El marco legal aplicado a la Cooperativa vecinal

There are different ways to score and measure the questionnaire; one of them is carried out using Likert scales. Upon the completion of a questionnaire, each variable can be analysed singly or the variables’ responses can be summed up to generate a score for a number of variables, where a Likert scale is utilised to scale responses in a research survey (Cahoon, 1997). When responding to the Likert questionnaire variables, respondents will indicate their level of disagreement or agreement. Therefore, the scale will capture the intensity of the respondents for each particular variable. Moreover, Likert scale is a technique that will help to measure the negative, positive and middle points. Preparing and structuring the questionnaire in advance with a good design might assist respondents to answer quickly and easily. Hence, designing the survey is a fundamental stage by which to gain the required quality of data in a timely manner, where the main objective of questionnaire design is to increase the number of respondents, while maintaining the reliability and relevance of the data collected by the questionnaire. Explaining the aims of the questionnaire, providing a suitable structure and design, and following up the respondents can raise the number of participants. The covering letter is counted as a good opportunity to encourage people to fill in the questionnaire, as it provides the respondents’ first impression (Bisset, 1994). With regard to questionnaire length, some researchers believe that a long questionnaire will receive fewer respondents than a short

92 questionnaire, and it is true that length sometimes affect the respondents; however, interest in the topic makes respondents respond regardless of the length of the survey. The questionnaire for this research has been designed as a long questionnaire; it is made up of 73 questions in six categories, a total of 10 pages. The rate of response was about 70%, which suggests that the research topic was found interesting, and the way of collecting the data was satisfactory.

Opinion Measurement

There is a huge demand for social information, which provides social indicators, which is a massive challenge to collect; much of the research suggests that objective measures with subjective measures will benefit a study at the community level (Hempel, 1979). People have different motivations at the time of answering a survey, which is entangled with other concerns such as narrow self-interest, and, in addition, decision-makers have the straightforward goal of maximising personal payoffs. The assumption of narrow self-interest, without concern for others, is the foundation for rational choice theory (Murphy, 2015). Likert scales are commonly applied in different fields such as behavioural sciences, healthcare, marketing, and usability research (Joost, 2010). The Likert scale measurements have a special style: discrete instead of continuous values, tied numbers, and restricted range (Joost, 2010). The high use of rating scales in market and social research has led to a great deal of concern and debate about the right number of scale points (Garland, 1991). In the Likert scale, there is a level of agreement that statements normally have a scale of five or seven points; the participants need to specify their level for each statement (Joost, 2010). The mean aim of a rating scale is to provide space for respondents to express the strength of their opinion about a topic (Garland, 1991). Although researchers dislike neutral or intermediate answers, as they want the respondents to choose a definite option, they should offer respondents the chance to express a truly neutral position by providing a scale from 1 to 5 (thus offering a neutral point of 3). However, some researchers provide even numbers so there is no neutral position, which this research does not agree with

93 (Garland, 1991). Where the neutral position because some of the questions are changeable depends on the participant’s background where there is no final opinion.

Measurements and Values

There are different methods of handling the data collection. One of these methods is to collect data using a questionnaire, which is used in this study. In the questionnaire, the respondents are asked to assess housing preferences to understand the measurements and values for each variable. The assignment of numbers to objects using certain rules is called measurement (Stevens, 1951). Measuring the preferences is possible theoretically, but needs to have a logical or practical basis. There are multiple ways to find out the levels of measurement to classify any subject, wither scaling or evaluation. The Likert scales measure either totals or average numbers; therefore, with the different items in Likert scales, there is an opportunity to be more reliable. The different items in Likert scales can be used for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and factor analysis (Brown. 2011). Thereafter, using Cronbach’s alpha to check the reliability estimate is a good way to make sure of the quality of the scale.

Scoring Methods

There are four kinds of measurement rating (Figure 4.8), nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio;

all are used in scaling based on the subject of interest. The nominal scale is used to set numerical numbers and change them to an object without making any comparison between numbers (Brown, 2011), which means there is no result or ordering of them, for example, gender: male and female. In the ordinal scale, which implies ranking objects in order, the objects show rank order only (Brown, 2011). The numbers do not show quantities and intervals between numbers, which are equally set. An illustration of an ordinal scale is as 1<3<…<5. If in an ordinal type of measurement the intervals between adjacent numbers were equal (Brown, 2011), that type of measurement would be called an interval scale, like 10-20<50-60<70-80.

The last type of measurement is the ratio scale; there is a different between ratio scales and

94 interval scales, where a ratio may have a zero value and points along the scale make sense as ratios (Brown, 2011). For example, a scale like age can be zero. According to Kerlinger (1986), ratio scales are the highest level of measurement.

Figure 4-9 Types of measurement rating. (Self-study)

Questionnaires designed and developed in this study were used to collect different individuals’

points of view on home preferences and the housing problem. Based on their personal experience and knowledge, consumers and professionals scored the question indicators.

Therefore, the information gathered through the questionnaires is considered to be subjective qualitative data. It may be that the phenomenon to be measured can often only be measured by nominal or ordinal scales (e.g. quality of life, various symptoms). This type of data is

95 commonly used in questionnaire responses. An adequate presentation and analysis of the data is essential to eliminate several problems and errors as well as to draw correct conclusions (Jakobsson, 2004). In this research, the questionnaires were designed using nominal, ordinal and interval-based scaling in the preferences questions, each with a score from 1 to 5. The respondents were asked to put a score to every variable based on the level of importance. Table 4.8 illustrates the scaling method employed in this research in the questionnaire design. The scoring can be interpreted by using verbal terms as well. At the beginning, the survey asked bio-demographic questions, than started to ask about the financial preferences and housing problem in Saudi, where the respondents needed to answer about the extent to which they agree or disagree, where 1 is allocated as Strongly Agree, 2 Agree, 3 Neither, 4 Disagree and 5 Strongly Disagree. Regarding this level of importance, scores of 1 are allocated for items which are very important as home preferences where scores of 5 are assigned to indicators which are not as important in the location, internal design, external design and home specification details.

(See Appendix 1 for the questionnaires).

96 Table 4-8 The level of measurement for all the variables in the survey

Questions Variables Level of Measurement (Ordinal – Nominal – Interval – Ratio)

Demographics ^{Gender Nominal}

Marital status Nominal

Marriage Nominal

Age Ordinal

Dependents Ordinal

Highest level of education Ratio

Politics Ordinal

Different nuclear families Ordinal

Financial Increase prices Ordinal

Financial Risk Ordinal

Pay cash Ordinal

Solution: purchase homes Ordinal

The high interest Ordinal

Mortgages offered Ordinal

Home values with quality Ordinal

Land price Ordinal

Construction cost Ordinal

Developed by individuals Ordinal

Building own home Ordinal

Easy to open real estate construction Ordinal

Housing delivered Ordinal

Regulation Ordinal

Modifications after buying Ordinal

Sharing house Ordinal

Ministry of Housing work Ordinal

Political situation in Saudi Ordinal

Location Closeness to family Ordinal

Quality of the neighbourhoods Ordinal

Safety of the neighbourhood Ordinal

Cleanliness of the neighbourhood Ordinal

Closeness to school Ordinal

Services in the neighbourhood Ordinal

Near to public transport Ordinal

Accessibility of location Ordinal

Street width Ordinal

Building size Ordinal – Interval

Bigger home even if it is far from a city Ordinal

Number of parking spaces Ordinal

Number of building storeys Ordinal

Internal design

Functionality Ordinal

Modern design Ordinal

Privacy Ordinal

Number of bedrooms Ordinal – Interval

Number of bathrooms Ordinal – Interval

Space for family Ordinal – Interval

Visitors’ space Ordinal

Storage room Ordinal

Facility room Ordinal

Size of windows Interval

Natural light Ordinal

Home specification details

Quality of the building Interval

Age of the building Ordinal

The environmentally friendly nature of the building

Ordinal

Materials used in the building Ordinal

Insulation Ordinal

Cold and hot system Ordinal

97 Designing the Questionnaire Online

Online surveys are part of the wider survey group, but are different to surveys administered face-to-face and by telephone. An online survey is created as a web form to store the answers and allow statistical software such as SPSS to provide analytics. In addition to the online survey using a web form, social media has also turned out to be a suitable platform for distributing surveys. Social media is increasingly changing the online community through providing an easy method of communication, as well as enabling researchers to conduct surveys through social network sites. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have attracted many users, which provides researchers with an opportunity to attract the attention of social media users to participate in a survey (LaCoursiere, 2013), for example, by using advertisements. For the purposes of this study on consumer preferences, the surveys were administered online.

The survey was developed in the Bristol Online Survey (BOS), which is an easy-to-use tool which allows the researcher to design, distribute, and analyse surveys via the web. BOS offers different facilities and there is an unlimited numbers of surveys that can be designed, and there is also no limit to the number of respondents. Users can simply share surveys with different people, and so users can collaborate on the same survey.