International Students

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Sample

The present study was an investigation into student banking arrangements at four major banks- HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest- in the Newcastle area, and recommendations as to which provided the best services to international students. A sample of 200 subjects, ranging from the ages of 16 to 29 years, was drawn from different areas in Newcastle, United Kingdom. All the subjects were international students belonging to the different areas in Newcastle. Another sample of 50 subjects was drawn from bank personnel of HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest. Further information was gathered regarding age, education and accommodation.

Sampling Strategy

The sampling strategy employed in the research was Stratified Random Sampling. Stratified Random Sampling also referred as proportionalorquotarandom sampling, is separating the population into uniform subgroups and then drawing a simple random sample from each subgroup (Trochim, 2006).

Primary Research

Questionnaire for Students

A questionnaire was distributed among international students of Newcastle to find out which of the bank accounts was used most by the students. The questionnaire also had questions concerned with why the students chose a certain bank among HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest and what features of that bank attracted them the most. There were questions designed to investigate the geographic locations and ease of access to these banks within the region designated to students and their life styles.

Questionnaire for Bank Personnel

Another questionnaire was designed to gather data from the bank personnel of HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest. These questions were related to how important potential student customers were to their organization. Furthermore, the questions also investigated the management and marketing strategies these banks used.

Consent Letter

All the participants in the study were given a consent letter, which gave them the right to withdraw any information at any stage of the research. Also the authority and confidentiality of the people was confirmed

Demographic Form Questionnaire

The Demographic Questionnaire is a bio data form which is filled by the participants so that the researcher could get information regarding the participants. This questionnaire contains questions regarding name, age, education, marital status and accommodation.

Secondary Research

Secondary research was also employed in the present study. The purpose for this was to gather data regarding each bank from internet, books, articles and international account handbooks.

Research Design

A comparative research design was employed in the study. A comparative research design evaluates two or more groups on one variable (McMillan 1991).

Procedure

In order investigate into student banking arrangements at four major banks- HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest- in the Newcastle area, and recommendations as to which provided the best services to international students, a sample of 200 subjects, ranging from the ages of 16 to 29 years, was drawn from different areas of Newcastle, United Kingdom. All the subjects were international students belonging to different areas of Newcastle. Another sample of 50 subjects was drawn from bank personnel of HSBC, Lloyd's plc, Barclays and NatWest. A comparative research design was employed in the research which is aimed the comparison of two or more groups on one variable (McMillan 1991). Stratified random sampling was used. First of all written permission was taken from the heads of educational institutions. They were briefed about the research, its significance, time involved and the procedure. Furthermore, the sample population was informed and consent forms were distributed. Also the authority and confidentiality of the people was confirmed. Individual testing was carried out. One time approach to the participants was used for data collection. The subjects were administered questionnaire for the students and Demographic Form Questionnaire. The testing environment provided to the sample population was sufficiently quite to facilitate adequate concentration. The instructions were read aloud so that the sample population could easily comprehend the questionnaire. On average the administration took 10-15 minutes in individual testing situation. The study was under taken from February 2010 to March 2010.

Qualitative Analysis

The qualitative analysis of the data included why students had opted for a certain bank, as well as some information of the facilities provided by each bank. The qualitative analysis of the data gathered from the bank personnel included the analysis of various management and marketing strategies used by the four banks.

Quantitative Analysis

Inferential and descriptive statistics was applied on the data collected. Frequency and percentages of the demographic variables were calculated. Also the mean and standard deviation (Grimm 1993) was computed for the score of both the questionnaires. The data was calculated manually and analyzed through Independent Sample t-test using SPSS version 16.0 software program.

Mean

It is sometimes stated that the 'mean' means average. The mean of the two variables are calculated to find out the expected value.

Standard deviation

The standard deviation of values is a computation of the spread of its values. The standard deviation is typically signified with the letter s (lower case sigma). It is defined as the square root of the variance.

Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)

SPSS is software for calculating statistical data. It is used for any project which includes statistics. The significant value of the variables is calculated through this. b !--Content ends here!-->

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