FACTORS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN MICRO ...

Initially the questionnaire was prepared in English language based on the literature
review and some adaptations from prior researches. Taking in to account the respondents
educational background and to increase more understandability it was later translated in
to Amharic and then distributed to 10 sample respondents (randomly 2 respondents from
each sector using lottery method) to check whether what is expected to acquire is
achieved or not as a pre-test.
In assuring the reliability and validity of the tests, the pretest results shows a cronbach
alpha value of 84.91 %( See appendix F).According to Yalew (2009), taking the number
of items in the questionnaire and the characteristics of respondents, the value can verify
the reliability of the testes. In addition, it was checked for grammar and other spelling
errors using language and measurement professionals. Based on the findings of the
pretest and comments of language and measurement experts, certain amendments were
made on the questionnaire and lastly by giving the necessary orientations to respondents,
the questionnaire was distributed to the whole sample women entrepreneur respondents.
Moreover, in order to get detail information from limited number of respondents, the
researcher conducted structured interviews with top officials. Hence, a predesigned 4
major questions and 4 sub-questions were conducted with MSEs work process owner for
an hour. In addition, 6 major questions were forwarded to W/ro Siheen TVET dean for
1.5 hours. Furthermore, 4 major questions were raised to Dessie micro finance head for
45 minutes. Interviews in all cases were conducted in their offices and their responses
were recorded (See appendices B, C and D).
3.4 Methods of data analysis
After the data has been collected, it was coded and fed to excel sheet so as to simplify
further tasks. The respondents’ scores were summarized from the sheet and made ready
for analysis. After that, it was analyzed using both descriptive statistical techniques and
descriptive narrations. The demographic profiles and items related to characteristics of
women entrepreneurs were analyzed using simple statistical tools such as tables and
percentages. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviations) of the respondent
scores were computed for the Likert statements and analyzed by comparing these mean
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