邹城大地数字即将上映:THE RESEARCH PROCESS: THE MANAGEMENT SITUATION OF CHINESE UNDERGRADUATES’ LIVING EXPENSES IN STAFFOR

THE RESEARCH PROCESS: THE MANAGEMENT SITUATION OFCHINESE UNDERGRADUATES’ LIVING EXPENSES IN STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY

1 RESEARCH TITLEAND RESEARCH QUESTION

1.1 RESEARCH TITLE

The management situationof Chinese undergraduates’ living expenses in Staffordshire University

1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION

How do Chinese undergraduatesin Staffordshire University manage their living expenses?

2. LITERATUREREVIEW

2.1 BACKGROUND

How to managetheir finance problem is a challenge for students in the university. Universitycosts can be divided into basic categories: tuition fees, living expenses. Theamount of money allocated and managed will be different depending on thestudent’s individual needs and money management abilities.

2.2 REVIEW

Chickering andReisser (1993) noted that students’ ability to manage money is onedevelopmental task associated with achieving instrumental independence, acomponent of autonomy. In the area of consumerism, studies have examinedstudents’ knowledge of consumer issues, their behaviors as consumers, and theextent of consumer education. However, the results of the research reveal alack of comprehensive consumer education and limited knowledge of consumerissues among college and university students (Carsky etal. 1984）

At the same time,still other research has examined students’ attitudes toward and knowledgeabout money management. Although students have a favorable view toward moneymanagement, they are unaware of their actions, which is opposite to theiroriginal attitudes. (Hira and Brinkman, 1992)

Carsky etal. (1984) pointed that the basictools for managing these expenses include checking, savings accounts, creditcards and cash. For one of the money management tools, other studies havefocused on credit card usage among college and university students. Resultsreveal a wide variety of behaviors among students, the majority of whichreflect limited understanding of credit cards and poor habits when using suchcards (Armstrong and Craven, 1993).

The literaturereveals there are no studies on the actual money management behaviours ofcollege and university students. So, the following study is designed to explorethis gap on money management behaviours for undergraduate.   

3. RESEARCHSTRATEGY

3.1 RESEARCHAPPROACH

This is a qualitativeresearch that seeks to examine a limited number of interviewees who are involvedin a specific context. The nature of the research question decides to useinductive approach rather than adopting deductive approach. The reason is thatthe research question mainly concerned why is happening, rather than describewhat is happening. So, inductive approach is more appropriate to be adoptedrather than deductive approach.

3.2 THE SOURCEOF COLLECTING DATA

The data will becollected by semi-structure interview. The sample size is very small, justsample size is 5 respondents in order to explore the issue of managing livingexpenses behaviour. Choosing 5 respondents who are from China and they belong todifferent levels (level 1, level 2, and level 3) as the sample is stratifiedpurposeful to the research. The respondents live on and off campus at the timeof the research, and were enrolled in a full-time undergraduate on the autumn 2004semester. In addition, the campus is located in Stafford.The above choosing is useful to reflect the main situations. Additionally, itreduces the scope of research sample so that it excludes other objects which donot belong to the research object scope.

3.3 THE KIND OFDATA

The kind of dataof the research is mainly qualitative data which is based on meanings expressedthrough words and includes few quantitative data. The main questions are openin this semi-interview and the closed question accounts for small proportion.

4. SEMI-STRUCTUREDRESEARCH INTERVIEW DESIGN

The interviewprocess will be last 10 minutes each interviewee. The interview is designed tobe implemented in the evening at the Staffordcourt. At the beginning of the interview, the interviewer will introduce theobjective of the interview process to each respondent. Then, the answers willbe asked and recorded.

Five questions aredesigned to understand how Chinese students manage their living expenses in Staffordshire University. There are following fivequestions including one closed question and four open questions:

1.       Do youmake a plan or budget to spend your living expenses?

2.       What requirementsor criteria are used when you decide to make a plan or budget?

3.       How doyou allocate your living expenses?

4.       How doyou plan to spend your living expenses?

5.       Why doyou create and carry out the plan or budget?

The first above question,namely closed question, is used to make a decision that whether the intervieweeis worth interviewing because the following four questions are sequential. Namely,the closed questions may be used to obtain specific information or to confirm afact or opinion. (Saunders etal,2003) This question generates quantitative data and the question is seeking ayes or no answer so that it is easy to collect and evaluate. If the answer isyes, the interview will go on. Otherwise, the situation is opposite. In otherwords, this question can distinguish the real research object.

The open questionsare used to help interviewees to describe and define a situation or event. Theinterviewees will provide some additional information as they wish. Forexample, if the third question is designed as closed question like in thequestionnaire, some special items may be excluded in the answer lists becausethe designers of the questionnaire perhaps cannot consider all of possibleanswers. The purpose of the third question is to understand expenditurecategory. In other words, the answer to this question from semi-structuredinterview is wider than that from a questionnaire. In the same way, the purposeof the fifth question is to obtain the reasons of the facts that whatmotivations induce interviewer to make a plan to manage their living expenses. Similarly,it is difficult to evaluate the reasons if this question is shown in thequestionnaire. The reason is that the answer is not precise and it extremelyconsumes time for the response to open question from a questionnaire.

5. DATE COLLECTIONTECHNIQUE

Semi-structuredinterview is used to be data collection technique. Interview is used inqualitative research in order to not only know what and how but also understandto explore why. The latter is emphasized so that the interview is used to beresearch the question according to the nature of the data collection question. Inaddition, the way is useful to collect qualitative data.

6. DATA ANALYSISAND RESULT

6.1 QUANTITATIVEAND QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

The data collectedare analysed for two purposes: understand the items on whether Chineseundergraduates in Staffordshire University make a plan onspend their living expenses, and to understand how and why they make the plan.

To understandwhether Chinese undergraduates in Staffordshire University make a plan tomanage their living expenses, a ration between they make the plan and they donot make it was calculated. Those who make the plan on managing living expensesaccount for 80% of the sample. The interview process shows one of fiveinterviewees doesn’t make the plan to manage the money.  

Analysis of theinterview process reveals two themes: the reasons about planning to spendliving expenses and how to make the plan. In the interviews, intervieweesdescribed their reasons of the plan. The data reveals six major categories ofexpenditures: food, transportation, traveling, emergency funds, telephone billand miscellaneous. 5 interviewees who described the above categories considerthey are main aspects which they spend living expenses. 3 interviewees considerthe way to making a plan is that the amount of living expenses divides thenumber of months which they will stay in Staffordshire University.Then, they can know how much money they can use per month so that they canallocate and manage money. One of the interviewees, however, the way to makinga plan is that the interviewee puts some money as emergency funds and the restof money is used in every month. Their different ways are related to thecriteria that how they make the plan to manage money. The data shows thecriteria are three. The first is that the living expenses can help theinterviewee to survive day by day. The second is that the living expenses arelimited. The third is that the study time is regular. The criteria is relatedto the reasons that why they make the plan to manage the money. The reason isthat they want to balance the money and the money doesn’t cover the living costbecause they cannot receive more money from their parents except they can finda part-time job in Stafford area.

6.2 RESULTS

There is onefinding in the research. It shows Chinese undergraduate in Staffordshire University,their money management behaviour is related to the limited amount of money. Thelimited living expense is the most important factor to force them to make aplan to manage money.

6.3 RELIABILITYAND VALIDITY OF RESULTS

The reliabilityand validity of the result is affected by the interviewees’ subjective consciousnessor bias. Although the interviewer does the best to avoid the bias, it is hardto control the bias and error happened.

6.4 LIMITATIONS

The presentresearch is not without some limitations, especially in terms of the sample. First,the sample size is clearly a limitation, though a small sample is not unusualin the type of qualitative research. If the sample becomes bigger than now, thedata collected may be precise. Second, all of the five interviewees arevolunteers, who may have differed in some significant way thannon-volunteers. 

7. ETHICALAPPROVAL OF RESEARCH PROJECTS (Refer to the form)

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