Course Objectives:

1. To gain an understanding of the importance of information within business and industry.
2. To identify the role(s) of marketing research within the firm and within the business industry.
3. To understand, describe, and perform each of the six stages of the research process.
4. To develop a sense of the challenges and decisions presented to marketing researchers at various stages in the research process.
5. To improve the communication, quantification, and computer skills necessary to perform marketing research.

Grading:

Item	Percent
Team Project (600 pts)	60%
Class activities (300 pts.)	30%
Final Exam (100 pts)	10%
TOTAL	100%

Letter grades are assigned as follows:

90 - 100% A
80 - 89% B
70 - 79% C
60 - 69% D
59% or below F


I reserve the right to curve class grades if I feel it necessary. Any curving, if done, will never adversely affect your grade with regard to the above schedule. For example, if everyone in the class gets above 90% for their final grades, everyone will receive an A. If everyone in the class gets between 75% and 88%, I may curve the grades so that 88% is an A. Any grade curving will be done solely at my discretion.

Late assignments are not accepted. Please plan accordingly and remember that Murphy's Law operates at 100% in the computer labs - especially towards the end of the semester. Do NOT wait until the last minute to do class assignments, prepare analyses, or write project reports!!

Project (600 points): A vital part of developing an understanding of the research process is to actually be involved in defining a research problem, designing the research, and collecting, analyzing, and reporting data. However, identification of a suitable semester-long project can take several weeks of valuable time on the part of the students. Therefore, in this class, the research problem you will investigate is pre-assigned.

This project will be of professional standards in both depth of analysis and presentation, thus requiring significant research, analysis, and writing. In addition, marketing research benefits from the input and expertise of different individuals. Therefore, similar to typical industry practice, this research project requires team work. Research teams will be assigned on the basis of class and work schedules, expertise, and geographic location, if necessary. You will receive your team assignment within the first week of the semester.

The project will consist of eight parts, each coinciding with a stage of the research process and with the organization of the text. The eight parts are described in further detail below. I will be happy to review and make comments on your report drafts up to 72 hours before the due date. I strongly advise you to take advantage of this review process! All projects are due at class time unless otherwise noted.

All written reports MUST be word-processed. If you save each written report on disk, your final report will be much easier to prepare because the final written report includes significant portions of the previous seven reports and each part of the project builds on the previous reports. Team presentations will be made in the evening during the last week of classes. All class members are required to attend class presentations. Please make any necessary adjustments to your schedule now.

Projects are graded on quality and depth of analysis and professionalism of both the presentation and the written reports (yes, this includes spelling and grammar). Effective communication is a critical skill for those employed in business fields. Some evidence of effective written communication is clarity of expression, logical arguments, good organization, and lack of spelling and grammatical errors. You will be graded on all of these elements. Spelling and grammatical errors indicate carelessness, lack of effort to proofread, and insufficient time allowed for accurate completion of written reports. Each spelling error, typo, or grammatical error will cost you 1/2 point. I strongly suggest careful proofreading of all written assignments. I also suggest that you use the College of Business Communication Handbook (available in the Bookstore) as a reference for effective writing.

The research team receives a grade for each part of the project. Individual project grades may be equal to, higher than, or lower than the team grade. An individual's project grade is determined from both the team grades and peer evaluations. Two peer evaluations are required; one for Parts I - III, the other for Parts IV - VIII.

Peer evaluations: Peer evaluations consist of ratings and comments. Each person is evaluated on 12 - 14 items by each team member. An average score for each item is computed for each individual and for the team. If an individual's score falls outside the team score by one standard deviation on four (4) or more items, a grade adjustment for those project parts is made. Adjustments from peer evaluations may be up or down and are made as follows:

Outside 1 standard deviation on: 4 - 7 items 10%
                                                       8 - 12 items 20%**
Outside 2 standard deviations on: 4 - 7 items 20%
                                                         8 - 12 items 40%**
Outside 3 standard deviations on: 4 - 7 items 40%
                                                         8 - 12 items 50%**

**This individual's scores may be dropped from the team's scores and the team average recomputed. This procedure is selected based upon score discrepancies and/or written comments.

Peer evaluations are strictly confidential. No one in the class may see anyone else's peer evaluation.

Part One: (20 pts) Problem Definition and (partial) Research Proposal
Maximum: 2 pages, typed, double-spaced
Due: Tuesday, Jan. 29
Description: This brief analysis should include a project title, statement of the problem, purpose and scope of the project. The scope includes both the research questions you plan to investigate and those items that you will not be examining in this research.

Part Two: (20 pts) Proposed Research Design
Maximum: 1 page
Due: Thursday, Jan. 31
Description: Identify the type of research you have selected as appropriate for answering this research question and support your decision.

Part Three: (40 pts) Secondary Data Report and Data Collection Method
Maximum: 10 pages
Due: Thursday, Feb. 7
Description: For this project report, you will collect any and all secondary data you deem relevant to help define or answer the research problem with regard to your preliminary hypotheses and/or research proposal. If appropriate this data may be reported in charts, graphs, and/or tables with necessary documentation and source citations/references. Finally, you must identify and justify the primary data that you will collect to further illuminate the research problem and answer your research hypotheses and identify the method you will use to collect this data.

Part Four: (40 pts**) Data Collection Forms
Maximum: None
Due: Thursday, Feb. 21
Description: Submit the form you will use to collect your primary data.
If you are doing a survey: Include dummy tables for your planned future data analyses. NOTE: Do not blow off these dummy tables. These are extremely important and take time to design. Every question in your survey should appear in at least one dummy table. If you have a question that doesn’t show up in a dummy table, that question probably shouldn’t be in the questionnaire.
If you are doing qualitative research: (e.g., focus groups) Include the list of desired topics of discussion and the corresponding probe questions. Also, submit your plan for analyzing the data.

Important Note: The original data collection form you submit will have to be revised to meet both my and your client's approval.  This usually takes 6-8 revisions.  The faster you get your data collection form approved, the sooner you can start collection data.  Virtually everygroup from previous classes has indicated that data collection took longer than they thought it would and that they waited to long to start data collection.  PLEASE GET YOUR DATA COLLECTION FORM APPROVED AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE!!!!
**20 point bonus if final data collection form is approved by Tuesday, March 5.

Part Five: (40 pts) Sampling, Data Collection and Field Procedures
Maximum: 4 pages, not including tables/charts
Due: Tuesday, March 5
Description: Define and justify your target sample. Select and support the type of sampling strategy you will use to collect data. Determine the appropriate sample size and show your calculations in a table or chart. Describe your field procedures in detail and the processes you will employ to reduce non-sampling error.

Part Six: (20 pts) Data Analysis: Part A, Descriptive Statistics
Maximum: None
Due: Tuesday, April 9
Description: Describe your sample and results of sample representativeness tests. Report descriptive statistics for each question on your survey. Depending on question type, include number of responses, number and percent in each category, number and percent valid/missing responses, mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. Interpret results of each question.

Part Seven: (20 pts) Data Analysis: Part B, Inferential Statistics
Maximum: None
Due: Tuesday, April 16 at 5:00 PM
Description: Report the results of your crosstab and inferential statistics data analysis using appropriate verbal descriptions and tables/charts/graphs. If not completely obvious from the results, include a description of the type of statistical analysis done. This report is usually best organized by having explanatory text with accompanying appendices/tables/charts. The text should identify the hypothesis being tested, tell the results of the test, and explain what it means in practical terms. The appendices should include the results of your statistical testing to provide support for the conclusions you are making. You may use the actual output from the data analysis as support IF it is neat, well organized, and properly referenced in the text.

Part Eight: (400 pts) Written Research Report (200 pts) and Oral Presentation (200 pts)
Maximum: Written Report - 20 pages, including Title Page, Executive Summary, and Text. Figures, Graphs, Charts, Tables, and References are not included in the 20-page maximum.
Oral Presentation - 30 minutes.
Due: Written - Tuesday, April 23 at 5:00 PM
Oral - Tuesday, April 30 or Wednesday, May 1
Description: The written portion of the report summarizes the research by presenting:

1. a cogent explanation of the research problem and background information
2. what was done to answer the research question
1. research design
2. sample
3. data collection procedures
3. sample description and representativeness
4. what the data revelaed

   a. how sample responded to questions
   b. interesting relationships/findings
5. your interpretation of the data
6. your recommendations for problem solution


NOTE: The written report is NOT just a concentration of the previous six parts. You must make revisions, often extensive, to some of your previous reports. For example, Parts 1 - 5 were written before you actually collected and analyzed the data (i.e., future tense). However, in the final report you must report what you actually did (i.e., past tense). Also, some parts of previous reports, such as calculations for sample size, may not need to be included in the final report or may appear in appendices.

The oral portion consists of presentation of the highlights of the written report (with appropriate visual materials) to the class, your research client, and potential visitors.

FOUR NOTES ABOUT THE PROJECTS:

1. The above descriptions are general guidelines for each project part.  Because each research project is unique, more specific details are not appropriate. If you have any questions about what to include in the reports, formatting, or anything else, ASK!!  And ask in class. If you have questions or problems, other people probably do, too. I have some excellent final reports from previous semesters if you would like to look them over for ideas about organization and general content.

 
2. I grade relatively strictly on the projects. These are professional research reports, not just some make-do work for a grade. Do not get discouraged if the grades on the early parts are not as high as you expect or would like. You and your project team will make mistakes - everybody does. After all, if you knew enough about marketing research not to make any mistakes, you wouldn’t be taking this class. However, as you can see from the project grade breakdown, the early parts do not carry as much weight as the final report and presentation. This grading method, along with the report review process, allows you to make mistakes and fix them before they become critical for either your report or your grade. Do NOT, however, let this be an excuse for turning in poor and/or sloppy work on any report because that will most definitely affect your grade!

 
3. You may need to adjust the writing style for class projects that you have developed over the last fifteen or so years of schooling. The research report for this class is a business report; I do not want fluff. Keep in mind that business executives don’t have the time or desire to read the kind of textbook and lecture note regurgitation that most teachers and professors prefer (myself not included). Your actual research will show whether you understand the material; you don’t need to explain the marketing research concepts to me in the reports. For example, if you tell me that you are using exploratory research to investigate a research hypothesis, you should be able to tell me why it is the appropriate design in just a sentence or two. I do not need two pages of exploratory research history and definitions included in your justification to show me that you selected the right research method.

Class Activities: Class activities include homework assignments, small group activities, Adventures in Statistics (AIS) exercises, SPSS exercises, discussions, and quizzes - both announced and unannounced. These activities are designed to illustrate the application of marketing research principles and enhance learning. In order to make intelligent contributions to class discussions and assignments, you must read the assigned chapter before class. I may notify students of selected assignments/discussion cases by e-mail and/or newsgroups. The various class activities comprise 30% of your total grade.

Adventure Learning Systems: Statistics (96 pts): This is a computerized statistics program which will help refresh your memory about the concepts and statistics you learned in OMIS 223 or your business statistics course. The program covers many topics in statistics and you are welcome to browse through all of them. However, for this class, I have assigned eleven modules that relate specifically to the kinds of data analyses we are likely to do. You are required to certify in ten of the eleven modules. Each certification is worth 9.6 points towards the class activities grade.

You may work on these modules at any time, but each module must be completed by March 7. Late certifications do not count towards your class activities grade.

To get certified on a module, you must correctly work through a number of multistage problems (usually 3 or 4). The program allows you a limited number of misses (usually 3 or 4). If you exceed the allowed misses, you will be ejected from the certification mode and have to start over again with a new set of problems to get certified. Therefore, there is no partial credit for certifications; for each module you are either certified or not. Getting certified may take you longer than you think because the program is fairly sensitive to rounding differences and 100% sensitive to typographical errors. Allow yourself enough time to get certified in each module.

Quizzes and Other Class Activities (180 points): Quizzes are given at the beginning of class. If you are not seated and ready in the classroom when the quiz is handed out, you are considered absent for that quiz. Small group activities and/or discussions comprise other class activities. Quizzes and class activities generally count between 10 to 25 points each.

SPSS Assignments (24 points): SPSS for Windows will be used to analyze your research data. This is an extremely powerful, yet rather easy to use (at least in the Windows version) data analysis program. We will go over the basics of the SPSS program in class. Two homework assignments will familiarize you with most of the major procedures you will use in your data analyses.

Final Exam (100 points): The final exam comprises 10% of your grade.