Business Studies
Task Three: Research and Data Analysis 10% Week 9
You are required to conduct primary and secondary research and collect relevant data to support your research issue or challenge.
Primary Research will include preparing and distributing a questionnaire or interviewing people with a prepared set of questions. You should conduct between 5 and 20 interviews. Your survey should target a sample of between 30 and 50 people.
Secondary Research will involve collecting additional data within the organisation and other online resources in support of your research topic.
All the data you collect should be collated and presented in a relevant and attractive format and then the data must be analysed. The results of your analysis should be clearly explained.
This paper should also include a brief description of your methodology – explain exactly what you did.
The Research Analysis should be written in HCT report format and fully referenced using APA format. You should also submit the document to Safe Assign on Black Board Learn.
This task should be 2000 – 3000 words and should be completed by the end of Week 9.
You will resubmit this task in Week 15 as part of the Final Research Paper (10%) and you are encouraged to make improvements based on feedback received.
Task Three Guidelines
Research Methodology
How to choose from different Research Methods
Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It may be understood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically. In it we study the various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in studying his research problem along with the logic behind them.
TYPE METHODS TECHNIQUES
1 Library and Internet Research a. Analysis of historical records
b. Analysis of documents a. Recording of notes, content analysis, CD and DVD listening and analysis
b. Statistical compilations, reference and guides, contents analysis
2 Field Research a. Non participant direct observation
b. Participant observation
c. Mass observation
d. Mail questionnaire
e. Opinionnaire
f. Personal interview
g. Focused interview
h. Group interview
i. Telephone survey
j. Case study and life history a. Observational behavioral scales, use of score cards, etc.
b. Interactional recording, possible use of tape recorders, photo graphic techniques
c. Recording mass behaviour, interview using independent observers in public places.
d. Identification of social and economic background of respondents
e. Use of attitude scales, projective behaviour, use of sociometric scales
f. Interviewer uses a detailed schedule with open and closed questions
g. Interviewer focuses attention upon a given experience and its effects
h. Small groups of respondents are interviewed simultaneously
i. Used as a survey technique for information and for understanding opinion; may also be used as a follow up of questionnaire
j. Cross sectional collection of data for intensive analysis, longitudinal collection of data
3 Laboratory Research a. Small group of random behaviour, play and role analysis a. Use of audio-visual recording devices, use of observers, etc.
Doing your Research – Guidelines
Primary; between 5 and 20 interviews* within the company and industry and/or between 30 and 50 surveys**
All primary research must be approved by your instructor before you commence your interviews, surveys, etc.
*You must get your teacher’s approval for the research interview questions.
**You must get your teacher’s approval for the research survey questions and the minimum number of surveys to be conducted.
Secondary; any additional sources of information such as the company website, company publications, the internet, government publications, journals, books, etc.
Terminology
There are two sources of data;
• Primary data collection uses surveys, experiments or in-house records, direct observation
• Secondary data collection may be conducted by collecting information from a diverse source of documents or electronically stored information. Government census data and market studies are examples of common sources of secondary data.
Qualitative data are non-numeric data that can be classified into groups or categories, example, gender, major, type of car. Quantitative data are observations measured on a numeric scale example, age, sales per month, annual housing rents. If you are creating graphs or charts (and you should!) for your Research Report, the data classification will determine the type of graph/chart you create.
Once a research topic has been determined the next step is to identify the information required and how to get it.
These will usually include such primary data as: interviews, survey results and quantitative measures (review of in-house records and accounts, data from trade shows or Chamber of Commerce or Government records). Good secondary sources of data for your project would be: professional journals, industry studies, case studies.
Data Sources and Getting Started
Your project will probably consist of both primary and secondary data sources. Primary research is any type of research that you go out and collect yourself. Examples include surveys, interviews, observations, and in-house data collection and analysis. Secondary research occurs when a project uses existing data. As opposed to data collected directly from respondents or “research subjects” for the express purposes of a project, (primary research), secondary sources already exist. Secondary research includes previous research reports, newspapers, magazines and journals, and government statistics. For this project you should use both primary and secondary sources and integrate them in a cohesive fashion.
The data you collect from these sources should be both quantitative (so you can analyze and draw unbiased conclusions) and qualitative (this will provide insight into your numbers).
Each research method has strengths and weaknesses. When designing a research study it is important to decide what data is required then select the best methodology to gather that desired information.
Key Data Collection Techniques
• Surveys
• Questionnaires
• Interviews
• In-house Company Records
• HCT Database
• Government or Official Agency Records
• Professional Journals
• Case Studies
The table below describes the basic sources of different types of data for your study.
Data Collection Methods Uses
• Professional journals
• Case studies
• Data from: trade shows, Chamber of Commerce, Government records These methods will help to identify trends in industry and practice.
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Focus Groups To learn what people think about business ideas, products or most aspects of HR
• Observation Observation will give you a firsthand view.
• Accounts
• Financial Statements
• Sales Records
• HR Records
• Operational Data Identifying of any in-house business records that will provide accurate picture of current results in the business. Analyzing these records for patterns or trends.
• Mission Statement
• Management meeting minutes
• Balance Scorecard Review of in-house operational and managerial philosophy.
Triangulation of Data
One of the benefits of combining primary research with secondary research is in the area of data triangulation. Data triangulation is when a piece of data, a finding, or a generalization is able to be verified with several different research methods. This helps add to your credibility and makes your findings stronger
Example
You are studying purchasing trends on UAE campuses. You find national averages that indicate that 45% of college students travel abroad in the summer vacation. You conduct your own research at the DWC campus. You find that 47% of the individuals you surveyed travelled abroad last summer; you also interview a career counselor on campus who reports that approximately 1/3 of the students who she sees refuse summer jobs because they expect to travel. Thus, your results from an interview with an expert and your own survey support the national average
Survey Methods
What is a Survey?
Today the word “survey” is used most often to describe a method of gathering information from a sample of individuals. This “sample” is usually just a fraction of the population being studied.
For example,
• a sample of students is questioned to determine what they think about the DWC library .
• a manufacturer does a survey of the potential market before introducing a new product .
• a government office uses a survey to gather information it needs to evaluate its customer service.
Not only do surveys have a wide variety of purposes, they also can be conducted in many ways-including over the telephone, by mail, or in person. Nonetheless, all surveys do have certain characteristics in common.
• Census studies all members of the population,
• Surveys gather information from only a portion of a population of interest-the size of the sample depending on the purpose of the study.
In a statistical survey, the sample is not selected haphazardly or only from persons who volunteer to participate. It is mathematically chosen so that each person in the population will have a measurable chance of selection. This way, the results can be reliably projected from the sample to the larger population. Remember your statistics course.
Information is collected by means of standardized procedures so that every individual is asked the same questions in more or less the same way. The survey’s intent is not to describe the particular individuals who, by chance, are part of the sample but to obtain a profile of the population for decision-making.
In a survey, individual respondents are never identified. All of the survey’s results are presented in completely anonymous summaries, such as statistical tables and charts.
Establishing Objectives
The first step in any survey is deciding what you want to learn. You do this in general when you create your SWOT Analysis and use it to decide on your project proposal or your overall goal. After this, you are required to breakdown your proposal into some specific objectives. These help you to determine more specifically what you need to know.
The objectives of the project determine whom you will interview or survey and what you will ask them. If your objectives are unclear, the results will probably be unclear. Some typical objectives include learning more about:
• The potential implementation of a new system
• Ratings of current products or services
• Employee attitudes
• Customer/patient satisfaction levels
• Reader/viewer/listener opinions
• Student opinions
• Opinions about current policies or a new law
• Corporate images
These sample goals represent general areas. The more specific you can make your objectives, the easier it will be to get usable answers.
Selecting the Sample
There are three main components in determining the quality of your sample:
WHO will be surveyed?
HOW will you select your sample?
HOW MANY respondents will you include in your sample?
1. Who will be surveyed?
Deciding what kind of people to interview. Researchers often call this group the target population. If you conduct an employee attitude survey or a DWC student body survey, the population is obvious. If you are trying to determine the likely success of a product, the target population may be less obvious. Correctly determining the target population is critical. If you do not interview the right kinds of people, you will not successfully meet your goals. Your results will be incorrect and not usable.
2. How will you select your sample?
Most surveys try to use some form of random sampling. The goal is to sample from the population so that everyone in the population has a known, positive chance of being selected. This takes a plan. A critical element in any survey is to locate all the members of the population being studied so that they have a chance to be sampled. The list of these population members is called a sampling frame. This could be a telephone directory, a list of all the students in a college, or a list of customers holding credit card accounts etc. A sampling frame makes the job of choosing the sample much simpler.
Often, however, no list will be available. There will be no list, for example, of women in the Emirates who read at least one fashion magazine each month. This does not mean that we cannot survey them, though it will affect the kind of survey we are able to carry out, as we shall see later. We will, however, need some way of identifying the people we want to take part. For example, if we were going to conduct a survey using personal interviews we could begin by asking some ‘screening’ questions, such as ‘Do you read at least one fashion magazine each month?’. If the respondent replies ‘No’, then we would simply thank them and end the interview.
In your report you must identify the population you are studying and how you reached (or sampled) from this population. If a sampling frame is available, use it.