It is the method and procedures that aid in the collection and analysis of data variables in a research (Quinlan et al., 2019). Through the design that is chosen there is a chance to deal with the problem within the research, the hypothesis and also the statistical analysis plan. Of importance to note is that the design also offers answers to all the research questions within the topic of study (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). There are many sources to choose a research design from depending on the topic of study (Quinlan et al., 2019).
According to (Creswell & Creswell, 2017), a research design comes with lots of benefits for any kind of study being carried out. The design itself is a guide and thus offers direction and smoothness of the process. It provides a plan of study that permits accurate assessment of cause and effect relationships between dependent and independent variables (Quinlan et al., 2019). It sets the parameters of the project since it determines exactly what will and will not be included by defining the criteria by which you will evaluate results and draw conclusions. Its ability to aid in time management also offers efficiency in the research process and thus reliability all together (Creswell & Creswell, 2017).
The study will adopt a descriptive kind of research design. A descriptive design is a theory-based design method which is created by gathering, analyzing and presenting collected data (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). The reason for its selection is due to its ability to offer answers to research questions when not much is known yet about the topic or problem (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). It is also an appropriate choice especially when the research aim is to identify characteristics, frequencies, trends, correlations and categories (Creswell & Creswell, 2017).
3.3. Population
A population refers to the total of all the individuals or items which possess characteristics that are of interest to the researcher (Brannen, 2017). The current population in Kenya is 52,023,967 as of Thursday, February 27, 2020 (DESA, 2019). The population of this study will be the respective department at Ruiru Feeds Ltd. A target population is the entire group of individuals or objects to which researchers are in generalizing the conclusions (Rahi, 2017). The target population for this study will therefore be the top management, the finance department and the supply chain department.