APPLIED MARKET RESEARCH- MKT5AMR
ASSESSMENT TASK 1: INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PROPOSAL (40%) DUE WEEK 6
Word limit: 2500 words
The individual assignment is designed to allow you to work on your own. Please refer to the Research Brief in Appendix A. You
are then required to formulate appropriate research objectives and hypotheses, design a methodology, and prepare a research
instrument in the form of a questionnaire.
A research proposal ensures that all aspects of the proposed study are consistent with each other. To address all the components
of a research design efficiently and effectively you will have to study the relevant chapters of your prescribed text thoroughly.
There are some good examples and case studies in your text, which explain how to apply the theoretical knowledge in practical
situations.
• For any type of study, a title is to be given. A title is basically a broad initial statement on the problem.
• The next step is to provide a background to the nature of the research problem. You must understand the background of
the problem by analysing the environmental context. In order to provide a better view on the nature of the problem, you
will have to collect and analyse information from secondary sources such as journal articles, industry reports, government
reports, magazines, and newspapers.
• After defining the problem on its correct perspectives, you may formulate a series of research questions related to the
objectives that will be resolved through the study.
• The proposal should convince the client that a study of this nature is justified to undertake. You should indicate the value
of the information that will be collected and should focus on the benefits.
You are expected to specifically outline the objectives that are intended to be accomplished through the study.
• The research objectives are your version of the marketing problems and they should be achievable and measurable.
• A hypothesis is an unproven statement/proposition about a factor or phenomenon that you are proposing to investigate.
In its simplest form it is a declarative guess. Hypotheses force researchers to be clear about what is expected to be found
through the study. All hypotheses need to be empirically testable.
• The questionnaire design is one of the most critical stages in the survey research process. A good questionnaire is the
result of long, painstaking work. There is no scientific principle that will guarantee an optimal or ideal questionnaire.
Design of a good questionnaire is an art and the skill acquired through experience.
The objectives of your study will determine the information requirements and you will have to translate and transform hypotheses
into specific questions that the respondents can and will answer. A questionnaire must uplift, motivate, and encourage the
respondent to cooperate and to complete the interview and it should minimise response error.
• You will have to design a structured close-ended questionnaire with a minimum number of dichotomous questions. For
measurement of attitudes/awareness/importance of the respondents to a particular phenomenon, use Likert-type scales
(a range of scales will be provided in classes). The guidelines of your text are to be followed meticulously while phrasing
and sequencing each individual question. Pre-testing of your questionnaire is not necessary for this assignment. You can
get some constructive feedback by administering your draft questions to different individuals. This may help to reveal
errors and they can be corrected easily.
The format of the proposal is outlined on the next page.
La Trobe University 13
Research Proposal Format
The following format for the research proposal is recommended as it includes the components required by the client (FWDA) to
evaluate the proposal and decide which company it will award the research study.
➢ Cover page
➢ Table of Contents
➢ Introduction
• A statement of the marketing problems.
➢ Background
• Information from online sources that show you understand the marketing problem and issues to be addressed.
➢ Research objectives/hypotheses
• The nature and scope of the research: purpose of the proposed research is to be clearly specified.
• The objectives are to be accomplishable within the scope of the proposed research. Minimum of five objectives.
• Formulation of relevant hypotheses for each objective.
➢ Methodology: research design & data collection
• Research design – clearly state type of research proposed
• The method of data collection (e.g. specify the survey method/s to be used for data collection).
➢ Methodology: sample & sampling process
• Justify the proposed study. (Why primary data collection is necessary and benefit for management decision-making.)
• Recommended sample size, target population and the process to access that population
➢ Proposed questionnaire (20-25 questions)
This must be included as an appendix to the research proposal. The following elements are to be taken into consideration
while designing the questionnaire:
• The general rules of the questionnaire design process and its composition.
• Specific components of the problem, i.e. the objectives of the study, the research questions and the hypotheses that
have been formulated.
• The structure, precise wording and layout of the questionnaire.
• The capabilities of your respondent to understand and answer your questions and provide the responses you require.
• The pre-coding requirements of the analysis package you will be using.
➢ Proposed analysis of the hypotheses (state which statistical test is to be used and the variables for each hypothesis).
➢ References
• References from literary and industry resources to support the proposed research. References should be cited in the
document text as well as listed in full in this section using the discipline sanctioned Harvard Referencing Style at
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/referencing-tool/harvard.
The Assessment Sheet for Task 1 is attached as Appendix B as a guide.
ASSESSMENT TASK 2: INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PROPOSAL PRESENTATION (20%) (DUE WEEK 7)
• Presentation of Individual Research Proposal (not exceeding 10 minutes with 6-8 slides)
• Each student needs to provide the lecturer with a video record of the presentation by uploading to the LMS system. The
LMS is restricted to files up to 100MB, if your video file is larger than that you may need to do the following:
➢ If you do not already have a YouTube account you will need to create a Youtube account (free), like when you set
up gmail account, etc. Easy to follow instructions if you do not already have a YouTube account can be found here
https://www.dummies.com/social-media/youtube/how-to-create-a-youtube-account/
➢ Record your presentation with your mobile (cell phone), computer or another device.
➢ The file can then be uploaded on YouTube, REMEMBER to choose the option “unlisted” so that the public will not
be able to see it.
➢ Once uploaded on Youtube, you can then share the link by copying and pasting the link into a word document or
PPT Slides and upload it in the usual way in the Task 3 presentation section on LMS.
➢ Acceptable formats for the video presentation are 3GP, AVI, FLV, MOV, MPEG, WebM, and WMV.
• The PowerPoint®
(or similar) slides used in the presentation video should also be uploaded to the LMS system and
acceptable formats are PDF, pptx or ppt.
• Presentation should contain the key findings and explain why you are recommending the research proposed.
The Assessment Sheet for Task 2 is attached as Appendix C as a guide.
La Trobe University 14
ASSESSMENT TASK 3: ANALYSIS OF DATA USING SPSS (40%) Due Week 12
Word limit: 2500 words
For this task students will demonstrate an understanding of how to use the statistical analysis tools presented and used in the
SPSS workshops.
SPSS is short for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and was developed by three students at the University of Stanford
(Norman Nie, Tex Hull and Dale Bent) in 1968. Initially only for distribution within their home university, the publication of the
first manual made SPSS widely known and used. Created for IBM mainframe computers, versions for most other mainframe brands
and other computer platforms were developed. SPSS Inc. was the founded in 1975 and acquired by IBM in 2009; it is now fully
integrated into the IBM Corporation Business Analytics Software portfolio1
.
SPSS is used by researchers for complex statistical data analysis and most of the top marketing research agencies use SPSS to
analyse survey data and mine text data. It is also widely used as the preferred quantitative data analysis tool amongst academics.
Attitudes of students towards entrepreneurship
A SPSS database has been provided on the LMS system and a copy of the original questionnaire to gauge the attitudes of students
towards entrepreneurship is reproduced in Appendix D. Using the questionnaire provided students are to analyse the data by
describing the sample characteristics (SPSS Exercise 4) and conducts SPSS tests (SPSS Exercises 5-9) for a series of hypotheses.
Using the exercises in the SPSS workshops as a guide formulate the hypotheses from amongst the variables available in the
questionnaire and conduct the statistical analysis as described in SPSS Exercises 5 to 9. The report content results section contains
additional information for this assessment task.
Report the findings using tables and figures (do not duplicate information) and make recommendations.
Report content
➢ Cover page with title, name of author, and student ID .etc.
➢ Table of contents
➢ Introduction (purpose of this report)
➢ Results
• Describe the characteristics of the sample using descriptive statistics (SPSS Exercise 4).
• Conduct a reliability analysis of a set of variables (SPSS Exercise 9) to measure an abstract construct that you will
later use as a variable in a regression analysis.
• State the null and alternative version of each hypotheses as well as the dependent and independent variables
(questions) to be used in the SPSS analysis. As you will need to use each of the SPSS Exercises 5-8 you should have
four null hypotheses to test.
• Report whether rejecting the null hypothesis and why.
• Provide a conclusion based on the results.
➢ References from literary and industry resources to support the proposed research. References should be cited in the text
and listed in this section of the report in the discipline sanctioned Harvard Referencing Style at
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/referencing-tool/harvard
The Assessment Sheet for Task 3 is attached as Appendix E as a guide to the both the content of the report and the assessment.
Grading criteria (rubrics) for Assessment Tasks 1, 2 & 3 can be found on the following pages