Research proposal on Factors Influencing Bangladeshi Undergraduate University Students Attitude toward Facebook

Page 1 of 19

Research proposal on Factors Influencing Bangladeshi Undergraduate University Students Attitude toward Facebook

Submitted to:G. M. Shafayet Ullah Lecturer of Southeast University School of Business Studies

Submitted by:-

Southeast University
Date of Submission: 6th August 2011
Page 2 of 19

Group-B
No 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 Name ID Number Batch Section

Page 3 of 19

Executive Summary
Facebook is one of the most popular Social Networking Sites (SNS) in the world. Along with many benefits it also has enough demerits which may influence the students. But if its merits can be exercised properly, students as well as the nation can be benefited. This study will examine the attitude toward Facebook of Bangladeshi Undergraduate University students. It will explore a dimension of factors because of which Bangladeshi Undergraduate university students are engaged with Facebook. This research will be conducted on various Undergraduate University students in Bangladesh, both Public and Private. So there are enough opportunities to understand about attitude toward Facebook of Bangladeshi Undergraduate university students. It will be completed within 16th August 2011. This proposal aims to provide a broad outline of the research to find out the actual reasons why Bangladeshi University Undergraduate students influencing attitude toward Facebook. This proposal will provide the brief idea to the management of Facebook about the activities that will be conducted throughout the research. In addition, sample questions of proposal exploratory and conclusive research have been provided in appendix

Page 4 of 19

Table of Contents

Topic 1. Introduction 2. History 3. Problem Definition 4. Approaches to the problem 5. Research Design 6. Data Collection 7. Data Analysis 8. Reporting 9. Cost and time 10. Conclusion 11. Reference 12. Appendix

Page No. 06 06 10 11 13 13 14 14 14 17 18 19

Page 5 of 19

Introduction of Facebook
Facebook is a social networking site (SNS). It connects people with friends and others who work, study & live around them. People use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, post photos, share links & exchange other information. It is considered to be the biggest social network on the internet. Now Facebook contains nearly 70 million abusers. With Facebook, people can find people and communicate with them. On top of this, usage of Facebook for business networking becomes popular with many people. The majority of companies with online availability prefer to employ Facebook for their professional purposes. Especially for this kind of users, Facebook provides RSS feeds and Twitter. Moreover Facebook is a platform for numerous online marketing strategies, and therefore users can visit other websites using their Facebook logins and passwords .Recently Facebook has brought in an exclusive offering Fan Pages. However they are more intended for particular content instead of personal or entertaining meaning. The title Fan Pages does not have to mean that these pages are devoted to some kind of rock band or screen actor. Fan Pages can be also designed for anything, including online storages. The numbers of businesses that use Fun Pages to attract users are constantly increasing with greater and greater force.
1

Why are websites like Facebook so popular? Why does Facebook sell like hot potatoes 2 to Internet enthusiasts? Here are four reasons a) Upload unlimited photos b) Interact with friends through games and other applications. c) Be 'in the know' d) Send gifts!

Page 6 of 19

History: This is a history of the social network service, Facebook. Facemash

Contents

1 Facemash 2 The Facebook 3 Facebook 4 Financials

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki-facebook-

history, 12 February 2004

Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room. In early 2003, Adam D'Angelo, then a Caltech student who had been Mark Zuckerberg's best friend in high school, had developed the experimental, rudimentary social networking website Buddy Zoo, that was used by hundreds of thousands of people before D'Angelo shut it down. That summer, Zuckerberg and friends who were also computer science students worked coding for the summer in Boston and discussed the implication of D'Angelo's website's success with regard to the future of social networking on the Internet. In the fall, Zuckerberg, returning for his sophomore year at Harvard, wrote Course Match, a briefly popular site that helped Harvard students figure out what courses their friends were taking; and then, on October 28, 2003, he wrote Face mash, a site that, according to the Harvard Crimson, represented a Harvard University version of Hot or Not. According to The Harvard Crimson, Face mash "used photos compiled from the online Facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person". To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student directory with photos, and basic information and the initial site generated 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online. That the initial

Page 7 of 19

site mirrored peoples physical community with their real identities represented the key 3 aspects of what later became Facebook.

The Facebook

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/file:Thefacebook.png, Accessed on 12 February 2004 The homepage of the Facebook on February 12, 2004 In January 2004, the following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website. He was inspired, he said, by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Face mash incident. "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available," the paper observed. "The benefits are many." On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "The Facebook", originally located at thefacebook.com. "Everyones been talking a lot about a universal Facebook within Harvard," Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson. "I think its kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week." "When Mark finished the site, he told a couple of friends. And then one of them suggested putting it on the Kirkland House online mailing list, which was...three hundred people," according to roommate Dustin Moskovitz. "And, once they did that, several dozen people joined, and then they were telling people at the other houses. By the end of the night, we were...actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants." Just six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winkle Voss, Tyler Winkle Voss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to the Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. Zuckerberg used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any of the Page 8 of 19

Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. In the cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members' Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them. The three later 4 filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, later settling.

Table 1: Facebook User

Date August 26, 2008 April 8, 2009 September 15, 2009 February 5, 2010 July 21, 2010 January 5, 2011 July 6, 2011 Users (in millions) 100 200 300 400 500 600 750 Days late 1,665 225 150 143 166 168 182 Monthly growth 178.38% 13.33% 10% 6.99% 4.52% 3.57% 2.54%

Source: www.facebook.com/press/info.php?Statistics.

2000 1500 1000 500 0 26- 8- 15- 5- 21- 5- 6Aug- Apr- Sep- Feb- Jul- Jan- Jul0 100 200 300 400 500 600 750 1,66 225 150 143 166 168 182 178. 13.3 10% 6.99 4.52 3.57 2.54

Users Days late Monthly growth

Figure 1: Facebook User

Page 9 of 19

Financials:
Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, in exchange for 7% of the company. July 19, 2005 Face book reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from an unknown bidder, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as $2 billion. In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning acquisition of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion. In September 2007, Microsoft approached Facebook, proposing an investment in return for a 5% stake in the company, offering an estimated $300 500 million. That month, other companies, including Google, expressed interest in buying a portion of Face book. In August 2008, Business Week reported that private sales by employees, as well as purchases by venture capital firms, had and were being done at share prices that put the company's total valuation at between $3.75 billion and $5 billion. In September 2009, Facebook claimed that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time. On April 2, 2010, Facebook announced acquisition of photo-sharing service called Divvy shot for an undisclosed amount. In June 2010, an online marketplace for trading private 5 company stock reflected a valuation of $11.5 billion.

Comparing Facebook with other social networks

Facebook is one of the popular networks than other networks like twitter.com, orkut.com, hi5.com. Because the users of Facebook are unlimited than other social networks and most of the Bangladeshi people are interested to access with Facebook network. If user uses the Internet for a while, even for a year or so, that user has probably heard one of the most popular social networking websites named Facebook. To date, Facebook has over 64 million active subscribers worldwide - not including those subscribers who signed up this year.

Problem Definition: Management Decision Problem:

Management of Facebook wants to know Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students feelings towards Facebook.

Business Research Problem:

To identify the factors that influences the Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students feelings towards Facebook.

Page 10 of 19

Broad Statement:
To identify the factors influencing the attitude towards Facebook of Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students and weather those factors have positive, negative or no absolute effect on the attitude towards Facebook.

Specific Component:
Since this research has not done yet so here it can assume that, there are some factors like social networking, finding friends, chatting, sharing views etc. These factors may positively, negatively or may not influence the Bangladeshi undergraduate university students attitude toward Facebook.

Approach to the Problem: Objectives:

The objective of this research will be to find out the factors that influence Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students attitude towards Facebook.

Analytical model: Verbal Model:

Factors such as finding new friends, sharing views may have positive, negative or no effect on the Bangladeshi Undergraduate University students attitude toward Facebook.

Mathematical model:
In this model, it will be in equation form likey = x1+x2+x3+..+x n y = Attitude towards Facebook x1 = Communication x2 = Chatting x3 = Finding new friend x4= Poke friends xn= nth factors and so on.

Page 11 of 19

Graphical Model:

Commu nication Advertis ement Time pass

Privacy Attitude towards face book Social networki ng

Finding friends

Chatting

Study discussi on

Sharing views Comme nts

Research question:
RQ: Does finding foreign friends influence the Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students attitude towards Facebook?

Hypothesis:
The Hypothesis will be done by the software SPSS 16 version and find out the two results. H0: Finding foreign friends does not influence the Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students attitude towards Facebook. H1: Finding foreign friends does influence the Bangladeshi undergraduate universitys students attitude towards Facebook.

Page 12 of 19

Research design:
Exploratory research design:
Research process will be flexible and unstructured, sample size will be small and non representative. Analysis of primary data will be qualitative. For this research an exploratory research would be conducted that will be based on only Bangladeshi Undergraduate University Students and they will ask to answer the open ended question that ask the reasons influencing their attitude toward Facebook. Freedom to answer the question will be given. Generally in this case data will be collected from around 35-45 students from different universities. After doing this research around 65-75 factors like Sharing Image & Video, Finding new Friends, Chatting, Finding old Friends, Passing Leisure Time, and Social Networking etc. might be found out.

Conclusive research
After finishing exploratory research, the conclusive research would be conducted if the exploratory research gives the preliminary information. For this research a conclusive research would be conducted that will be based on more than 300 Bangladeshi undergraduate university students. It will ask the respondents to answer the close ended questions that ask the reasons influencing their attitude toward Facebook. As the research is not completed the policy will be to make each question using each factor found from the exploratory research. It may be around 108 close ended questions for the conclusive research.

Data Collection:
In the first phase of this research a field work would be conducted that will be based on Bangladeshi Undergraduate University students and they will be asked to answer the open ended question, that ask the reasons influencing their attitude toward Facebook. Here around 15 researchers would be involved in this process. Freedom will be given to answer the question. After this research, 70-85 factors like Sharing Image & Video, Finding new Friends, Chatting etc. could come out. In the second phase another field work would be conducted for collecting data. For this phase a conclusive research will be conducted based on more than 300 Bangladeshi undergraduate university students of different universities situated in Dhaka who will be taken as samples for this research work. Here around 15 researchers would be involved in this process and they will ask the close ended questions to Bangladeshi undergraduate university students, regarding their attitude toward Facebook. The data will be collected using 5 point Likert Scale and there will be around 118 questions based on the factors found from the exploratory research.

Data Analysis:
Page 13 of 19

Hypothesis testing will be done at this stage which will give the actual solution of the business research problem. By conducting the hypothesis testing using the SPSS-version 16, the actual influencing factors for the usage of Facebook could be found out.

Reporting:
This report will be submitted to honorable sir G. M. Shafayet Ullah lecturer of Southeast University. Then according to this report a presentation and viva will be held and softcopy will also be provided. Finally, the term paper will be submitted.

Cost & Time: Time schedule

Research time can be divided into 6 steps both for the exploratory research and conclusive research.

Possible Steps and the time duration for Exploratory Research. Table 2: Phase 1 No. of step
Step-1 Step-2 Step-3 Step-4 Step-5 Step-6 Total time

Name of the step

Defining the problem Developing an approach to the problem Formulating a research design Doing field work or collecting data Preparing and analyzing data Preparing and presenting the report

Completion Time
12th -14th June 16th June 18th June 19th -26th June 28th June 30th June

Total time
2 day 2 day 2 day 7 days 2 day 2 day 17 days

Possible Steps and the time duration for conclusive research

Page 14 of 19

Table 3: phase 2 No. of step

Step-1 Step-2 Step-3 Step-4 Step-5 Step-6 Total time

Name of the step Completion Time

Defining the problem Developing an approach to the problem Formulating a research design Doing field work or collecting data Preparing and analyzing data Preparing and presenting the report 30th -4th July 4th 8th July 8th 13th July 13th 27th July 27th 5th August 6th August

Total time
4 days 4days 5 days 13 days 9 days 1 day 36 days

Possible Steps and costs for the exploratory research Table 4: phase 1
- No. of step Step-1 Step-2 Step-3 Step-4 Step-5 Step-6 Name of the step Defining the problem Developing an approach to the problem Formulating a research design Doing field work or collecting data Preparing and analyzing data Preparing and presenting the report Cost of Exploratory Research 183*15 65*15 148*15 Total cost Tk. 2005 750 650 2745 965 2220

Page 15 of 19

Possible Steps and costs for the conclusive research Table 4: Phase 2
No. of step Step-1 Step-2 Step-3 Step-4 Step-5 Step-6 Name of the step Defining the problem Developing an approach to the problem Formulating a research design Doing field work or collecting data Preparing and analyzing data Preparing and presenting the report Cost of Conclusive Research 470*15 420*15 450*15 Total cost Tk. 5800 2000 4200 7050 6300 6750

For calculating the costs, following considerations will also be exercised during the research work 1. Cost of cyber caf 2. Transportation cost 3. Mobile cost 4. Printing photocopy 5. Other costs

Page 16 of 19

Conclusion
Online social network sites may play roles that are different than what was described in early literature on virtual communities. Online interactions do not necessarily remove people from their offline world but may indeed be used to support relationships and keep people in contact, even when life changes move them away from each other. But its demerits can destroy our student-populations strongly which can be a major disadvantage for the nation. Although the research has some limitations but it will be done with great interest. So, after analyzing this report, the management of Facebook can easily find out some factors which indicate the attitude toward Facebook of the Bangladeshi Undergraduate University Students. After identifying, the management may take actions to improve or enhance the conditions regarding these factors. For example-Group Chatting can be an influencing factor. It may positively influence the attitude toward Facebook. Once management has understood this factor, they could improve this factor and implement some new features for chatting. This will, in turn, influence the Bangladeshi University Undergraduate Students attitude toward Facebook.

References
1. http://facebook.com/facebook-introduction,14th may 2010 Page 17 of 19

2. http://technology.timeline.co.uk/tol/news/tech-and-wed/theweb/article7064973.eco 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki-facebook-history, 12 February 2004 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.file:Thefacebook., 12 February 2004 5. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-goldmanidustre70359v20110106

Appendix
The appendix has already been provided byPage 18 of 19

a) Sample questionnaire of Exploratory Research b) Sample questionnaire of Conclusive Research.

Page 19 of 19