Table of Contents

Table of Contents....................................................................................................... 1
COVERING LETTER......................................................................................................2
REPORT PROPOSAL.....................................................................................................3
1.Managerial Brief......................................................................................................4
2.Objectives................................................................................................................ 4
2.1Operational Definitions.....................................................................................4
3. Data Collection Format...........................................................................................4
3.1 Type of Survey: Home Survey...........................................................................4
4. Data Section..........................................................................................................5
4.1 Questionnaire Design........................................................................................5
4.2 Classificatory Variables.....................................................................................6
5. Sampling Design.....................................................................................................7
5.1 Sample Size.......................................................................................................7
5.2 Sampling Type ..................................................................................................7
5.3 Sampling Procedure..........................................................................................7
7. Analytical Design....................................................................................................9
8. Organization Chart............................................................................................... 10
10. Budgetary Requirements...................................................................................11
 COVERING LETTER
To,

The Chief Warden,

Symbiosis InfoTech Campus

Hinjewadi, Pune-411057

Respected Sir/Madam,

Sub: Submission of research proposal

This is with reference to the discussion we had on 6 th April 2009, regarding the
research to be undertaken about “Attitudes of resident students towards the
existing hostel facilities and their suggestions for improvement”. I am submitting
my research proposal for the same.

I really appreciate the importance of this project. Pune is the educational hub of our
country. a lot of national and international students come to Pune to pursue their
higher education. The primary concern for most students and their parents’ is
availability and quality of accommodation. Hence, it is necessary for the warden of
a hostel complex to know the changing demands and needs of the student.

Covansys is a 25 year old firm which has successfully bid and executed several
marketing research projects spanning various domains. We have undertaken
projects that have given managers excellent insight into the markets and have
resulted in successful offerings.

The project has been done with the best of our abilities and we hope it really your
expectations. Please feel free to contact us if there are any queries.

Regards

Sankar B

Chief Researcher

Covansys Limited
 Hinjewadi,Pune-
411060

REPORT PROPOSAL

Pune, known has the educational hub of India has more than hundred educational
institutes and nine universities. Therefore a lot of national and international
students come to Pune to pursue their higher education. Symbiosis University is one
of top ranked universities in the country and is known worldwide for the quality of
education imparted by them. A lot of international students come down here to
pursue their higher studies in Symbiosis. It is important for the college to have
excellent hostel facilities to attract students to the university. Hence it is necessary
for the manager to know what hostels of top universities are offering and the needs
of the students. This will help the manager to take the following decisions.

1. What are the most essential facilities needed in the hostel?

2. To decide the price level of the facilities depending on the usage.

3. To make changes in the timing of facilities to encourage more student to

make use of the facilities.

4. Closure or decrease the fees of redundant or non profit making facilities.

5. Additional facilities on sufficient demand from students.

1.Managerial Brief
The manager of the project is the chief warden of the Symbiosis D- Hostel .

The manager wants to know the attitude of the resident students towards the
facilities offered by hostel. He also wants us to take suggestions from the hostel
inmates for the improvement of hostel facilities.

The hostel complex includes canteen, gymnasium, swimming pool, outpatient clinic
besides the normal facilities like boarding and lodging and all the facilities are on a
payment basis.

Estimated Budget: 60,000/-

Max. Time: 8 weeks.

2.Objectives
1. To measure the attitude of resident students fo the Symbiosis D- Hostel
towards the existing hostel facilities which are offered on a payment basis.

2. To obtain the suggestions for the improvement of hostel facilities from the
resident students.

2.1Operational Definitions
Attitude: Predisposition or tendency of a person to respond positively or negatively
towards a certain idea, object, person or situation.

Resident Student: An individual who is pursuing his education from the Symbiosis
institute and an inmate of the concerned hostel as well.

Hostel: Place where a student gets all the required facilities to stay for the tenure of
course and other extra facilities- all on a payment basis.

Facilities: Features and services offered by the hostel which may be utilised free or
on a payment basis by the hostel inmates.

Suggestions: Feedback or ideas given by the hostel inmates to improve the working
of the facilities and recommendations for new facilities.

3. Data Collection Format

3.1 Type of Survey: Home Survey

The most important characteristics of data collection were :
 1. Diversity of Questions: The questionnaire includes diverse questions.

2. Flexibility of data Collection: High level of flexibility needed as they

questionnaire contains difficult and complex questions.

3. Control of Data Collection Environment: The control of environment and

attention of the respondents is of paramount importance. Also prompts had
to be given to improve the clarity of questions.

These characteristics made telephone, email and postal survey

inappropriate.

Hence Home Survey was chosen.

4. Data Section

4.1 Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire used for this project is proposed to be :

1. Semi Structured as the questionnaire would contain both open ended

questions and close ended questions. The answers to those questions which
are suggestive in nature are open ended and the rest are close ended.

2. Non Disguised questionnaire – as the respondent knows for what purpose the
project is conducted.

The advantages of the semi structured and non disguised format are:

1. As the respondent knows for what purpose the project is conducted he/she
will give unbiased and frank opinions.

There was no sensitive data that was required which could have changed
the responses. Therefore, no disguised questions were employed.
Sample Question 1:

1. What new facilities would you like to have in the hostel?

This is a simple open ended question to know what new facilities the hostel
inmates would like to have. He can give any suggestions if he wishes to. Hence
open ended.

Sample Question 2:

1. Which of the following facilities do you use in the Hostel apart from
Boarding/Lodging?
 Canteen Clinic Swimming Pool

Laundry Service Indoor Games Gymnasium

This is a close ended question by the interviewer to let him know which of the
offered facilities the respondents are using. This makes the respondents’ job easier
by selecting from the given choices.

4.2 Classificatory Variables

Gender

1. Male

2. Female

Gender has been considered as a classificatory variable as the attitudes of

males and females towards various facilities will be different. Also the
boarding and lodging facilities for males and females are different.

Facility:-

1. Boarding/lodging

2. Canteen

3. Gymnasium

4. Outpatient Clinic

5. Swimming Pool

6. Facilities for indoor games

7. Laundry facility

8. Security

Facilities have been considered as a classificatory variable as it is very

important to study attitude of students to each of the facilities offered. A
 general view about the facilities would not be of much help as it would not be
much of a guide to the manager in improving the facilities.

5. Sampling Design

5.1 Sample Size

The sample size chosen for the project is 656 . The calculation for the
same is given under fieldwork design section.

5.2 Sampling Type

The sampling type used is proportionate stratified sampling as the sampling
frame is available. The sampling frame will be the list of students residing in the
hostel. The stratification variable used is gender.

5.3 Sampling Procedure

Sampling will be divided on the basis of strata in this case gender.

Within each strata, proportionate sampling is done from the sampling frame to
select final the sample size.

6. Fieldwork Decisions

Total time available for the project - 8 weeks = 56 days (Sundays are
working)

Allocation of time bases on major needs.

Exploratory Research and Research design (25%) = 14 days

Field Work (50%) = 28 days

Analysis and Report Preparation (20%) = 11.2 days

Buffer = 2.8 days

Allocation of budget based on major needs:

Exploratory Research and Research design (30%) = Rs.18000

Field Work (45%) = Rs.27000

1. Training Costs = Rs.3000/-

2. Pretesting = Rs.3000/-

3. Actual Field Work =Rs.21000/-

Analysis and Report Preparation (25%) = Rs.15000

Buffer (for overheads and unforeseen expenses) = Rs. 3000

Break up of field work:

Training Time: 3 days

Pretesting : 2 days

Actual Field work: 23 days

Calculation of Sample Size:

No of working hours of an interviewer = 8hrs.

Availability of student = 4hours (considering students have classes even on

weekends)

Time taken for each Interview

Search Time 3 mins

Gossip Time 3 mins

Interview Time 10 mins

Total interview Time = 16 mins

Total interviews per day = 15

Investigator emoluments per day

Investigator Salary Rs.300/-

Travel Expenses Rs.60/-

Miscellaneous Expenses Rs.40/-

Total = Rs.400

Rs.400/- is spent every day per interviewer for conducting 15 interviews.

Total sample size = (21600/400)*15 = 788

 Total number of days available for interviews to be conducted = 23 days

Therefore number of interviewers needed = (788/23)/15 = 2.28

With 3 interviewers per day we can reach a sample size of 690.

Sampling Error assumed = 5%

Therefore the final sample size = 656.

7. Analytical Design
H0: Null Hypothesis:

The quality of food in the canteen as perceived by the male respondents and by the
female respondents is the same and the observed variation is only due to the
random sampling error.

H1: Alternate Hypothesis:

The quality of food in the canteen as perceived by the male respondents and by the
female respondents is not the same and the observed variation is due to an actual
difference in the attitude of the male and female respondents.

Type I Error:

Type I error occurs on the rejection of a true null hypothesis .In this case this
happens when we take the attitudes of female and male respondents towards the
quality of food to be the different, when it is actually otherwise.

Consequences of Type I Error:

The manager develops different strategies for male and female respondents and
therefore a lot of time and money is wasted on developing and implementing the
strategies which will eventually be of no use.

Type II Error:

Type I error occurs on the acceptance of a false hypothesis .In this case this
happens when we take the attitudes of female and male respondents towards the
quality of food to be the same, when it is actually otherwise.

Consequences of Type II Error:

The manager loses out an opportunity to develop different strategies for both male
and female respondents and there is an opportunity loss for the manager.

Z test between Male and Female respondents for perceived quality of food in the canteen
at 10% significance:
 Fema TOTA
Male le L

Perceived Quality of food

8. Organization Chart

Researcher (1)

Focus Group
Master Coder (1) Supervisor (1)
Moderator (2)

Computer
Investigator (2)
Operator(1)

9. Activity Chart

Durati
on Start Finis
Sr.No Activity (days) day h day Total
I Pre Field Work 11
1 Meeting the Manager 1 1 1 1
2 Objective formulation 2 2 3 3
3 Approval of objectives 1 4 4 4
4 Selecting focus group members 1 5 5 5
Mailing agenda to Focus group
5 members 1 6 6 6
6 Focus group discussion 1 7 7 7
7 Secondary data analysis 3 8 10 10
8 Questionnaire Preparation 1 11 11 11
II Field Work 30
Recruitment and selection of
9 investigators 2 12 13 13
10 Training of Investigators 3 14 16 16
11 Pre-Testing 2 16 17 17
12 Field Work 23 18 40 40
III Post Field Work 13
13 Data Entry 2 41 42 42
14 Data Validation 2 42 44 44
15 Analysis 6 45 50 50
16 Report Writing 2 51 52 52
17 Final Submission 1 53 53 53
Total 53 53

10. Budgetary Requirements

S.No Budget No. of Payment No. of Total

Head days people
(Rs/day/person (Rs.)
)
I Manpower
 (Other than field
work)

1 Researcher 25 700 1 17,500

2 Master Coder 2 400 1 800

3 Computer 2 350 1 700

Operator
4 Focus group 2 500 1 1000
moderator
5 Focus group 1 250 8 2,000
members
6 Supervisor 28 600 1 16,800
7 Investigators 26 300 2 15,600
8 Others 2,600
(Travelling and
Misc)
9 Overheads 3,000
Total 60,000