Research proposal: Why do People Volunteer Work Essay Example

I picked on is that once you doing voluntary work, your focus can shift so easily and you end up focussing on your own selfish ambitions and your gains from the project. This ends up leading to the quality of voluntary work because now everyone is excited to be making friends and getting to know new people. Others even take it to the level of using volunteering as a time pusher, they go there to hang out and talk and also to spend time around people.

2. Importance of research problem

The importance of this research varies from shifting the focus of selfish ambitions and self fulfilment to actually understanding that volunteering is about helping the people who need our voluntary services. It’s also to show that when we volunteer for the right ambitions it also results in the best services provided because we do not lose focus of the actual reason why we volunteer. Moreover this research will point out how volunteering also benefits the people who volunteer, we should however be able to draw the line between our benefits and the help we offer other people. It will also explain what motivates people to volunteer without getting compensation.

2. Motivation for research

Aim:

The reason why I am conducting this research is so that we can volunteer effectively to meet the given goal and for the right reasons so that our reason for researching is not biased. It’s always important to have direction in everything you do and to have a set up framework so we aim to figure out some way of evaluating peoples ambitions in volunteering

so that only the best candidates who want to volunteer for the right reasons can give their best efforts. It is also wise to give opportunity to people who have something to gain from it like those who are trying to exercise their expertise because they will do their best in trying to show their skills and they also need reverences to vouch for them in their future careers.

3. Research Questions

There are only 3 research questions for this study/ proposal which are:

-why do people volunteer work?

-what motivates people to give their own time to volunteering without any form of compensation?

-what are their experiences in volunteering and what do they gain from it?

4. Literature review

A study was done by Birnbam (2012), who looked at reasons why young people do volunteer work. Birnbsm states that, for a young person, having friends that volunteer regularly is the primary factor influencing a young person’s volunteering habits. It matters more than things like wanting to help improve his local community or working on an issue he cares about deeply,” the report stated. “In fact, for determining volunteering behavior, whether or not a young person’s friends volunteer regularly is nearly twice as important as having the ability to work on an issue he cares about deeply.”

There is also a South African study which was carried in Kwazulu natal which also gave reasons why people do volunteer work, this was done by Akintolo (2010), who found this when doing his research, religion, a function not previously described in the reviewed literature on functional approach, emerged as

a separate theme/function. The religion function is distinct from the 10 functions identified in the literature as it encapsulates motivations flowing solely from a strong belief in God and adherence to religious obligations of service to others.

The motivations, in order of pervasiveness, were: values, community, career, protective, understanding, enhancement, reciprocity, religion, recognition, reactivity and social. With the exception of religion and education discussed later, there was no particular pattern to the responses about motivation with regard to other demographic factors. Given that there were only two males in the sample, it was impossible to establish a pattern among male volunteers. Nonetheless, it emerged that both were volunteering to satisfy similar motive functions: values, career, protective, understanding and recognition. Additionally, not only were motivations relating to values and community functions the most commonly mentioned, they were also often the first to be mentioned. Only a handful of participants distinguished the primary motive for volunteering from the secondary motives.

Lastly, there is a research which was done by Baron et al (2009), they did a research looking at reasons why people will volunteer work on patients with AIDS, they stated that, the decision to volunteer can be based on personal values, the need to understand more about this disease, the desire to enhance one’s own development, the chance to gain career-related experience, the need to improve one’s own personal relationships, or the desire to reduce negative feelings, such as guilt, or escape from personal problems.

They also continued to say, one way to encourage volunteerism is to mandate it, when some high schools and college require students to spend a specific amount of

time in volunteer work to graduate. Though this practice does result in a number of “volunteers”, the sense of being forced to engage in such work decreases interest in future volunteer activity for many students.

5. Methodology

This research will use the qualitative research design and the reason for that is that this research aims to find the quality of volunteer work, why people do it and what they gain from it. Qualitative research according to Colman A (2009), is defined as a research that focuses on non-numerical data, such as verbal protocols or reports and that uses such techniques and approaches as content analysis, conversational analysis, critical theory, deconstruction, discourse analysis, ethnomethodology, hermeneutic, interviews, motivational research, phenomenology, protocol analysis, sociology of knowledge and verstehen. It also aims to find out the quality of volunteer work as a result for the ambitions intended while people volunteer. Qualitative research is intended to evaluate the quality of information. The data collection method which will be used will be done in terms of questionnaire, which will include the above mentioned questions.

5.1. Sample

According to Terre Blanche et al (2011:134), random selection means each element in the sampling frame has an equal chance of being selected for a sample. In this research the sampling method that will be used is random sampling where a voluntary centre will be visited and random participants will be asked to fill in a questionnaire.

5.2 Data collection

Data will be collected using a recorder and questionnaire, questions from the questionnaire will be asked to participants and a recording device will be used to collect all the

information and in recording their answers. The interview will be audio taped and the transcribed from there so to avoid writing during interview and miss communicated info by participants.

5.3 Data analysis

The type of data analysis which will be used is Grounded Theory which according to Terre Blanche (2011), is defined as a qualitative method which has a goal the development of theoretical accounts on the basis of a close, inductive engagement with the context of study. Two primary characteristics of this design are the constant comparison of data with emerging categories and theoretical sampling of different groups to maximize the similarities and the differences of information.

6. Ethical consideration

To ensure that all the information acquired is reliable and valid, people will be ensured security of their identities (pseudonyms will be used), informed consent will be taken into consideration so that people are free and trusting towards the research. It will be explained to participant that this is not legal binding if at any stage they want to pull off from the research they more than allowed to do so. The audio tape that will be used it will be explained to them that it will be stored in a safety place, and that no one apart from the research team will have access to it. Moreover reliable information from expert researchers will be used to back up and support the research.

7. Time line

The research will take approximately 6 months to be completed. The first stage will involve identifying the organisation where volunteer work is conducted and getting their consent to do the research there.

This is estimated to take three weeks to finish. The second stage will be gathering information which will take estimated at 3 months to completion. The third and last stage will involve consolidation of the information gathered and documenting a comprehensive research report. This is estimated to take 2 months.

8. Budget/Cost

The funding requested will be utilised for: , Tape recorder, travel expenses, stationary and the print out of the research when it is complete. All this could cost an estimation of R1500.

9. Anticipated problems

Anticipated problems could be not gaining access to do the research at some organisations due to them thinking I will expose them regardless of information given to them with detailed information with regards the reasons of my study. Also not getting funding for the study which will make more difficult to carry out the study.