Lecture 5: Introduction to Quantitative Methods

Question 1

What are the Characteristics of quantitative research

Answer 1

1. It is objective.
2. It has clearly defined questions
3. It has structured research instruments.
   - It is used to gather data.
4. It has numerical data.
5. It has large samples.
6. It can be replicated.
7. It predicts future outcomes

Question 2

What are the Strengths of Quantitative Research?

Answer 2

1. It is objective.
2. It facilitates sophisticated analyses and allows comprehension of huge amount of vital characteristics of data
3. It allows analysis of data in a quick and easy way and generalisation of findings to the population.
4. It can be replicated.

Question 3

Weaknesses of Quantitative Research

Answer 3

1. It requires a large number of respondents.
2. It is costly.
3. It usually ignores the context of information.
4. It is difficult to gather information on sensitive issues using structured research instruments.
5. Data gathered may be incomplete and inaccurate.

Question 4

What are problems/ questions a marketing manager could address with the use of quantitative research

Answer 4

• What is the most common household income of our target market? Could do this by sending out a survey.
• What is the age demographic of our target market (Survey)
• What is the geographical area of our target market? (Survey)
• Do people believe our product is good value for money (yes or no question)
• How often do you go to the supermarket?

Question 5

Some problems/ questions I think would be better suited to qualitative research would be.

Answer 5

• What is your initial perception of the way our product looks, why do you feel that way?
• What is the perception you have of our brand, why do you have that perception?
• Why do you choose our product over our competitors, or vice-versa?

Question 6

What are the three approaches to Quantitative research

Answer 6

• Experiments: Explore the conditions under which a phenomenon occurs
• Modelling: Understand the nature of the relationship between two or more constructs (variables)
• Time Series: Study the change of a phenomenon over time.

Question 7

Examples of a construct (variable)

Answer 7

Salary, Savings, Satisfaction, Loyalty, Authenticity, Brand identification.

Question 8

What is measurement/measure?

Answer 8

• An empirically observed/quantified manifestation

Question 9

What are the different types of measure?

Answer 9

Ratio
Nominal (or categorical)
* Interval Variables
* Ordinal Variables

Question 10

What are Experiments and Explorative Designs?

Answer 10

✓ A research method where we manipulate something (variable) and check if there is a change in something else (another variable)

✓ Experiments allow the researcher to explore the different conditions associated with certain consumer behaviours.

✓ In designing an experiment, the main GOAL is twofold:

Question 11

Characteristics of Time series Analysis

Answer 11

• Time is often a crucial factor in understanding a phenomenon.
• This is because “time” is an important variable in the fields of Economics and Business; things happen “over time”.
• Especially when it comes to the understanding of the Macro- and Micro- environments.

Question 12

Examples of Time series Analysis

Answer 12

• How has the households’ average income changed since 2000?
• How is the retail price index changing over time?
• How is customer satisfaction from air carriers changing over time?
• How is customer loyalty for M&S changing over time?

Question 13

Purpose of trend analysis?

Answer 13

• Seeks to eliminate the ”noise” from a time series that various events may cause.

Question 14

Use of Time Series analysis

Answer 14

• Forecasting. Use the knowledge of the past to predict the future.
• History repeats itself; Right?
• Retail sales peak every Christmas.
• IF I know sales for Xmas in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, … Then I can use this knowledge to predict (±) sales for Xmas 2023!

Question 15

Two associations under Modelling are?

Answer 15

• Correlation
• Causation