Marketing Research: Chapter 5: Descriptive and Causal Research Designs

Telephone interviews

involve question-and-answer exchanges that are conducted via telephone technology.

Selecting the Appropriate Survey Method - Task characteristics

-Task difficulty -Required stimuli -Amount of information asked from respondents -Topic sensitivity

Ability to participate:

Ability of the interviewer and the respondent to participate in a question-and-answer interchange

Laboratory (lab) experiments:

Causal research designs conducted in artificial settings

Field experiments

Causal research designs that manipulate the independent variables in order to measure the dependent variable in a natural setting -Performed in natural settings

Variable:

Concept or construct that can vary or have more than one value •Demographics •Attitudes •Behaviors

Topic sensitivity

Degree to which a survey question leads the respondent to give a socially acceptable response

Knowledge level:

Degree to which selected respondents feel they have knowledge of or experience with the survey's topics

Control variables:

Do not vary freely or systematically with independent variables -Should not be changed as the independent variable is manipulated

Experiment:

Empirical investigation that tests for hypothesized relationships between dependent variables and manipulated independent variables

Types of Errors in Surveys

Errors can reduce the accuracy and quality of data collected by researchers. Survey research errors can be classified as being either sampling or nonsampling errors.

External validity:

Extent to which a causal relationship found in a study can be expected to be true for the entire target population

Internal validity:

Extent to which a research design accurately identifies causal relationships

Validity:

Extent to which the conclusions drawn from an experiment are true

Dependent variables

Measures of effects or outcomes that occur as a result of changes in levels of the independent or causing variable(s)

Extraneous variables:

Not measured or controlled and may affect the dependent variable

Incidence rate

Percentage of the general population that is the subject of the market research

Data generalizability

Projectable to the population represented by the sample in a study

Survey research methods

Research procedures for collecting large amounts of data using question-and-answer formats -Used in descriptive research designs

Willingness to participate:

Respondent's inclination or disposition to share his or her thoughts

Selecting the Appropriate Survey Method

Situational characteristics -Budget -Completion time frame -Quality requirements •Completeness of data

Causal research

Studies enabling researchers to assess cause-effect relationships between two or more variables

Independent variables:

Values are directly manipulated by the researcher

Nonresponse error

a systematic bias that occurs when the final sample differs from the planned sample. It occurs when a sufficient number of the preselected prospective respondents in the sample refuse to participate or cannot be reached.

Mall-intercept interviews

are face-to-face personal interviews that take place in a shopping mall. Mall shoppers are stopped and asked to complete a survey.

Computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI)

are integrated telephone and computer system in which the interviewer reads the questions from a computer screen and enters respondents' answers directly into the computer program.

Mail panel surveys

are questionnaires sent to a group of individuals who have agreed to participate in advance.

Online surveys

are the most frequently used survey method today in marketing research. They collect data using the Internet.

Person-administered surveymethods

have a trained interviewer that asks questions and records the subject's answers

self-administered survey

is a data collection technique in which the respondent reads the survey questions and records his or her own answers without the presence of a trained interviewer.

in-home interview

is a face-to-face structured question-and-answer exchange conducted in the respondent's home

Wireless phone survey

is a method of conducting a marketing survey in which the data are collected using wireless phones

Drop-off survey

is a self-administered questionnaire that a representative of the researcher hand-delivers to selected respondents; the completed surveys are returned by mail or picked up by the representative.

Test marketing

is the use of experiments to obtain information on market performance indicators.

Response error

respondents have impaired memory or do not respond accurately. It is also termed as faulty recall.

Propensity

scoring can be used to adjust the results to look more like those a representative sample would have produced, but the accuracy of this procedure must be evaluated.

Mail surveys

typically are sent to respondents using the postal service