being qualitative but then recorded by Sally as quantitative. For example, question C asked “What is your gender?” The employee answer is either male or female, but on Exhibit B the answer is recorded as either number 1 or 2. As stated earlier, the survey was send two weeks ago with the employee paycheck. Each survey is send to Sally after being completed. The data given to her is then recorded as quantitative, plus a zero for any missing answers.

Level of measurement for each of the variables
The BIMS survey involved ten specific questions from appendix A, and then 5 subsequent questions to help divide the demographics of the answers of the first ten questions. The variables and levels of measurement used for these variables used to help find why the level of employee morale is so low. The first ten questions have an answer scale of 1-5. This scale is an ordinal level of measurement. The numbers are not answers, but rather used as levels of importance. Since the variable is measured by this scale, the level of measurement used is ordinal. Different levels of measurement call for different statistical techniques.
Questions A., C., and D., are the nominal level of measurement. These questions can be asked in any order, and are qualitative data. They simply ask the employees to categorize themselves as male, female, manager, supervisor, and which department they work in. Question B. uses the ratio level of measurement. This is a question that involves a zero value. It asks how long someone has worked for BIMS. Since they cannot have worked there a negative amount of time it would be the ratio level.

Coding the data
The data from the BIMS Employee Survey is coded numerically on the nominal, ordinal, and ratio levels. Column one of the data set represents the 78 participants who have been numbered from 1 to 78. Columns 2 through 11 of the data set represent questions 1 through 10 of the survey. Participants were asked to answer each question with a rating of one to five with one equaling very positive and five equaling very negative. The responses recorded into appropriate columns and rows of the data set. A zero was recorded if the participant did not answer the question.
The final four questions were alphabetically. Questions A, C, and D are nominal questions with the responses coded as a one or two. Question B asks the participants how long they have worked for BIMS. This is a ratio level question because the response is classified by the amount of characteristics and zero is equal to the absence of the characteristic (Lind, Marchal, & Wathen, 2011). For example, responses range from 1 month to 328 months. Zero cannot be an answer.
Clean the data by eliminating the data input errors made.
Entering the data from a survey to be able to get accurate statistics is very important, to be able to clean the data by eliminating errors that have been made is crucial. By doing so we must have everyone that is entering the data to be on the same page.
Draw conclusions about appropriateness of the data to meet the purpose of the study.
Even though only 17.3% of the surveys where collected, Exhibit B shows important information that can help in determine the root cause of the decrease in morale. Debbie Horner created the survey with appropriate questions in order to find the answer to the problem. For example; question 2 “You enjoy your assigned shift”, if the employee circled 1 that can be the cause for a low morale. When looking at Exhibit B, from the 78 employees who answered the survey none of them circled 5 and 4 to all of the 10 questions. For employee number 10, questions 2, 7, 9, and 10 where 1 which stand for very negative. Employee 10 does not like his assign shift, the supervisor is not treating him fairly, the company is not good at communicating, and he fears in losing the job. After reviewing the second part of the survey, we find out that employee 10 is a male who works at the food division, is not a manager or supervisor and has been there for 6 years and 9 months.

Reference:

University of Phoenix. (2014). Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc., Part 1. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, QNT351 website.