D. Bhebhe - Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences - University ...

study depended on the criteria of the research. To ensure validity and reliability the researcher
made an effort to visit different sites for information from legal mining organisation in
Gwanda to gold panning in their operational areas.
Questionnaire Design
Design considerations included taking decisions on things related to designing a questionnaire
that is discussed below.
Question content: Firstly the areas to be probed are determined by the research questions of
the study. The questions are designed to get the most of information that can be collected from
these groups about this problem
The wording of the questions: To ensure that the questions were clear, straightforward and
easy to understand for the respondents the following points on question structure for the
questionnaire drawn form (Cohen and Manion (1989), Borg and Gall (1983), Munn and
Drever (1990), Bell (1993) and Wellington (1996)) were taken note of during the design stage:
1.11 Area of Study
Gwanda lies in Matebeleland South Province and it’s the capital of the province with an
estimated population of 18 000 people (Central Statistics 2004). The district is in region 4 & 5
with an annual rainfall of 450mm. A few wards of the district will be sampled mainly where
the gold panning activities are high.
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