For the following exercise define, 1. Variables used for the research. 2. Kind o
ID: 423923 • Letter: F
Question
For the following exercise define,
1. Variables used for the research.
2. Kind of study (exploratory, descriptive, casual).
3. Define what type of scale to use in each of the research question if applicable.
The retail advertising manager of a major metropolitan newspaper
Management Dilemma: Should advertising rates be revised?
Management Question: Should the advertising rates be revised, by how much, and what gains are expected from the revision?
Research Questions: (1) What are the rates of competing publications? (2) What should the differentials between rates for different ‘positions’ be? (3) What impact will a rate increase have on the demand for advertising? (4) What should the revised advertising tariff structure be?
Explanation / Answer
Variables used for the research. :- During any experiment or study various parameters are used, certain parameters change depending on the conditions / scenarios during the experiment. The measurable attributes whose value change and give different result during the experiment while conducting experiment on same or different test subject, single or multiple test subjects are defined as variable. Some common type of variables are Dependent & independent, intervening moderator variables, constant or controllable variables, extraneous variables.
For e.g. while conducting the study / experiment on food habits of people from a specific region the weather conditions can be one of the variable, for e.g. during cold weather people tend to buy more hot drinks and consume less cool drinks, on the other hand the sale of cool drinks increase in hot weather more people prefer the cold drinks.
Kind of study (exploratory, descriptive, casual). : These are types of study conducted for different purposes.
Exploratory Study is generally conducted to get specific results by collecting statistical data, these are used generally for market study, viability check, and study patterns which can be used to define the strategy at the beginning of planning for e.g. if a new bus service is being planned by a company then it would conduct exploration of market trends, how customers travel currently, what are available mode of transport, what would be expected by customers etc.. This generally more oriented towards data collection rather than decision making
Descriptive study: - Descriptive study is further extension of the exploratory study, it focuses more on specific topics and specific data set collected by exploratory study. For e.g. a focus group setup to identify the pain points in current mode of transport for a specific route, what would be the best time for starting service, what are the peak hours so that frequency can be determined, price can be determined.
Casual study: Casual study is also referred as explanatory study, here the cause and effect are determined between variables. Its more oriented to get specific results for e.g. if a bus service company wants to check the impact of weather and use of more comfortable (for instance AC and Non AC bus service in cold weather) buses then they can conduct a study by running AC bus service on a specific route on specific time and similarly a non AC bus on same route. Difference between numbers of people choosing AC service (costly) over non AC can be used to determine results.
3# Following type of Scales can be used depending upon the experiment / study being conducted & questions being asked
Graphic rating scale - Shows results like 50% satisfied, 10 % dissatisfied
Likert Scale - shows results like Highly satisfied, Satisfied, neutral, Dissatisfied, highly dissatisfied
Semantic Differential Scale - Shows results like how satisfied are you rate on following parameters (high, low etc) ease in navigaion of website, look & feel of website, Relevance of content
Side-by-Side Matrix - Shows results for variables as well as users experience