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Unit 2: Introduction to Research

 Less discount Notes
 Less availability

 Inefficient advertising/salesmanship
 Poor quality of salesman ship
 Less awareness
Not all factors are responsible for decline in sales.

Conclusive research: Narrow down the option. Only one or two factors are responsible for
decline in sales. Therefore zero down, and use judgment and past experience.

(a) Who should be interviewed for collecting data?: If the study is undertaken to determine
whether children influence the brand, for ready - to eat cereal (corn flakes) purchased
by parents. The researcher must decide, if only adults are to be studied or children
too included. The researcher must decide if data is to be collected by observation
method or by interviewing. If an interview is chosen, should it be a personal
interview or telephonic interview or questionnaire?
(b) Should a few cases be studied or a large sample be chosen?: The researcher may feel that
there are some cases available which are identical and similar in nature. He may
decide to use these cases for formulating the initial hypothesis. If suitable cases are
not available, then the researcher may decide to choose a larger sample.

(c) How to incorporate experiment in research?: In an experiment, it has to be decided at the
outset as to where and when measurements are to be conducted.

Example: In a test of advertising copy, the respondents can first be interviewed to measure
their present awareness, and their attitudes towards certain brands. Then, they can be shown a
pilot version of the proposed advertisement copy. Following this, their attitude too has to be
measured again, to see if the proposed copy had any effect on them.
If it is a questionnaire, then the following questions should be postal– (a) What are the contents
of the questionnaire? (b) What type of questions are to be asked? Pointed questions, general
questions etc. (c) In what sequence should the questions be asked? (d) Should there be a fixed set
of alternatives or should the question be open-ended. (e) Should the purpose be made clear to
the respondents or should the same be disguised? are to be determined well in advance.

2.9.4 Select the Sample Types

The first task is to carefully select which groups of people or stores are to be sampled.

Example: Collecting the data from a fast food chain. Here, it is necessary to define what
is meant by fast food chain. Also, the precise geographical location should be mentioned.

The next step is to decide whether to choose probability sampling or non-probability sampling.
Probability sampling is one in which each element has a known chance of being selected. A non-
probability sampling can be convenience or judgment sampling.

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