Comment on the following field situations, making recommendations for corrective action: a. One of the interviewers has an excessive rate of refusals in face-to-face home interviews. b. In a CATI situation, many phone numbers are giving a busy signal during the first dialling attempt. c. An interviewer reports that, at the end of the interviews, many participants asked if they had answered the questions correctly. d. During validation of the fieldwork, a participant reports that they cannot remember being interviewed over the telephone, but the interviewer insists that the interview was conducted.
> What is a skewed distribution? What does it mean?
> Describe some of the reasons why management are often not clear about the ‘real’ research problem that needs to be addressed.
> How is the relative flatness or peakedness of a distribution measured?
> What measures of location are commonly computed?
> Describe the general procedure for conducting a t test.
> Present a classification of hypothesis testing procedures.
> Discuss the reasons for the frequent use of cross-tabulations. What are some of the limitations?
> Describe the procedure for computing frequencies.
> What options are available for the treatment of missing data?
> What kinds of consistency checks are made in cleaning the data?
> What does transcribing the data involve?
> Describe the guidelines for the coding of unstructured questions.
> What is the significance of the ‘background’ section of a research brief and research proposal?
> What is the difference between pre-coding and post-coding?
> How are unsatisfactory responses that are discovered in editing treated?
> What is meant by editing a questionnaire?
> What activities are involved in the preliminary checking of questionnaires that have been returned from the field?
> What considerations are involved in selecting a data analysis strategy?
> Which scale transformation procedure is most commonly used? Briefly describe this procedure.
> Explain why scale transformations are made.
> What are dummy variables? Why are such variables created?
> Describe the weighting process. What are the reasons for weighting?
> What kinds of statistical adjustments are sometimes made to the data?
> How may a researcher be creative in interpreting a research brief and developing a research proposal?
> Describe the data integrity process. Why is this process needed?
> What are wearables? How could they be used in marketing research?
> What is passive data? Give some examples of types of passive data collection that can be carried out with mobile devices.
> What does ‘mobile first’ mean for research designs?
> What kind of research activity is SMS-based research appropriate for?
> What do we mean by ‘mobile devices’? Where does the boundary lie between mobile and non-mobile devices?
> Discuss the key challenges relating to accessing social media data for research.
> Why is analysing image data on social media important?
> What is an MROC? How does use of an MROC differ from passive approaches to research?
> What is gamification and how can gamification techniques be used to improve research?
> What are the components of a marketing research proposal?
> What is crowdsourcing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this method?
> What are the key differences between active and passive forms of social media research?
> What is the difference between social media and social networks?
> What is sentiment analysis? Why can automated sentiment analysis of social media be so difficult?
> Describe the nature of social media research.
> How should the survey fieldworker conclude an interview?
> How should the answers to unstructured questions be recorded?
> Outline the advantages and disadvantages of the interviewer developing a rapport with participants.
> Evaluate what may be done to help interviewers probe correctly and consistently.
> Describe and illustrate the differences between probing in a survey and in an in-depth interview.
> What are the components of a marketing research brief?
> What are the guidelines for asking questions?
> What qualifications should survey fieldworkers possess?
> Describe the survey fieldwork/data-collection process.
> Describe the criteria that should be used for evaluating survey fieldworkers.
> What is validation of survey fieldwork? How is this done?
> How can participant selection problems be controlled?
> What aspects are involved in the supervision of survey fieldworkers?
> Why do researchers need to use survey fieldworkers?
> Describe the procedure for determining the sample size necessary to estimate a population mean, given the degree of precision and confidence but where the population variance is unknown. After the sample is selected, how is the confidence interval genera
> What is the role of the researcher in the problem definition process?
> Describe the procedure for determining the sample size necessary to estimate a population mean, given the degree of precision and confidence and a known population variance. After the sample is selected, how is the confidence interval generated?
> How do the degree of confidence and the degree of precision differ?
> Describe the difference between absolute precision and relative precision when estimating a population mean.
> What strategies are available for adjusting for non-response?
> Define incidence rate and completion rate. How do these rates affect the determination of the final sample size?
> When several parameters are being estimated, what is the procedure for determining the sample size?
> Describe the procedure for determining the sample size necessary to estimate a population proportion given the degree of precision and confidence. After the sample is selected, how is the confidence interval generated?
> Define what is meant by absolute precision and relative precision when estimating a population proportion.
> Define: a. the sampling distribution b. finite population correction c. confidence intervals.
> What is the major difference between judgemental and convenience sampling? Give examples of where each of these techniques may be successfully applied.
> Why is it vital to define the marketing research problem correctly?
> What kinds of decisions are made by marketing managers? How does marketing research help in supporting these decisions?
> What is the least expensive and least time-consuming of all sampling techniques? What are the major limitations of this technique?
> How do probability sampling techniques differ from non-probability sampling techniques? What factors should be considered in choosing between probability and non-probability sampling?
> What qualitative factors should be considered in determining the sample size?
> To what extent may the availability of sampling frames determine the definition of a population?
> What is a sampling unit? How is it different from the population element?
> How should the target population be defined? How does this definition link with the definition of a marketing research problem?
> Describe the sampling design process.
> Describe the cluster sampling procedure. What is the key distinction between cluster sampling and stratified sampling?
> What are the differences between proportionate and disproportionate stratified sampling?
> Describe stratified sampling. What are the criteria for the selection of stratification variables?
> What is the role of theory in the development of a research approach?
> Describe the procedure for selecting a systematic random sample.
> What are the distinguishing features of simple random sampling?
> Describe snowball sampling. How may the technique be supported by qualitative research techniques?
> Under what conditions would a sample be preferable to a census? A census preferable to a sample?
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of unstructured questions?
> What can a researcher do to make the request for information seem legitimate?
> Explain the concepts of aided and unaided recall.
> Explain the errors of omission, telescoping and creation. What can be done to reduce such errors?
> What are the reasons why participants may be (a) unable to answer and (b) unwilling to answer the question asked?
> How would you determine whether a specific question should be included in a questionnaire?
> Describe the factors that may affect the approach to a research problem.
> What does the researcher have to offer potential questionnaire participants? Why should this question be considered?
> What expectations does the researcher have of potential questionnaire participants – in terms of how they will react to the experience of completing a questionnaire?
> Describe the issues involved in pilot-testing a questionnaire.
> What guidelines are available for deciding on the form and layout of a questionnaire?
> What is the proper order for questions intended to obtain basic, classification and identification information?
> What is a leading question? Give an example.
> What are the guidelines available for deciding on question wording?
> What are the issues involved in designing multiple-choice questions?
> What is the purpose of a questionnaire?
> Describe the semantic differential scale and the Likert scale. For what purposes are these scales used?
