1. Define marketing research and distinguish between problem
identification and problem solving research.
2. Describe a framework for conducting
marketing research as well as the six steps of the marketing research process.
DEFINING THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROBLEM
AND DEVELOPING AN APPROACH
1. Understand the importance of and process used for defining
the marketing research problem.
2. Describe the tasks involved in problem definition, including
discussion with decision maker(s), interview with industry experts, secondary
data analysis, and qualitative research.
3. Discuss the environmental factors affecting the definition
of the research problem: past information and forecasts; resources and constraints;
objectives of the decision maker; buyer behavior; legal environment; economic
environment; and marketing and technological skills of the firm.
4. Clarify the distinction between the management decision
problem and the marketing research problem.
5. Explain the structure of a well-defined
marketing research problem including the broad statement and the specific
components.
6. Discuss in detail the various components of the approach:
objective/theoretical framework, analytical models, research questions,
hypotheses, and specification of information needed.
RESEARCH DESIGN
1. Define research design, classify various research designs,
and explain the differences between exploratory and conclusive designs.
2. Compare and contrast the basic research designs:
exploratory, descriptive, and causal.
3. Describe the major sources of error in a research design
including random sampling error and the various sources of non-sampling error.
4. Discuss managerial aspects of coordinating research
projects, particularly budgeting and scheduling.
5. Describe the elements of a marketing research proposal and
show how it addresses the steps of the marketing research process.
6. Explain research design formulation in international
marketing research.
7. Understand the ethical issues and conflicts that arise in
formulating a research design.
8. Discuss the use of the Internet and computers in research
design formulation.
EXPLORATORY
RESEARCH DESIGN:
SECONDARY
DATA
1. Define the nature and scope of secondary data and
distinguish secondary data from primary data.
2. Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of secondary data
and their uses in the various steps of the marketing research process.
3. Evaluate secondary data using specifications, error, currency,
objectives, nature, and dependability criteria.
4. Describe in detail the different sources of secondary data
including internal sources and external sources in the form of published
materials, computerized databases, and syndicated services.
5. Discuss in detail the syndicated sources of secondary data
including household/consumer data obtained via surveys, purchase and media
panels, and electronic scanner services, as well as, institutional data related
to retailers, wholesalers, and industrial/service firms.
6. Explain the need to use multiple sources of secondary data
and describe single-source data.
7. Discuss applications of secondary data in computer mapping.
8. Identify and evaluate the sources of secondary data useful
in international marketing research.
9. Understand the ethical issues involved in the use of
secondary data.
10. Discuss the use of the Internet and
computers in researching secondary data.
EXPLORATORY
RESEARCH DESIGN:
QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
1. Explain the difference between qualitative and quantitative
research in terms of the objectives, sampling, data collection and analysis,
and outcomes.
2. Understand the various forms of qualitative research
including direct procedures such as focus groups and depth interviews, and
indirect methods such as projective techniques.
3. Describe focus groups in detail with an emphasis on planning
and conducting focus groups, and their advantages, disadvantages, and
applications.
4. Describe depth interview techniques in detail citing their
advantages, disadvantages, and applications.
5. Explain projective techniques in detail and compare
association, completion, construction, and expressive techniques.
6. Discuss the considerations involved in conducting
qualitative research in an international setting.
7. Understand the ethical issues involved in conducting
qualitative research.
8. Discuss the use of the Internet and computers in obtaining
and analyzing qualitative data.
DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH
DESIGN:
SURVEY AND OBSERVATION
1. Discuss and classify survey methods and describe the various
telephone, personal, mail, and electronic interviewing methods.
2. Identify the criteria for evaluating survey methods, compare
the different methods, and evaluate which is best suited for a particular
research project.
3. Explain and classify the different observation methods used
by marketing researchers and describe personal observation, mechanical
observation, audit, content analysis, and trace analysis.
4. Identify the criteria for evaluating observation methods,
compare the different methods, and evaluate which, if any, is suited for a
particular research project.
5. Describe the relative advantages and disadvantages of
observational methods and compare them to survey methods.
6. Discuss the considerations involved in implementing surveys
and observation methods in an international setting.
7. Understand the ethical issues involved in conducting survey
and observation research.
8. Discuss the use of the Internet and
computers in surveys and observation methods.
CAUSAL
RESEARCH DESIGN:
EXPERIMENTATION
1. Explain the concept of causality as defined in marketing
research and distinguish between the ordinary meaning and the scientific
meaning of causality.
2. Define and differentiate the two types of validity: internal
validity and external validity.
3. Discuss the various extraneous variables that can affect the
validity of results obtained through experimentation and explain how the
researcher can control extraneous variables.
4. Describe and evaluate experimental designs and the
differences among pre-experimental, true experimental, quasi-experimental, and
statistical designs.
5. Compare and contrast the use of laboratory versus field
experimentation and experimental versus nonexperimental designs in marketing
research.
6. Describe test marketing and its various forms: standard test
market, controlled test market, and simulated test market.
7. Understand why the internal and external validity of field
experiments conducted overseas is generally lower than in the United States
8. Describe the ethical issues involved in conducting causal
research and the role of debriefing in addressing some of these issues.
9. Discuss the use of the Internet and computers in causal
research.
MEASUREMENT
AND SCALING:
FUNDAMENTALS
AND COMPARATIVE SCALING
1. Introduce the concepts of measurement and scaling and show
how scaling may be considered an extension of measurement.
2. Discuss the primary scales of measurement and differentiate
nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales.
3. Classify and discuss scaling techniques as comparative and
noncomparative, and describe the comparative techniques of paired comparison,
rank order, constant sum, and Q-sort scaling.
4. Discuss
the considerations involved in implementing the primary scales of measurement
in an international setting.
5. Understand
the ethical issues involved in selecting scales of measurement.
MEASUREMENT AND SCALING:
NONCOMPARATIVE SCALING
TECHNIQUES
1. Describe the non-comparative scaling techniques, distinguish
between continuous and itemized rating scales, and explain Likert, semantic
differential, and Stapel scales.
2. Discuss the decisions involved in constructing itemized
rating scales with respect to the number of scale categories, balanced versus
unbalanced scales, odd or even number of categories, forced versus nonforced
choice, degree of verbal description, and the physical form of the scale.
3. Discuss the criteria used for scale evaluation and explain
how to assess reliability, validity, and generalizability.
4. Discuss the considerations involved in implementing
noncomparative scales in an international setting.
5. Understand the ethical issues involved in developing
noncomparative scales.
6. Explain the purpose of a questionnaire and its objectives of
asking questions that the respondents can and will answer, encouraging
respondents, and minimizing response error.
7. Describe the process of designing a questionnaire, the steps
involved, and guidelines that must be followed at each step.
8. Discuss the observational form of data collection and
specify the who, what, when, where, why, and way of behavior to be observed.
9. Discuss the considerations involved in designing
questionnaires for international marketing research.
10. Understand the ethical issues involved in questionnaire design.
SAMPLING: DESIGN AND PROCEDURES
FINAL AND INITIAL SAMPLE SIZE DETERMINATION
1. Differentiate a sample from a census and identify the
conditions that favor the use of a sample versus a census.
2. Discuss the sampling design process: definition of the
target population, determination of the sampling frame, selection of sampling
technique(s), determination of sample size, and execution of the sampling
process.
3. Classify sampling techniques as nonprobability and
probability sampling techniques.
4. Describe the nonprobability sampling techniques of
convenience, judgmental, quota, and snowball sampling.
5. Describe the probability sampling techniques of simple
random, systematic, stratified, and cluster sampling.
6. Identify the conditions that favor the use of
nonprobability sampling versus probability sampling.
7. Understand the sampling design process and the use of
sampling techniques in international marketing research.
8. Identify the ethical issues related to the sampling
design process and the use of appropriate sampling techniques.
9. Define the key concepts and symbols pertinent to
sampling.
10. Understand the concepts of the sampling distribution,
statistical inference, and standard error.
11. Discuss the statistical approach to determining sample size
based on simple random sampling and the construction of confidence intervals.
12. Derive the formulas to statistically determine the sample
size for estimating means and proportions.
13. Discuss the nonresponse issues in sampling and the
procedures for improving response rates and adjusting for nonresponse.
14. Understand the difficulty of statistically determining the
sample size in international marketing research.
15. Identify the ethical issues related to sample size
determination, particularly the estimation of population variance.
16. Explain the use of the Internet and computers in
statistically determining the sample size.
FIELDWORK
1. Describe the fieldwork process and explain the
selection, training, and supervision of field workers, the validation of
fieldwork, and the evaluation of field workers.
2. Discuss the training of field workers in making the
initial contact, asking the questions, probing, recording the answers, and
terminating the interview.
3. Discuss the supervision of field workers in terms of
quality control and editing, sampling control, control of cheating, and central
office control.
4. Describe the evaluation of field workers in areas of
cost and time, response rates, quality of interviewing, and the quality of
data.
5. Explain the issues related to fieldwork when conducting
international marketing research.
6. Discuss the ethical aspect of fieldwork.
7. Illustrate the use of the Internet and computers in
fieldwork.
FREQUENCY
DISTRIBUTION, CROSS-TABULATION,
AND
HYPOTHESIS TESTING
1. Describe the significance of preliminary data analysis
and the insights that can be obtained from such an analysis.
2. Discuss data analysis associated with frequencies
including measures of location, measures of variability, and measures of shape.
3. Explain data analysis associated with cross-tabulations
and the associated statistics: chi-square, phi coefficient, contingency
coefficient, Cramer’s V, and lambda coefficient.
4. Describe data analysis associated with parametric
hypothesis testing for one sample, two independent samples, and paired samples.
5. Understand data analysis associated with nonparametric
hypothesis testing for one sample, two independent samples, and paired samples.
CORRELATION
AND REGRESSION
1. Discuss the concepts of product moment correlation,
partial correlation, and part correlation, and show how they provide a
foundation for regression analysis.
2. Explain the nature and methods of bivariate regression
analysis and describe the general model, estimation of parameters, standardized
regression coefficient, significance testing, prediction accuracy, residual
analysis, and model cross-validation.
3. Explain the nature and methods of multiple regression
analysis and the meaning of partial regression coefficients.
4. Describe
specialized techniques used in multiple regression analysis, particularly
stepwise regression, regression with dummy variables, and analysis of variance
and covariance with regression.
5. Discuss nonmetric correlation and measures such as
Spearman’s rho and Kendall ’s tau.
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