HEMA D/O RAJA DORAI

M20201000105

KFP 60404
KAEDAH PENYELIDIKAN KUALITATIF

TAJUK :

ASSIGNMENT 2: PREPARING A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

DISEDIAKAN OLEH

NAMA NO. MATRIK PROGRAM

HEMA RAJADORAI M20201000105 MT12

PENSYARAH : PROFESOR MADYA DR. MUHAMMED YUSUF

TARIKH : 9 JULAI 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENT
BAB 1
1.0 Introduction 3
1.1 Research Background 3
1.2 Research Problem 4
1.3 Conceptual Framework 6
1.4 Research Objectives 6
1.5 Research Questions 6
1.6 Hypothesis 6
1.6.1 Work life balance and employee productivity 7
1.6.2 Work life balance and job stress 8
1.6.3 Job stress and employee productivity 8
1.7 Theoretical Framework 10
1.8 Importance of Research 15
1.9 Limitations 16
1.10 Conclusion 16

BAB 2
2.0 Introduction of Literature Review 17
2.1 Review of key concepts 17
2.1.1 Work Life Balance 17
2.1.2 Employees’ Performance 17
2.1.3 Job Stress at Work Place 18
2.2 Conclusion 19
BAB 3
3.0 Introduction of Methodology 20
3.1 Research Design 20
3.2 Research Method 20
3.3 Procedure and Data Collections Method 21
3.4 Data Collection Tools 22
3.5 Questionnaire 23
3.6 Target Population and Sampling Method 24
3.7 Data Analysis Plan 25
3.8 Ethical Issues and Accessibility 25
3.9 Conclusion 25
4.0 Reference 27

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“Impact of Work Life Balance on

Teacher’s Productivity and Job
Stress.”

CHAPTER 1

1.0 Introduction

Work-life balance (WLB) is a key feature of a healthy work environment. Sustaining

work-life balance helps reduce stress and helps prevent exhaustion in the workplace
(Beltrán, et all, 2008). Stress is a universal and common challenge to organization and
employee productivity, it is the authenticity of modern day workplace (Baral, &
Bhargava,2010). Generally, employees working in different sectors and organizations have
to deal with stress. Stress impacts organizational performance, employee overall
performance, high error rate and poor quality of work and absenteeism due to health
problems.

Teaching profession has traditionally been regarded as low stress occupation

(French, et.al.,1982) but during the past two decades the situation is somersaulted (Olivier &
Venter, 2003). Teaching is becoming a more challenging profession worldwide. Surveys
conducted worldwide revealed widespread concern about the effects of stress on teachers’
sense of well-being and their willingness to stay in the profession. Before 1970's, teaching
was considered as a noble profession. However, in the recent years, researches have
proved that teaching profession is one of the stressful profession (Ravichandran &
Rajendran, 2007).

The purpose of this research is to investigate the Impact of Work Life Balance on
Teacher’s Productivity and Job Stress among Malaysians Primary school teachers. This
research will conduct on primary school teachers around Klang Valley area.

1.1 Research Background

This research will be focus on Impact of Work Life Balance on Teacher’s
Productivity and Job Stress. This research conducted on primary school teachers
in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Since education is part of human life, therefore the

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main reason of choosing education industry is because it can help people to build
up personality, behaviour and morality.
The job for teacher is complexity. The responsibilities for teacher are teach
specialist subject to different ages, organising and involve in extracurricular,
giving feedback on student’s performance and etc. Thus, teachers must be very
enthusiasm and patient with their job. Moreover, they must come out an effective
way in teaching their student in order can encourage their student to learn and
enjoy the subjects.
Based on the past research, WLB has been a concern area since the
employees were making in reaction in the unhealthy work-life in 1980’s.
Employees will spend the valued time for their personal life rather than spend the
time with family and friend and for their leisure activities in order to carry out the
work goals (Kumar and Shiyakumar, 2011).
The imbalance of work and life was caused by working long hours and
overbearing of workloads (Jones and Bright, 2001). Employees must able to
enjoy their life besides of working because Maad (2008) has said that “We work
to live not live to work”. According to Kofodimos (1993), an imbalance between in
work and life has been reflected as a problem that will harm individual lifestyle
and well-being. So, an imbalance work-life occurred because it brings them
performing a conjuring trick on their work live and personal lives in their reality of
work-life.

1.2 Research Problem

According to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) report, Malaysia was ranked 52nd out of 65 countries. From the PISA
report, it was clearly seen that there was huge drop in Malaysia’s performance as
compared to previous assessment and the results were below the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average.
Besides that, our neighbouring country, Singapore has significant
outperformed result as they won second place in the latest PISA ranking
(Mozihim, 2014). The poor performance from the latest PISA report showed that
Malaysian education system faced a number of key problems and it served as
one of the key concern for our group to conduct this study to improve the
Malaysian education system.
Moreover, based on the World Bank report, the quality of education in
Malaysia is not up to the standard of the highest Asian performers in the world
rankings. This means the academic performance in Malaysia still ranked behind

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other regions or may have fallen even further behind. The academic performance
of Malaysia was keep dropping yet the number of teachers in Malaysia keep
rising (World Bank, 2012). This result has provided a negative sign towards
Malaysian education system and various parities need to take action towards this
key problem.
Teaching is one of the important job in the world because it helps to build up a
good personality and provide rich knowledge for students. Therefore, teachers
play a vital role in solving the key problem and improve the Malaysian education
system. The level of stress is increase steadily among the school teachers
because they have to cope with their task in order to educate student. According
to Kyriacou (2001), a professional teaching is known to be very demanding and
stressful job. According to Lee (2012), a heavy workload will affect the quality of
work and individual performance because they will have low work motivation. It is
not possible that every school teacher who under stress will educate good
students. It will also affect the teaching profession because school teachers lack
of support and resources to fulfil the student needs (Bauer et al., 2005; Bauer et
al., 2007; Weber, Weltle & Lederel., 2006).
Teachers have to spend more time to cope with increasing demand from
students and parents and to fulfil the job requirements by Malaysia’s Ministry of
Education. Job stress on teachers plays important part in balancing work-life
issues which means high level of job stress will cause impact on teachers’
productivity (Wallace, 2005; Wong & Lin, 2007).
Based on the study of Dickson-Swift (2009), Gillespie (2001), Rosser (2004)
& Shah (2012), job stress has a negative impact on employee’s work and
personal lives. High work related stress will likely to cause diseases like heart
attack, diabetes, blood pressure, headache, asthma and dizziness (Stress
survey, 2001). Therefore, teachers are trying to balance their work load with
personal life and sometimes this create positive effects as well as negative
effects where no one can avoid this stress (Mauno et al., 2006).

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1.3 Conceptual Framework

IV DV

Work Life Balance Employee Productivity

of Teachers of Teachers
 Personal life]
 Professional Life
 Family life DV

Job Stress

1.4 Research Objectives

The aim of this research are:
1. To examine the level of job stress among teachers.
2. To examine whether there is relationship between Work life balance and
teacher’s Productivity
3. To examine whether there is relationship between Work life balance on
teacher’s job stress

1.5 Research Questions

1. What is the impact of job stress among teachers?
2. Is there any relationship between Work life balance and teacher’s
Productivity?
3. Is there any relationship between Work life balance on teacher’s job stress?

1.6 Hypothesis

There are three important aspects has been highlighted in Work Life Balance
which are Personal Life, Professional Life and Family life. All these aspects play
major role in designing an individual work life balance.

Personal life consists of everything an individual do outside of the work. It can

be a relationship, leisure time, taking rest and relax time, entertainment, family

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time, health and fitness (Sophia, n.d.). Personal life is important as it gives you
time to rest, relax, and recharge ourselves for what is coming ahead. When a
person enrich private and personal life, he or she will be more connected
themselves. It will bring more mindfulness and engage in work. It gives a sense
of livelihood and purpose besides our work, career, and business. It is where
people can find the balance, like “Yin and Yang”. When someone enjoy the
private life, he or she will be more creative and productive.

Professional life often refers to as ones working life. It consists of career,

business and job. It also often associated with success and wealth. When
someone says that he is successful professionally, he simply means that he has
great achievement in his career and business (Sophia, n.d.). Professional life is
important because it determines how well you perform in your business and
career. Ultimately, the more successful you are in this area, the wealthier you will
be. Today, most people focus in their professional life because the society
measures our achievement through monetary and material means. Overspending
your time in your professional life can make you connect less with yourself, your
family, your friends and your soul.

According to your dictionary, (online dictionary), Family life is the routine

interactions and activities that a family have together. When members of a family
enjoy each other's company and spend a lot of time doing things together, this is
an example of a good family life. It will build connect with yourself, your family,
your friends and your soul.

Work life balance is the lack of opposition between work and other life roles. It
is the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life, and
family life are equal.

1.6.1 Work life balance and employee productivity

WLB impact positively on employee productivity. More studies
conducted previously in order to survey the relationship of work life
balance on employee productivity. Based on a research conducted by
Sehrish (2015), commented on Impact of WLB on Employee
Productivity that both must work together to achieve the goal.
An Experimental finding from the Banking Sector of Pakistan stated
that there is connectivity between WLB and employee performance. It
concludes that WLB has good relationship with employee
performance. It is proven from the data collected from banking sector

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employees by revealing that there is a positive relationship between

work life balance and employee productivity.
According to Katherine (2018), he found that active work-life benefits
motivates employees to work energetically and demotivates them from
leaving their work. He also claimed that, WLB mainly focus on
employee’s ability to cooperate between work and his or her lifestyle.
It is strongly related with employee productivity, performance and job
satisfaction.
In another research has stated as below chart, the work life
balance has provided positive impacts towards employees’
performance (Susi & Jawaharrani, 2010). Work-life balance has
become an increasingly pervasive concern to both employers and
employees of most organisations.

Source: ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH Online Open Access

publishing platform for Management Research
H1: Work Life Balance has a positive significant impact on
employee productivity.

1.6.2 Work life balance and job stress

There were many researchers done finding on WLB and employee’s
stress level. Study has been conducted among the working women of
public sector banks to assess the impact of WLB on stress controlling
and job fulfilment by Rajesh & Shriti (2014). WLB and Stress
management can be achieved by the factors that rely on job
satisfaction such as: inspiring social communities, accommodating

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working conditions, challenging work, rewards and employee oriented

policies.
There is a research conducted by Signe (2015) to see how WLB and
stress explore, and the influence of working hours and administrative
attention. He found that the WLB and employees stress are
interrelated and every employee must know how to manage his or her
stress level to maintain their work life balance.
H2: work life balance has a positive significant impact on stress
level

1.6.3 Job stress and employee productivity

There were many studies conducted on stress and employee

productivity. According to Dr. Balamurugan &Prabakaran (2017), he
found that stress level has a positive impact on employee productivity.
In his studies he also revealed that reveals that the stress experienced
in the organization impact significantly on the productivity of the
workers.

There is a study conducted to assess the cause of stress on

employee productivity in five selected banks in Awka, Anambra State
(Okeke, Ojan Echo &Oboreh, 2016). The finding shows the work-
induced stress on an organization is reduced productivity. Conversely
if the less stress will increase the productivity of employee.

Based on Abhijeet & Sneha (2018) positive stress can be seen

as an opportunity for employees in organization who believe to get a
good outcome where in negative stress can be seen as threat that
would have a poor outcome.

H3: stress level has a positive significant impact on employee

productivity

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1.7 Theoretical Framework

Theory / Variable/ Elements Strengths Weakness Source

Model

Maslow’s Theory of >simple to >not all

motivation defined that understand individuals think
human being are > it takes into in the same way. Kendra
motivated by unsatisfied account human > culture Cherry,
needs, and that certain nature differences (2009).,
lower needs need to be > helps in > difficulty to
satisfied before higher organizing wants measure
needs can be noticed. and fears > it can be difficult
Maslow believed that to >relevant in all to use same
reach the hierarchy fields model over
towards a level of self- > motivation as a different
actualization, everyone changing force generation
will be motivated.

The Four Consists of 4 elements: >applicable to form >imbalanced Darcy,

Burners >The first burner
Theory represents your family.
>The second burner is
your friends.
>The third burner is your
health.
>The fourth burner is your
work.
good work life >not all 4 burners (2015).
balance are achievable in
an individual’s
> have general and life.
flexible idea to
apply into different
field.

SWOT Internal and external >identify key factor >difficult to Albert

Analysis analysis which consists of to achieve identify what is Humphrey,
1) Strengths objectives strategically (1966)
2) Weakness important from list
3) Opportunities of opportunities
4) Threats

1.7.1 Maslow's hierarchy of needs

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One of the most popular needs theories is Abraham Maslow's

hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow proposed that motivation is the result of a
person's attempt at fulfilling five basic needs: physiological, safety, social,
esteem and self-actualization. According to Maslow, these needs can create
internal pressures that can influence a person's behavior.

Self-actualization needs describe a person's need to reach his or her

full potential. The need to become what one is capable of is something that is
highly personal. While I might have the need to be a good parent, you might
have the need to hold an executive-level position within your organization.
Because this need is individualized, as a manager, you can account for this
need by providing challenging work, inviting employees to participate in
decision-making and giving them flexibility and autonomy in their jobs.

Esteem needs refer to the need for self-esteem and respect, with self-
respect being slightly more important than gaining respect and admiration
from others. As a manager, you can account for the esteem needs of your
employees by offering praise and recognition when the employee does well,
and offering promotions and additional responsibility to reflect your belief that
they are a valued employee.

Social needs, also called love and belonging, refer to the need to feel
a sense of belonging and acceptance. Social needs are important to humans
so that they do not feel alone, isolated and depressed. Friendships, family
and intimacy all work to fulfill social needs. As a manager, you can account
for the social needs of your employees by making sure each of your

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employees know one another, encouraging cooperative teamwork, being an

accessible and kind supervisor and promoting a good work-life balance.

Safety needs include those needs that provide a person with a sense
of security and well-being. Personal security, financial security, good health
and protection from accidents, harm and their adverse effects are all included
in safety needs. As a manager, you can account for the safety needs of your
employees by providing safe working conditions, secure compensation (such
as a salary) and job security, which is especially important in a bad economy.

Physiological needs are those needs required for human survival such
as air, food, water, shelter, clothing and sleep. As a manager, you can
account for the physiological needs of your employees by providing
comfortable working conditions, reasonable work hours and the necessary
breaks to use the bathroom and eat and/or drink.

1.7.2 The Four Burners Theory

The Four Burners Theory

In order to provide better WLB employers must consider things as

offering more flexible work schedules, or a holistic benefits package. It also
seems like offering employees privilege to manage their own family and work.
(Darcy, 2015). The Four Burners Theory emphasizes on the key concept as
stated below. There are consist of four elements as stated below:

• The first burner represents your family.

• The second burner is your friends.
• The third burner is your health.

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• The fourth burner is your work.

The Four Burners Theory says that “in order to be successful you
have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you
have to cut off two.” Be imbalanced. Just sacrifice one of the burners
completely and accept it. If your work, money, or your legacy is super
important to you, maybe you can learn to live without many friends or being
super healthy and fit. Be average. Leave all burners on their lowest setting so
you can manage. You’ll have a balanced life, but are unlikely to go far in any
particular area. Outsource things. If you’re rich, you can hire a chef, a trainer,
etc. This has constraints too if a nanny raises your kids, who will they
become? Cap your gas. Set limits for each burner that allow you to feel alright
with the overall arrangement. “I’ll work 70 hours a week, but not a minute
more,”

1.7.3 SWOT Analysis Theory

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and

Threats, and so a SWOT Analysis is a technique for assessing these
four aspects of an organization. SWOT Analysis can be used to make
the most of what you've got, to your organization's best advantage.
And to reduce the chances of failure, by understanding what have
been lacking, and eliminating hazards that would otherwise catch the
unawares.
The primary objective of a SWOT analysis is to help organizations
develop a full awareness of all the factors involved in making a
business decision.

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Perform a SWOT analysis before commit to any sort of

company action, whether to exploring new initiatives, revamping
internal policies, considering opportunities to pivot or altering a plan
midway through its execution.
A SWOT analysis focuses on the four elements of the
acronym, allowing companies to identify the forces influencing a
strategy, action or initiative. Knowing these positive and negative
elements can help companies more effectively communicate what
parts of a plan need to be recognized.
When drafting a SWOT analysis, individuals typically create a
table split into four columns to list each impacting element side by side
for comparison. Strengths and weaknesses won't typically match listed
opportunities and threats verbatim, although they should correlate,
since they are ultimately tied together. SWOT Analysis consist of two
different factors which are Internal and external.

Internal factors
Strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) refer to internal factors, which are
the resources and experience readily available to you. Some
commonly considered internal factors are, Financial resources
(funding, sources of income and investment opportunities), Physical
resources (location, facilities and equipment), Human resources
(employees, volunteers and target audiences), Access to natural
resources, trademarks, patents and copyrights Current processes
(employee programs, department hierarchies and software systems).
External factors
External forces influence and affect every company, organization and
individual. Whether these factors are connected directly or indirectly to
an opportunity (O) or threat (T), it is important to note and document
each one.
External factors are typically things you or your company do
not control, such as the following: Market trends (new products,
technology advancements and shifts in audience needs) Economic
trends (local, national and international financial trends) Funding
(donations, legislature and other sources) Demographics
Relationships with suppliers and partners. Political, environmental and
economic regulations

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After you create your SWOT framework and fill out your SWOT
analysis, you will need to come up with some recommendations and
strategies based on the results. Linda Pophal, owner and CEO of
consulting firm Strategic Communications, said these strategies
should focus on leveraging strengths and opportunities to overcome
weaknesses and threats ( Madsen, 2016).
"This is actually the area of strategy development where
organizations have an opportunity to be most creative and where
innovative ideas can emerge, but only if the analysis has been
appropriately prepared in the first place," (Madsen, 2016).

1.8 Importance of Research

Balancing between work and family is a big challenge for employees in
nowadays. Both family and work are demanding for high commitment. If a person
tends to give extra commitment in one side and neglect other side, conflict may
exist in either side. Stress is one of the conflict that will happen if unbalance
commitment between work and life of an employee. The research adopted Work
life balance as independent variable and employee productivity and job stress as
dependent variables in this research.

1.9 Limitations
There are limitations in this research due to time allocation as the researcher
allocate time for work, family and studies. More time will be taken to execute this
research as the researcher only use manual type of instrument (questionnaire).
The investigator need to handle this issue to complete the task given on time.
Secondly, the respondent who respond lately to answer the questionnaire. To
overcome this problem researcher must be proactive and put more effort in
distributing more questionnaires in many schools around Klang Valley to achieve
the objective of this investigation. Third limitation will be cost. The researcher will
need to allocate the money accordingly with proper budget to spend wisely as the
researcher has to spend the money for family as well.

1.10 Conclusion

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In conclusion, this research is to identify the Impact of Work Life Balance on

Teacher’s Productivity and Job Stress among Malaysian teachers. It is
important to well known on healthy work life especially to the primary school
teachers in order to life a stress free life and to produce healthy generation in
future. Therefore, this research will be lead towards the research objectives
according to the designed conceptual framework.

CHAPTER 2

2.0 Introduction
In this section of the assignment, researcher will discuss on the definition of all
variables from the pioneer to the latest researches who had conducted researches with
similar issue.
2.1 Literature Review
2.1.1 Work life balance
According to Susan (2018) WLB defines as the ideal of severe one's time and
energy between work and other important aspects of their life. The workplace that
enables employees to achieve work-life balance is mainly inspiring and rewarding
employees, which makes them satisfied. Employees, those who are happy will
stay with their employer for a long time and be more productive. (Susan, 2018).
WLB is an aspect which helps employees to balance their personal and
professional lives. WLB motivates employees to allocate their time on the basis
on importance and keep a balance by giving time to family, health, and vacations
along with making a career, business travel and so forth.
Maintaining WLB is a big challenge which increasingly acknowledged as of
strategic importance to organization and of significance to employees (Mendis &
Weerakkod, 2017). According to Sverke,Helgren & Naswell (2002),stress gave a
negative consequences for an individual and its effect the performance at work
place.
2.1.2 Employees’ performance
“Employee Performance” defines individual’s commitment towards work based on
the required effort on the job which is related with good performance. (Hellriegel,
Jackson, & Slocum, 1999; Karakas, 2010). There is always will have a
connectivity between work life balance and employee performance in order to
achieve the goal of an organisation. Teachers are facing challenges in dealing

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with work life balance due to the work load which impact their performance.
Recently in Malaysia, participation in teaching profession has increased. The
increasing trend of participation in the teaching profession poses challenges in
families, especially in the developing countries like Malaysia. One of these
challenges, concerns in balancing their role between family and job responsibility
that faced by many teachers.
2.1.3 Job stress at work place
Generally, stress is defined as worry or pressure that is caused by having too
much to deal with (New Oxford Dictionary 2nd ed., 2009; 819). However, Hinkle
(1987) stated that stress can be defined differently by researchers from various
disciplines. One of the famous psychologists, Skinner (1985), as cited in Global
Organisation for Stress, (n.d.) suggested that stress is “a reaction of a particular
individual to a stimulus event”. Teachers have been burden also for the
administration work in school and they need to make sure the performance of the
students. High commitment demands from these two domains can bring impact
to the WLB. Ample researches were conducted on teachers Work life balance as
it has been found that teaching is a stressful profession (Rosser, 2004). Another
most important reason for studying teachers on the aspect of Work life balance is
that, many teachers struggle in dealing with unbalance work life structure due to
workloads which caused stress (Acker 1996). Clark (1989) concluded that it is the
teaching profession that has different dimensions such as pattern of work,
authority, identification and career.

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Figure 2 illustrates work stress faced by Malaysian employees in year 2015

(Sobri, 2015) taken from the International Journal of Academic Research in
Business and Social Sciences, 2017. This graph highlights the burnout issue of
employees in Malaysia. It is also shows how employees suffer with their various
stress which effects their WLBA this problem effected employees’ life balance it
makes them to live a poor and unhealthier life(Sobri,2015). I encountered this as
a serious issue now and it need to be solved immediately as it is necessary to all
the employees to live happily. Therefore, it is vital to do a research on how to
handle this burnout problem among Malaysian employees.
Hasan (2014) studied the occupational stress of primary school teachers of
primary government and private school teachers. The findings revealed that
primary school teachers have found to be highly stressed. Findings also revealed
that the private primary school teachers have also found to be highly stressed in
comparison to their government primary school teacher counterparts.
Manabete, John, Makinde & Duwa (2016) conducted a research on job stress
among school administrators and teachers in Nigerian secondary schools and
technical colleges. They examined stress, job or workplace stress among
teachers in Nigeria. Findings revealed that role ambiguity, poor relations with
boss, work overload are the main sources of stress among teachers.

2.2 Conclusion
In conclusion, there are two types of variables has been highlighted which are
independent variables and dependant variables. According to this research Work
life balance will be the dependant variables whereas employee productivity and
job stress would be the independent variables. With this identification of variables
researcher could focus the research on the right track.

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CHAPTER 3

3.0 Research Methodology

In this section of the assignment, the researcher will further discuss the primary
objectives and proposes on conducting a study and research on impact of work-life
balance on employee productivity on job stress. To further access, this part will elaborate
the research design, research method, procedure and data collections, data collection
method, data collection tools and questionnaire. Each part will be supported with the
academic references which will help the research to remain focus on the deliverables.

3.1 Research Design

In conducting research, research design become a key component where
planning, methods and ways of the implementation is important (Hakim, 1987).
According to Burns and Grove (2003) research design is a blueprint of performing
a research or study together with a control over factors that may arise and effect
the integrity and validity of a findings. Burns and Groom also claimed that the
success or failure of a research rely on how well the topic or research area
defined with clear objectives, goals and proper justifications. There are common
research methods or design in conducting a research. They are descriptive,
exploratory, and explanatory. Descriptive research methods involves data that
describes events, consistently organize, table it and work on the data collections (
Glass&Hopkins, 1984). Based on Rahi (2017) Explanatory method is a well-
known as a casual research where it conducts impact of assessment of a certain
change on the existing and various processes to build and test a theory.
Exploratory research method is often defines as collecting data or information in
a unstructured way and it is very beneficial for researchers to know everything
about the area of study (Burns & Bush, 2005).

3.2 Research Method

For the purpose of this research, upon understanding the benefits and
constrains between the available three methods, researcher opted for
explanatory method. By opting for this method, researchers will be able to obtain
impact assessment of the detailing changes of the current and multiple processes
where the researcher can use to build, discuss, expound and test the theories. As

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mentioned by Rahi (2007), the outcomes of this method will help researcher to
execute the explanatory research to find the gaps/ issues and the key variables in
the research for future recommendations. Researcher also found more benefit
when opting for explanatory method as it will enable the researcher while
investigation.
Descriptive research method was not an option due to the limitation of the
time constrain and more efforts needed to collect and analyse the data obtained.
In addition, this type of research has its own disadvantages as it is focusses on
observational design and the scoping is required to ensure the targeted and
intended group is available (Mohan,2007).
Lastly, the exploratory method was not being used in this research due to the
fact data collection method is known to be as an unstructured. This method is
also mainly focus around the ideas and vision lead the researcher to the direction
rather deviate from the actual contacts (Malhotra, 1999).

3.3 Procedure and Data Collections Method

Data collection method is one of the important aspect in concluding a

research therefore getting it utmost accurate is extremely important (Hox &
Boejie, 2005). Collis and Hussey (2003) also added there are two type of data
collection method which can be used in conducting a research. They are
qualitative and quantitative. According to the same researcher qualitative is
further broken down to questionnaire and interview. Quantitative is divided to-in-
depth interview, observations, document reviews and creating a focus group.
Often the demographic and size of the research play a role in determining what
method need to be applied to gain the best outcomes in conducting a research
(Collis & Hussey,2003). Based on the area of this research paper with time and
resource playing a vast value, researcher decided to use qualitative which is
conducting interview session as a tool of data collection method was adopted as
a primary source of information gathering. Reason of adopting this method is due
to fact limited to no data is available hence the need to go down to the grass root
to obtain the information (Myers et al, 2008).
The interview data required for the study were collected from primary school
teachers around Klang valley area. The primary data has been collected directly
from teaching professionals by using the pre-defined well-structured
questionnaire. Totally 3 samples were collected to conduct this research. In

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order to interpret the data to arrive at findings from the study, the data analysis
tool which is NVIVO Version 10 will be used.

3.4 Data Collection Tools

For this research paper researcher will be using structured questions as a

mechanism to conduct the interview. In order to obtained feedback, researcher
prepared a set of questions which has the direct intention to obtain soonest
responds from the intended respondents. In order to collect effective and quality
data a researcher must design questions which has the correct direction
therefore getting it right from beginning is extremely crucial. According to
Robinson (2004), Likert scale is most commonly used to obtains feedback from
respondents for any research conducted. To conduct this research researcher
designed 4 main research question which has 4 main factors which related to the
topic of the research. From the 4 main research questions researcher develops 4
minor research questions for each main factors respectively. In total there will be
20 research questions has been design to conduct the interview session with
respondents.
Bomen (1998), mentioned that the main reason behind the separation in
demographic is to obtain a better understanding aside measuring individual
preferences in the demography. To ease and a smooth sailing of data
instruments, interview questions was build and around the respondents’
demography like 1) age, 2) ethnic group, 3) marital status 4) educational
qualification and 5) years of working experience. Besides that to support the
existence of each variables, a total of 15 Likert scale questionnaire generated
where five (5) each questions represented WLB(5), employee productivity(5) and
level of stress(5). A simple and direct with clear usage of word choice was used
to develop the questions which will help the respondents to easily understand
and respond efficiently. This will help the researcher to get a valid and reliable
results from the respondents.

3.5 Interview Questions

A WORK LIFE BALANCE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A1 I am able to balance my work & personal activities.

A2 I am happy and satisfied with my job

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A3 My job provides flexible working hours.

A4 My head of department always remind us on the importance

of work life balance

A5 I get to spend time with my friends and families despite my

hectic schedule.

B EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

B1 I work effectively more than 8 hours a day.

B2 I feel satisfied with all the task given by my organization.

B3 I work effectively during school holiday.

B4 I feel working hours that I spend is more efficient to provide

quality work.

B5 My organization always provides course and training which

help to improve my teaching skills.

C JOB STRESS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

C1 I always feel insecure at my workplace.

C2 I am having uncertainty on my work responsibility.

C3 I always feel confuse with the task assigned to me.

C4 I feel stress on the job assigned to me sometimes which not

related with my job description.

C5 I am facing with time pressure all the times due to deadlines.

C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

C1 I always feel insecure at my workplace.

C2 I am having uncertainty on my work responsibility.

C3 I always feel confuse with the task assigned to me.

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C4 I feel stress on the job assigned to me sometimes which not

related with my job description.

C5 I am facing with time pressure all the times due to deadlines.

3.6 Target Population and Sampling Method

The sampling process is deemed an important exercise as described by

Wimmer & Dominick (2003) where that sample is “subset of population that is
represented of entire population”. In nutshell, if the sampling is done correctly
together with the appropriate process adhered, the overall outcome will be able to
represent the entire population. Based on researcher Gliner and Morgan (2000), by
using sampling, cost, time, and effort can be optimised as interviewing and observing
can be costly and focussing on broader population is best fit rather individual
participants. Population or target audience is also known as a group of people,
events, sequence of interest where the researcher is keen to investigate or explore
gaps (Cavana, Delahaye, Sekaran, 2001). As far as the research paper is
concerned, the research boundaries sit and resides around the topic of the research
called impact of WLB on employee productivity and teachers’ job stress. Keeping the
topic in mine and demographics, intended population group of people are those who
are working in primary schools in Malaysia. With the well-defined scope and target
audience/ population, it helped researcher to save time, effort and cost in conducting
the research and most important the integrity and creditability of the data collection.

According to Cavana et al.,(2001), sampling is an element considered as a

single member of a population therefore in summary, every individual from the
intended audience is considered an element. For this research paper, the sampling
element is wide due to the fact the demography is in concerned. This is due to the
fact where research is working adult who are currently actively working from any age
group, marital status, educational background and working experience. As described,
known probability sampling method will be adopted due to limited time and resources
availability.

3.7 Data Analysis Plan

In this research the data analysis tool NVIVO will be used to indicate the impact
of work life balance on employee productivity and job stress of primary school
teachers for the conducted interview result. The searching facilities in NVivo can
add rigour to the analysis process by allowing the researcher to carry out quick
and accurate searches of a particular type (the researcher may be reluctant to

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carry out these searches manually, especially if the data set is large), and can
add to the validity of the results by ensuring that all instances of a particular
usage are found, this searching needs to be married with manual scrutiny
techniques so that the data are in fact thoroughly interrogated

3.8 Ethical issues and accessibility

There will be minimum ethical issue arises, as most of the respondents will be
voluntarily to participate without any force and no pressure is given. As
respondents are given time to participate in the questionnaire sent. A consent
statement will be mentioned in the interview session and privacy will be
protected. The research will not disclose any personal information of the
respondents to ensure private and confidential.Researcher will design a
questions and will be conduct interview from primary school teachers around the
Klang Valley.
3.9 Conclusion
In conclusion, through researcher could do research design, research method,
procedure and data collections, data collection method, data collection tools and
questionnaire accordingly as it will help to have more understanding on the
research topic.

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