Topic: Tobacco Tax Impact on Smokers’ Behaviors among National Guard Hospital Employees
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The research design can be stated to be the overall format which is generally followed by a researcher for the study(Kumar, 2019). In association with this, it can be agreed to it that the research design which has been adopted for the study can be agreed to be the Descriptive cross sectional study research design. In this kind of a research design, each of the issues as highlighted in the study will be taken and critically described. The survey responses shall be critically assessed the results will be analyzed in a descriptive manner to find the responses to the questions set earlier (Wang, 2017). As the survey has been allocated as a means to collect data, it needs to be noted that the, online survey collection method has been chosen for the study (Flick, 2015). The use of this research design will assist in carrying out the study regarding the influence of the Tobacco tax on the Smoker behavior at the National Guard and derive themes out of the study.
3.2 Participants:
The participants in a study can be described to be those participants who essentially take part in the survey and the responses of whom are recorded for the purpose of the analysis. In line with this, the participants are belonging to the National Guard Hospital (NGH) IN Saudi Arabia. The numbers of participants who are smokers who have been selected for the study are 370 employees (Saunders & Bezzina, 2015).
3.3 Sampling Procedure:
The sampling procedure can be effectively described as the means of collecting the samples for the process of the study. It has to be noted that, the sampling procedure which has been taken for the purpose of the study is the non-systematic and more convenient sampling procedure whereby, the samples will be contacted by the medium of convenience. As there are 10000 employees in the hospital, only 370 have been selected as per the ideal population based on the Roasoft (Cdc.gov ,2018). The inclusion criteria in the study have to be the fact that the respondents are required to be smokers. On the other hand, the exclusion criteria for the study are those employees who have never smoked. Each participant was provided with a single questionnaire comprising of 37 questions based on which their responses had to be recorded accordingly.
3.4 Instrument
The research instrument can be taken to be the tool which is used by the researcher is the questionnaire. The questionnaire has been designed in a systematic manner whereby the first section of the paper focuses on collecting demographic information from the different participants pertaining to their age, income and occupational aspects. The second domain has focused on theoretical aspects of the study in order to arrive at the understanding of the smoking characteristics of the different participants (Cdc.gov ,2018). Lastly, the third section of the paper will ask the different participants about the perceptions of the tobacco tax impact and associated behavior. The responses will be collected in the form of a five point Likert scale whereby, 1= strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree (Gatsatlas.org ,2018). The following mediums have been used for the preparation of the survey for the study:
1. Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)
2. GLOBAL TOBACCO SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
3. The relation between cigarette taxes and older adult smoking in Zhejiang and Gansu: what happened following the 2009 Chinese Tax adjustments?
It is by using these references that the questions were prepared and presented to the various respondents electronically.
3.5 Data Collection and Analysis
The data collection took place electronically whereby, the different participants were provided with the Google form link and their responses were collected automatically. These responses were then exported in the excel sheet and this was then followed by the usage of the SPSS for the descriptive statistical analysis (Wiek & Lang, 2016). The Software version 24.0 was used for the analysis. Additionally, in this context, the various statistical operations as performed on the data were frequency, percentage, standard deviation, mean and associated mean average to grade the responses and understand the impact of the taxation on the associated smoking behavior of the participants (Mackey & Gass, 2015). After obtaining the results, each aspect was critically discussed and aligned with the research objectives of the study (Gatsatlas.org ,2018).
3.6 Limitations
Limitations form a common part of the study and in this research, the primary limitations as present were associated with the willingness of the participants to take part in the survey and secondly, due to the Global Pandemic Covid 19 and social distancing norms, the number of participants available was limited.
References
Cdc.gov (2018). Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) [online]. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/global/gtss/index.htm (Retreived on: 28 April. 2020).
Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.
Gatsatlas.org (2018). Global Adult Tobacco Survey [online]. Available at: http://gatsatlas.org/ (Retreived on: 28 April. 2020).
Kumar, R. (2019). Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications Limited.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2015). Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
Saunders, M. N., & Bezzina, F. (2015). Reflections on conceptions of research methodology among management academics. European management journal, 33(5), 297-304.
Wang, Q. (2017). The relation between cigarette taxes and older adult smoking in Zhejiang and Gansu: what happened following the 2009 Chinese Tax adjustments?. Environmental health and preventive medicine, 22(1), 21.
Wiek, A., & Lang, D. J. (2016). Transformational sustainability research methodology. In Sustainability science (pp. 31-41). Springer, Dordrecht.
