MKTG 460, Sec HB1 Fall 15 Marketing Research

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1 MKTG 460, Sec HB1 Fall 15 Marketing Research Professor: David W. Gerbing, Ph.D. Office: BA 440 Phone: (not recommended except during office hours) Office Hours: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm T and by appointment, including video chat Time and Classroom: Hybrid, 12:00-1:50 T, CH online content Class Website: D2L with content posted at Class and Google Hangouts Video Chat: gerbing@pdx.edu For , place 460 somewhere in the subject line to be placed in the high priority class folder. Avoid D2L because it is not real . Response to D2L from the PSU system is not possible, so you will not see a response. Course Description. This course studies aspects of consumer and industrial research methodology and techniques including marketing information system design, research planning and design, questionnaire and other instrument design, sampling plan, measurement techniques, data collection sources and methods, data analysis and interpretation, report writing, etc. Perspectives are provided from the viewpoints of both a researcher and a research/information user. One primary objective of this course is to familiarize students with scientific methodology, techniques and technology that can be used to provide useful information for marketing/business decisions. Prerequisites: BA 311. Course Content. This course, and its realization in similar undergraduate marketing courses in universities across the USA, includes two different but related types of content. First is the nature and context of marketing research. The primary source of this material is the text book with some on-line materials also provided. The second type of content found in this course regards data analysis. These skills involve using the computer to apply statistical concepts to analyze data. Past experience teaching this course reveals that most students are not able to do data analysis despite eight credits of statistics. One problem is that for many students no such skills were taught in their statistics courses. Another problem is forgetting some or much of the material that was taught. Accordingly most of the class time and on-line content involves the data analysis content to provide the necessary skills for conducting the survey project due at the end of the course. Text: Tom J. Brown and Tracy A. Suter, MR2, South-Western, Cengage Learning, ISBN-13: , Optional Text: D. W. Gerbing, R Data Analysis without Programming from amazon.com with over 300 pages for $ Not needed for this course, but recommended for students who are more serious and interested in learning data analysis. The book nicely complements the data analysis material in the course, and includes other examples from the types of data analysis addressed in this course. Weekly Homework. Homework problems are assigned once a week, each class day or the day after class, turned in via D2L. The answers to the questions are due at the beginning of the next class. 1

2 Tests: There is a Midterm and a Final. The Final is comprehensive, worth half the grade of the course. The underlying motivation is that at the end of the course you should be able to demonstrate the knowledge you have learned since the beginning, from the text, class, online readings and the project. At the same time, you are not be penalized too much if it took longer to learn the concepts. Each test consists of multiple-choice questions followed by interpretation of computer output. For the Midterm the multiple-test questions are administered online with D2L as a timed test and the interpretation questions are take-home. For the Final all questions are administered in class, with the multiple-choice questions answered on a Scantron. There is very little if any computation on the tests, and no penalty for bad arithmetic. Calculators or other devices are not needed and so for the Final are not allowed as their presence makes it difficult to detect smartphones and other devices. Makeup tests for poor performance on the original tests are not given. All test questions are based directly on the homework questions. The computer questions on a test are exactly the same questions from the homework, with the corresponding story problem changed. For the homework problems you generate your own computer output. For the Midterm the computer questions are take-home. For the Final the computer output is provided for you as the basis to answer the questions. Class Project: Working alone or with up to two other self-selected students, write your own brief survey, post on the web, obtain responses from other class mates or any group of available respondents, analyze the results and write-up your findings as a marketing research report. Turn in the report via D2L. If you choose to work in a group, your grade is partially dependent on a Contribution score provided by your group mates. Course Grade: Your course percentage is calculated from the following weights. HW Project Midterm Final Your course percentage directly translates into a letter grade. The minimum guarantees are 90% and above an A- or A, 80% up to 90% a B-, B or B+, and 70% up to 80% a C or C+. The cutoffs may be lowered to your favor, but these are the minimum guarantees. Computer Analyses. I have developed a set of computer routines based on the application R, called lessr, which are designed to efficiently and easily, with the emphasis on easily, provide precisely the analyses needed for this course, and for which support and examples are provided. To learn more about the impact of R and its increasingly important role in data analysis, read the New York Times article about R. The popularity of R since the publication of that article has become even more prominent as R is becoming the world standard for data analysis. The instructions for obtaining R and then lessr are online at the following link, and also in video form in the web page that contains our course content. In the modern world of open source software, both R and lessr are without cost and can be installed on any Windows, Macintosh or Linux/Unix computer to which you have access. SPSS is also introduced in the course. 2

3 For the homework assignments and project you are completely free, however, to use any computer software you wish for the analyses, or, for that matter, do the calculations on a hand calculator if you wish. There are no test questions for using a computer program to get the results, which are provided for you as part of the test. 3

4 MKTG 460 Content Sources: Class, text and posted videos on class website Week 1 [9/29] Ch 1: The Role of Marketing Research in Management Decision Making Data Analysis: The Data Table Secs 12.2ab, 12.3ab: Data Analysis Bar Charts, Histograms, Standard Deviation Week 2 [10/06] Ch 2: The Marketing Research Project Ch 3a: Exploratory, Descriptive Research Designs Sec 12.3c: Data Analysis Confidence Interval of the Mean Week 3 [10/13] Ch 5: Collecting Primary Data by Observation Ch 6: Collecting Primary Data by Communication Sec 12.4: Data Analysis Hypothesis Test of the Mean Week 4 [10/20] Ch 3b: Causal Research Designs Sec 13.2: Data Analysis Analysis of a Mean Difference Sec 13.3: Data Analysis a Paired Sample Comparison Week 5 [10/27] NO CLASS MEETING Midterm: Take-Home plus Timed Multiple-Choice from D2L Week 6 [11/03] NO CLASS MEETING Project: Form groups and decide on a survey topic Video: Qualtrics, Survey via Computer Ch 7: Asking Good Questions Ch 8: Designing the Questionnaire Ch 9: Developing the Sampling Plan Week 7 [11/10] Data Analysis Correlation and Regression Ch 10: Data Collection: Enhancing Response Rates while Limiting Errors Ch 11: Data Preparation for Analysis Project: Write Surveys Week 8 [11/17] Data Analysis Multiple Regression Secs 13.4, 13.5: Correlation and Regression Project: Administer Posted Surveys Week 9 [11/24] Sec 12.2c, 13.1: Data Analysis Proportions and Cross-Tabulation Data Analysis: Data Transformations Week 10 [12/01] Project week with no new material 4

5 Review and answer questions about projects Ch 14: The Research Report Final: Week of 12/07, date not yet known because this is a hybrid class Project: Due by Fri at midnight, end of Finals week, but doing the project is excellent preparation for the Final, so better to do at least most of the work before taking the Final 5