Research design A research design is essentially astatement of the inquiry and strategies for collecting the evidences, analysingthe evidences and reporting the findings (Singh, 2006). This study will adopt a descriptiveresearch design. It is a very valuable tool for assessing opinions and trends.
According to Osuala (2001), descriptive research specifies the nature of agiven phenomena. It is a method which involves observing and describing thebehaviour of a subject without influencing it in any way. The descriptiveresearch design has various forms including a survey, documentary analysis, developmental studies; follow up studies, case study and correlation study.
Thecurrent study is a survey. The descriptive research design, for that matter thesurvey, is appropriate since it will enable the researcher to obtain anaccurate information from a whole population based on samples drawn from thepopulation. According to Gay (1992), descriptive survey design involves collectionof data to answer questions concerning the current status of the subject of thestudy. The design reports the way things are. This design is deemed appropriateas an attempt will be made by the researcher to describe the existing situationby asking the respondents to complete questionnaire in order to obtain data todraw meaningful conclusion from the studies. A qualitative research allows theindividuals to describe the situations, experiences, or feelings in their ownwords.
A quantitative approach is used in some instances where, for example, participants are asked to rate in a scale format in trying to establish or todetermine how they viewed appraisals. This study will make use of quantitativeapproach. Fraenkel and Wallen (2000), identifytwo difficulties associated with the design.
They include the difficulty ofensuring that items to be responded to are very clear, getting respondents torespond to the items thoughtfully and honestly, and the difficulty in gettingsufficient number of questionnaires completed and returned. In spite of thedifficulties, the major advantage of this design is that it has the potentialof providing a lot of information obtained from a large sample of individuals. The researcher will take the necessary measures such as obtaining the validityof the instrument and direct instrumentation in order to minimise thedifficulties mentioned above. The design deals with organising, analysing, andinterpreting data before conclusion is drawn. Population and target population A population is a group of all items ofinterest to a researcher.
The population of the study is the staff of Cocoa MarketingCompany (Accra branch). There are ninety-four employees in the company. Thereare two categories of staff, namely, senior management and junior staff but thetarget population for this study is the junior staffs of the company who are seventy-fiveemployees. The researcher chose the junior staff because they are the peoplewho usually complained about the performance appraisal process and also theyare more than the senior management at the company.
