MKF2121 Marketing Research MethodsSemester 1, 2018Assignment 2: Research reportThe objective of this assignment is to give students the opportunity to practice solving real marketing research problems

1 MKF2121 Marketing Research Methods Semester 1, 20 18 Assignment 2: R esearch report The objective of this assignment is to give students the opportunity to practice solving real marketing research problems with data . Detailed instruction on how to complete the assignment is available in “Assignment 2 – Guide” section of this document. Here are some general requirements for the assignment. 1. The due date/time of the assignment is by 11:59pm on Sunday in week 11 ( May 20 ). 2. The assignment is individual work . Collaboration or consultation with anyone other than the unit’s teaching staff is strictly prohibited 3. One copy is to be uploaded at the “Assignment 2” submission tab on the unit’s Moodle site . In the rare event that unforeseen technical issues on Moodle prevent you from completing the submission process, you should email the report to your tutor. 4. You need to first agree to the "plagiarism statement" above before you are allowed to submit this assignment. Do NOT include cover sheets in your submission . 5. Naming your file for submission – the file name must start with the day and time of your tutorial and contain your last name. For example, if your tute start s at 2pm on Wednesday s and your last name is “Smith.” Your file name should be “wed2pm_smith_assignment2.doc” 6. Submission format: Microsoft Word or PDF file. Maximum number of words is 2000 (±10% , and excluding words and numbers that are part of your SPSS tables or references ). The word count must be included in the first page of your document. Exceeding the word count could result in a penalty of up to 10% of your mark for the assignment 7. Please put any references you may have in the Appendix. 8. Students are required to keep a soft copy of their report until they get the marked report back. It is also the student's responsibility to double check that the assignment has been completely uploaded to the correct link on time and that it is the correct version . To double check, go to the M oodle link where you submitted the assignment, download your submitted file and check: 1) that the file is downloadable and can be opened using Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat; and 2) that it is the file you intend to submit for grading 9. Detailed instruct ions on how to analyse data and report the research results are available on the unit’s Moodle site . Please read them carefully before starting your work. 10. Please contact your tutor and/or the lecturer if you have any further questions. 2 Assignment 2 - Guide A research report communicates the result of a study to clients. Suppose that you have been commissioned by Victoria Secret, an American marketer of women's lingerie , to draft a brief research report based on the questionnaire and data of “the consumer decision process for women purchasing a bra ” (henceforth, “ the bra survey ” and “ the bra data .” Both files are available on Moodle) . The notes below give you detailed instruction on the assignment. 1. Definiti on of the research problem (a). Define the market research problem (MRP) Based on the questionnaire provided to you, define a marketing research problem (MRP) with components. The overall statement of the MRP should be “ to identify and better understand the key drivers/predictors of ____. ” You need to fill in a blank with a customer attitude, belie f or behaviour al variable that is measured by the bra survey . In addition to the overall statement, you need to formulate at least two components for your MRP. The MRP must be able to be addressed with the attached data set collected with the bra survey . In approaching this task, I would suggest that you start by carefully reading through the accompanying questionnaire and familiarize yourself with the SPSS dataset . Ask yourself the following questions: w hat information has been collected from the target population ? What are the variables that are measured ? How can co mpanies in the bra industry make use of the information to improve their decision -making? (b). provide a brief justification for your MRP Provide a brief explanation on how this research can help yo ur clien t (i.e., why it is important to understand the particular customer attitude or behaviour in this context). This should be consistent with secti on 3 below where you discuss the managerial implication of your findings . 2. Research approach and hypotheses Come up with at least 5 comparative or relational research questions (RQ) . Collectively, they should cover ALL the components of your marketing research problem proposed in the previous section . Note that because these RQs need to be “answerable” by the bra dataset, they have to involve (and only involve) variables measured in the bra survey . This requires you to be very familiar with each question in the questionnaire. For each research questio n,  Clearly identify which component the RQ corresponds to.  Clearly state both the null and alternative hypotheses , which are to be tested in the data analysis section 3  Clearly identify ALL the variables that you use to answer the research question and the question in the questionnaire /dataset that measures this variable ( to illustr ate with a hypothetical example , if the vari able y ou use is “age of the respondent”, and it is measured by question 15 in the accom pan ying questionnaire , you shou ld include the information in your report ). If you use a recoded variable , describe the recoding (for example., “you ng customers ”: age <=30 ; “mature customers”: age > 30 , etc)  Name the statistical test you use to test the hypothesis (for example, “an independent - samples t -test of the difference in loyalty between male and female”). If a multiple regression is u sed to test several hypotheses simultaneously, name the dependent and independent variables that will be included in the regression. For this section , usage of bullet points and tables is required . A list of the main statistical tests discussed in the lecture is provided below. Please note that you are not required to use ALL the techniques (choose only what is appropriate for your hypotheses). That being said, appropriate use of a variety of techniques or the usage of more advanced te chniques such as multiple regressions is a necessity for high marks for this section . You need to consider a number of issues in deciding which technique to choose for a particular test. For example, certain techniques are only appropriate for interval -scaled data, while others can be used for both interval - and ordinal -scaled data. Similarly, some techniques only allow for comparison between two groups, while others allow you to compare the differences between multiple groups. List of the main statisti cal techniques 1. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, descriptive and cross ‐tabs) 2. T‐tests (dependent/independent samples) can be used to test for differences between means of subgroups. 3. Chi ‐square test can be used to test the association between two categori cally scaled variables. It can also be called a test of independence. 4. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be used to see whether there are any differences across the categories of the non ‐metric variables with respect to any of the metric variables. 5. Correlati on analysis measures the degree to which there is a linear association between two interval or ratio scaled variables. 6. Multiple regression can be used to explain the variation in dependent variables (outcome or effect variables) using other metric variable s as independent variables ( pred ictors ). 3. Data analysis , findings and interpretation (a) . Data description 4 First, briefly describe the data based on the information you have. Consider the following questions as you work on this section. 1. What is the target population? 2. What is the sample size? 3. Broadly speaking, w hat kind of information has been gathered with the questionnaire (e.g., target population’s attitudes and behaviour towards what? What demographic information is collected) 4. Descriptive characteristics of your main variables : for EACH of the variables used in your first 3 research questions ( RQ 1 to RQ 3 , as formulated by you in section 2), show its frequency distribution (one -way tabulation).  Make sure that you include both the SPSS frequency table and the bar chart (see week 7 lecture slides for details)  It is OK to use frequency analysis here even if the variable is metric  For the re -coded variables in these RQs, provide this information for the re -coded version (i.e., not the source variable from which the re -coded variable is derived)  This information is to be put in the appendix and does not count towards your word count (b). Reporting of the findings You are required to report the results of your statistical tests. Include the SPSS output for each set of hypothese s tested. Make sure that the output tables are properly labelled and clearly indicate which set of hypothes es it tests. Examples for including SPSS output in your text. Table 1. Comparing the difference between 2007 and 2011 revenue (H1) Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 Firm revenue in 2011 2.33 61 .92 .17 Firm revenue in 2007 1.80 61 .85 .15 Paired Samples Test Paired Differences t df Sig. (2 -tailed) Mean Std.

Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Pair 1 Firm revenue in 2011 – Firm revenue in 2007 .53 .77 .10 .32 .74 5.15 60 .001 Number the tables Indicate which h ypothesis is being tested 5 Is the null hypothesis rejected? Clearly state the outcome of each hypothesis test and what it means in plain English. Please provide all SPSS statistical output from which you have derived your results — including any steps in data cleaning and recoding . Failure to comply could result in 30% reduction in your final mark for this assignment. (c). Discussions of the managerial implication of your main findings Discuss the managerial implication of your main findings . F or example, if you do find that customer satisfaction varies by income, how could your client use this information for its business decision making? This discussion should be based on the specifi c questions you proposed. This serves as a justification for your proposed research questions. Note that the managerial implication needs to be broadly consistent with the justification of MRP in section 1 . Appendices: descriptive characteristics of your main variables (see instruction for section 3 ., (a).4) Marking criteria 1. Problem definition (15% of assignment overall mark)  Is the marketing research problem clearly defined and well thought -out?  Is the justification sensible and appropriate? 2. Research approach and hypotheses (35% of assignment overall mark)  Do the RQs provider a good coverage of the MRP components? Are they well thought -out?  Are the constructs, variables and questionnaire questions correctly identified?  Are appropriate statist ical te sts chosen to test the hypothese s? 3. Data analysis, findings and interpretation (40% of assignment overall mark)  Are the statistical techniques correctly executed and the results correctly interpreted?  Is the discussion of findings correct and sensible?  Is the discussion of managerial implication sensible and broadly consistent with section 1? 4. Quality of writing and communication (10% of assignment overall mark)  clearly explained; writing is cogent, lucid and flows naturally  appropriate use of bullet points and tables  Reads like a report, not a record of a Q&A session