Charity Communication Content Wise: Research Methodology

Evelina Christova, Ph.D. , New Bulgarian University

Резюме:Настоящата публикация представя методология на изследване на тема комуникация на благотворителността, проведено в периода април-май 2015 г. Ключови думи: благотворителност, дарителство, комуникация

Abstract: The paper presents the methodology of a research about Charity Communication conducted in April-May 2015 . Key words: charity, communication

The article presents the methodology of the quantitative study carried out for the purposes of the broader study of the charity communication in Bulgaria. A complex approach has been chosen combining content analysis, quantitative and qualitative research and here one can find the methodology of the quantitative research conducted in 2015.

An important argument in favor of the implementation of the chosen approach was that, as Blaxer points out, "quantitative research is subject to verification and continuation in the future" - "surveys lend themselves to future replication" [1]. That is, this study can be repeated again in a few years and traced and measured the evolution of attitudes towards the charity of graduating students in the country and the opportunities for charity communication among them.

The approach to selecting a target group for quantitative research was based on several key elements. First of all, it was the desire to reach a group of people that is relatively less amorphous than the target groups of previous research in the field. Integrity was sought for the age group in order to reach the representatives of a generation of active citizens.

Another important argument was the desire to achieve representativeness of the sample so that the data, besides the basis for acquiring knowledge in the field, could be applied in practice in communication of charity in the upcoming years.

The research desire was to reach young people who are or are about to be active citizens of the state in order for the acquired knowledge to be put into practice in the near future and ultimately, besides the scientific knowledge, to be given the opportunity for real implementation in practice. One of the objectives is also the relatively rapid publication of the survey data precisely in order to be able to be used by organizations interested in the subject. In preliminary conversations with representatives of charity organizations, there was an active interest in young people in school age.

But why are graduating students?

First of all - because they are our fellow citizens who have just reached the age of majority. We expect them to be economically and socially active in the upcoming years, and we can get an idea of what awaits us in the future in the medium term.

We can assume that the conclusions will be valid for those born in the past and next three-five years, which enables us to use the acquired data and their analysis in the next 6-7 years with relative confidence that they will be up to date.

Another important argument is that the structure of the education system allows access to the majority of all the representatives of the generation, given that about 15-18 thousand young people drop out of the education system annually. A large number of dropouts, according to official data, dropped for three main reasons - going abroad, financial inability to attend school, and lack of interest in the process [2].

That is, they are mainly children and young people who (most likely) will not be part of the actively contributing to the social development of the state and it is possible that part of them will be a subject of charity rather than a participant in its realization - active or passive. Under passive I mean all citizens who, through their taxes, are participants in public processes and are not part of marginal groups, which are usually subject to charitable activity - secured by private or public funds (such as Bulgarian Red Cross, Food Bank, etc.).

After completing secondary education, a large part of the Bulgarian citizens takes different directions - they continue their education in Bulgaria or not, start working, etc. But in general, it can be assumed that at least in the next few years their opinions and habits valid in their 18-19th year will be largely preserved. The last grade of the high school is actually one of the "places" in which equal access to the representatives of a generation can be ensured.

Quantitative research is representative of the target group - graduating 12th grade students from the Bulgarian education system. The surveyed population is 58,745 students. The sample covers 895 students from the capital, large cities with a population of over 20,000 and small settlements with a population of less than 20,000. The sampling principle involves a minimum of 423 students from a large city, 243 from Sofia and 145 from a small settlement.

The 470, 270 and 155 was estimated as the optimum. The questionnaires collected exceeded this figure and amounted to 957 pupils, with the number of questionnaires collected, which exceeds the 895 pieces, was separated and not processed in order to preserve the representativeness of the results on a sampling basis.

The distribution made by cities did not allow the sampling principle to be set by gender, but the data processing proved to be 60% female to 40% male. It can be argued that the data is slightly distorted because the distribution by gender of the whole generation is different but these were actually present in the class of students at the time of the collection of the results.

Another principle of sample distribution which was important to follow was the distribution of pupils by type of school. This is a very conditional distribution because most of these groups have clearly defined and normative criteria. The study includes students from all types of schools of the Bulgarian educational system - vocational high schools, profiled high schools, unprofessional high schools, vocational classes in high schools and private high schools - profiled and professional.

This implies an opportunity to explore the views of young people belonging to different social groups, interest groups, etc. There has also been a distribution of informal groups of schools - their "elite status". This distribution should be viewed with suspicion and its results should be subject to very careful consideration of data readers because such a division can not be formally made - data and official sources - scientific or administrative, are missing.

However, it is known that some high-school schools are very difficult to enter and the “fight” for every place is fierce, while other schools have difficulty gathering enough students to form a class, and often the classes there are closed due to lack of candidates. Also, some schools (often the same ones that are difficult to "enter") report very high scores in state matriculation exams (SME), while others - too low.

Data on admissions and (SME) scores are often distorted by some external factors such as "luck" in the ranking or well-planned entry of wishes in the ranking, or a particular desire to engage in a "unpopular" area by a strong student at the entrance and manipulation of the process of appearing (SME) at the exit.

In any case, this tacit rank is taken into account when selecting the schools where the study is to be conducted to ensure maximum sampling. However, it has not been studied in the analysis of results since research interests are centered on charity and its communication.

Respondents in the study are 895 young people in the final class of education in the school education system. The participants are selected according to National Statistical Institute data for proportional distribution of the offspring and are respectively 30.2% of Sofia, 52.5% of a large settlement with over 20 thousand inhabitants and 17.3% of a small settlement with less than 20 thousand inhabitants, including several towns and one village.

The settlements are as follows: the cities of Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo, Rousse, Targovishte, Haskovo, Blagoevgrad, Vidin, Pernik, Svoge, Maglizh, Kotel, Belovo, Polski Trumbesh and Godech and the village of Chelopech.

Research work included

Field work - Preliminary research and personal involvement in charitable initiatives with attention to work details that are the subject of this study. Including course assignments for communicating charity initiatives, providing guest lecturers, and tracking the feedback process provided by students;

Study and analysis of documents - publications on the subject and related and similar topics. History of Charity in Bulgaria, etc., including conducting its own research - content analysis of publications in the media in December 2012 and research and acquaintance with previous research on the subject.

Search online and in electronic databases on topics related to charity communication, organizational and social culture, altruism, etc.

Study the selected target group and the ability to access it. Obtaining permission to conduct the survey by the Ministry of Education and Science.

Review of conducted research and work on compiling the questionnaire so that it can be analyzed and compared with previous data. Conduct pilot engagements by the representatives of the target group accompanied by a conversation to determine whether they understand the questions asked in a way similar to the interviewer, ensuring at least in part that the processing and analysis of the data will be consistent with that of the respondents . Also, compiling the questionnaire complied with how data was processed with one of the most widely used software programs to ensure data entry and processing.

Limitation and Difficulties

One of the main constraints of the research conducted can be unambiguously identified - this is the provision of access. And if the choice of the surveyed set was made precisely to ensure access to the most evenly distributed representatives of the generation born in 1997-1998, access to the education system at all levels is an extremely challenging one.

Here is the place to thank the Deputy Minister of Education Vanya Kastreva and the colleagues from the Department of Access to Education and Support for Development at the Ministry of Education and Science, who expressed understanding of the research interest and supported the study by letter. This letter was of great importance for providing access to most schools. Another large number of directors who have been approached by the researcher have shown no interest in this study, based on their own views.

The wait for about 3 months of respond by the Ministry of Education and Science has led to a further restriction on access - the period of the survey for shifts from the March-April to April-May and very much approached by the end of the school year when the same students place their DZI. This led to the refusal of several vocational high schools and schools in Sofia.

Also, during the mentioned period, other quantitative studies were conducted within the same target group, which I learned during some of the conversations with the directors about the attitudes to Bulgarian or foreign training and others whose purpose was not clear. At the time of publication of the current results, we did not have data from these studies, but they may have been on subjects that are not within our research or personal interest and therefore have remained out of focus.

Another constraint to be taken into consideration is the fact that some of the respondents go abroad and become active citizens of another country. In order to overcome this limitation, a specific question of studying abroad is included.

As a serious constraint, account may be taken of the fact that the survey does not include a question about the income or financial situation of the respondents. This is done deliberately - in the first place, they most often do not have their own income. Secondly, although we have considered the trend to ask how they determine their financial situation, the answer to this question does not have a specific measure of amounts but relies on subjective perception. But what would be the subjective perception of a pupil in a private school in the center of the capital compared to the subjective perception of a student from a vocational high school in northwestern Bulgaria. In the end, it was considered that the answer to such a question would have any news value in the public disclosure of the results, but it did not represent a research interest, so the question was not asked.

Asking too many questions can also be taken into account in the group of constraints or obstacles. Because of the desire to cover as many topics as possible, the questionnaire became too voluminous - 14 pages. The target group definitely does not like to write by hand and has difficulty concentrating for a long time in a surprisingly presented topic, which is obviously not part of its usual agenda. The truth is that even though I was getting director-level denials, I only once received a respondent-level

The volume of the questionnaire and the timing of the study - too short and close to (SME), forced the researcher to resort to help - some of the interviews were made by class supervisors or school psychologists. The feedback from them also showed a lack of refusals among students. The response to the presentation of the questionnaire topic and the explanation that it was for a research led to positive exclamations and conversation on the subject after filling in. Some respondents were asked again to fill in all questions. In the end most of the questionnaires were consciously filled with all or almost all of their questions

Another limitation was the time and financial resources for conducting the survey - multiple trips, questionnaire multiplication, courier costs, and so on. It did not affect the conduct in any way, but required longer planning and was also part of the slowdown in the process and its shift towards the end of the school year.

Thanks

I would like to extend my gratitude to New Bulgarian University, this research I have realized in my work as a chief assistant in it. During the survey several times I participated in charity initiatives organized by the NBU and the feeling of inner satisfaction with the work contributed a lot to the research.

With gratitude and love, I turn to colleagues from the Department of Mass Communications who have been involved with my work and who have given me valuable feedback in all the presentations of the topic of scientific conferences and summer schools organized by the department.

I should like to express my gratitude to Boryana Gigova for help with the design of the questionnaire and to Christian Dimitrov from Ka Research for the initial verification of the coding before and after the data entry. Working with SPSS requires continuous learning and improvement, and the support received by Boryana Gigova and Christian Dimitrov was irreplaceable.

I also thank the IT Department at the NBU and in particular Jani Andreev for the technological assistance with SPSS.

I thank my graduates from the 2014 and 2015 classes for my dedication to charity initiatives to understand how younger than me think and communicate and to understand that what we need is a target group younger than them.

I also thank my family for the patience.

Quantitative research

The questionnaire on paper, at school, was completed by students from Sofia; of settlements with over 20 thousand inhabitants - Blagoevgrad, Vidin, Veliko Tarnovo, Pernik, Ruse, Targovishte, Haskovo; of settlements under 20 thousand inhabitants - Svoge, Chelopech, Kotel, Polski Trumbeh, Godech, Maglizh, Belovo; Refusals were received from 6 schools in Sofia and one school in the towns of Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Burgas, Pavel Banya and Roman. There are 15 settlements covered and for each of them it was mandatory for the territory of the locality to have a working school with at least one 12th grade in the school year 2014/2015.

Procedure

Quantification - online poll

The questionnaire contains both open and closed questions. The careful preparation of data on the target fool and the good knowledge of the professional community made it possible, after careful targeting, to achieve a satisfactory result of the number and very high result of the completeness of the answers received.

The questionnaire is an interactive, closed-loop questionnaire, answers to the Five-Step Likert-type scale questions, as well as additional sections with "open" questions where respondents fill their personal judgments about the issues covered in the previous questions. Primary data from the study was processed using SPSS descriptive statistics.

Checking the data

After entering the data in the specialized software, data was checked at two levels. At the first level, data was verified through the software itself, and one irregularity and one possible dependence was identified that required a re-check. When entering the age, a one-digit number, a clear mistake on the hand, was entered in one of the questionnaires. After correcting the questionnaire number, the bug was

The second result, pointing to possible dependence, was to bear in mind that in the responses to donating money in a box and money box in a religious temple, confusion could have occurred in the respondents, which distorted the outcome and recommendation of colleagues Gigova and Dimitrov was to cross-check the results of these two questions.

The second level of verification was the random check of 10 questionnaires taken randomly from printed and handwritten paper questionnaires and their careful checking of the data in the specialized software. In this way, a check is made for a single entry value when specifying favorite radio stations, favorite websites, and favorite apps.

In this way, we can conclude that the data has been entered reliably and completely and the conclusions of its processing can be considered valid with respect to the collected data.

In the Quantitative Questionnaire appendix at the end of this publication, you can track all questions and the structure of the

• BLOCK 1: What is a charity?