PURPOSE OF RESEARCH

Jack Stillman

Contents

Qualitative and quantitative

research. 2-3
Methods of research 3-4
Purpose of research 6.

Why research?
Research is important as you are able to find out more facts about a
certain subject. It helps you to gain a better understanding of what you
are searching for and also to gain insight into other peoples ideas and
opinions.

Types of Research
Quantitative
Quantitative research is gaining peoples opinions on a subject in a
structured way that will enable you to get hard facts and statistics which
will guide you. To gain more valid and reliable results, it is best to survey
people in a fair way and also in large numbers so that they are a
representative sample of your intended target audience.
The main way to conduct Quantitive research is to get your target
audience to complete a questionnaire or survey with set questions and
multiple choice answers. The answers to the question can feature
strengths of opinions such as strongly agree or disagree, scales out of
ten and also a comment box in which they are able to out their own
opinion if their original thoughts arent there. This type of research is easy
to conduct as a simple survey can be sent through the post, over the
phone or online and even quickly in the street. In order to gain a large
number of respondents, companies often offer something in return for
their time, such as free products or financial help or discounts.
Quantitative research can have many pros and cons to it. The pros of this
type of research can be related to the simplicity of it. Due to the main way
of how quantitative research takes place, it becomes easy to collect the
data and also to analyse it in a short period of time. The results are easy
to be generalised to the entire population if the survey is done by a
random sample. Some topics that are being discussed may be sensitive to
certain people, so being able to remain anonymous is good as it means
more people are likely to give an honest answer and not just lie. Whilst
making surveys may seem easy, they can be very costly to create and to
send out. The respondents who are willing to reply and share opinions,
may share characteristics that dont apply to the population as a whole,
making the results unreliable and potentially bias.

Qualitative
Qualitative research is more focused on human behaviour and their
specific opinions or beliefs about certain topics. Researchers aim to gather
in-depth understandings of human behaviour and the reasons behind why

they behave in certain ways. Qualitative methods that are commonly used
today include in-depth interviews with individuals, group discussions,
diary and journal exercises and in-context observations. There are many
reasons as to why qualitative research works and enables us to gain
results. Group interviews and discussions enables synergy between the
participants as they are able to build on each others comments and
create more insightful answers. It also gives you the opportunity to extend
and explain your answers more than if you were answering a survey, the
marketers are able to ask questions such as could you explain why you
feel that way, which gives the respondent to go into more depth with
their responses. Qualitative research is easy to conduct. In order to
conduct it you must select a small group of people who all possess similar
characteristics and set up a discussion through either a focus group or indepth interviews. You must keep them unstructured so that the
participants are free to make any comment and are limited to just a few
options.
Qualitative research has many advantages to it over quantitative
research. Qualitative research gives you the opportunity to explore more
topics in more depth and detail than quantitative research. It is far less
expensive to carry out qualitative research as you dont need to recruit as
many participants to take part and uses less extensive methods. This type
of research also offers flexibility in terms of locations and timings, as you
dont need to interview a large number at once and everyone could be
interviewed separately. Despite all these advantages, there are also a set
of disadvantages that should be considered. The main one is that your
findings cannot be generalised to your broader audience or the public as
everyone has slightly different opinions and behaves in a certain way.

Methods of Research
Secondary
Secondary research is information or material which is gathered by
looking at the findings of others. Secondary research techniques feature;

Referring to books, journals, magazines and newspapers

Gathering information from a variety of websites off the website
Making notes on information presented from audio visual formats
such as DVDs, videos or CDs

This type of research is the most widely used method for collecting data.
The process involves collecting data from a variety of sources where
someone has already gathered the information you are looking for. Most of
the information found comes from third party sources such as marketing

reports, company websites, magazine articles and other sources.

Secondary research offers many advantages for gathering research. Ease
of access with the birth of the internet and raise of its popularity, it
doesnt take very long to go onto a search engine, like google, and find
the information you are looking for. With websites like Wikipedia, there is
always a source where we can easily find any information we want. In
terms of price, secondary research effectively costs nothing. As the
researchers arent having to conduct the research themselves, which
could cost their company a large sum, they would save money as they
arent the ones who are finding out the information. Secondary research
may also become an easier option that primary research. For example, a
researcher might be conducting and trying to find out certain facts about
the way people feel about certain things such as, song or film reviews,
however instead of initially having to host focus groups of create surveys,
they may simply be able to use secondary research to quicken up their
research process.
Despite their being many advantages to secondary research, there are
many disadvantages. In secondary research, we rely heavily on the quality
of the data that we are obtaining. Yet, many researchers dont take the
reliability and validity of the information that they are finding, this could
lead to bias and unreliable research. Therefore, before using the
information, organisations need to critically evaluate the information of
how it was gathered and also analysed so that they can be sure that it is
good enough to use. Although secondary research is cost nothing in
comparison to primary research, there are some areas in which you may
find yourself having to pay. Many companies, who have completed

some research, may release a small section of their findings to

get people intrigued and wanting to use this as their main
source of information, but in actual fact, they may charge for
the rest of their information to be seen and read.

Primary
Primary research involves information and material which has been found
for the first time by the researcher. This new material would be found by
using a variety of different research techniques such as;

Observations that have been made whilst viewing an exhibition,

show, performance or visiting a new location
Interviews
Reports of meetings and discussions
Information collected from questionnaires or surveys

Focus group activities.

The primary research market is consisted of a large group of marketers

who carry out their own research and an extensive group of companies
who are willing to offer their services to these marketers. These
companies include;

Full-Service Market Research Firms these are companies who

develop and carryout the full research plans for those who they are
working for.
Partial-Service Market Research Firms these companies offer
expertise that is specific to a certain part of the research plan, such
as developing methods to collect data, surveys for example.
Research Tool Suppliers these companies provide tools which help
to aid the researchers and they include data collection tools such as
online surveys, data analysis software and report presentation
products.

Primary research is collected in a research instrument which is designed

to record information so that it can be analysed later on. Marketing
researchers use a variety of instruments that range from basic methods
that record participant responses to highly advanced electronic
measurements.
Primary research can be very specific in the way it addresses the
researchers needs. If the marketer was to carry out secondary research in
order to find the correct information, they may not find exactly what they
are looking for, and it may only briefly talk about what they are interested
in. This problem doesnt exist in primary research, as the marketer takes
control of the research and designs it in a way that will be specific to their
needs. Information that is collected by marketers, generally not shared
with others and is their own, this means that their information can be
hidden from competitors and potentially give them an advantage as they
possess more information. Despite the fact primary research is a good
way of obtaining information that others may not have. It has does have
many flaws that might hinder the choice you make when deciding what
research to do. Cost is the main aspect that should be considered. The
expense of preparing and carrying out the research can be very high. The
process can be very time consuming as well as it involves developing and
executing a research plan. From the starting point of deciding to
undertake a research project to the point when you have results is a much
longer time when compared to how long secondary research takes.

Data gathering agencies

The roles of data gathering agencies are that they are responsible in
collecting and maintaining the companies data. The R.A.J.A.R is an
organisation that stands for radio joint audience research. This

organisation measures radio audiences in the UK and is owned by both

the BBC and the radio centre. They use dairy as a method to measure
radio audience and the data that they gather is the industry wide currency
for;
1. Planning advertising
2. Buying advertising
3. Selling advertising
RAJAR is responsible for setting the research specification, the awarding of
the research contracts to third party supplies and the overall quality
control. They collect data by using a seven day self-completion diary. This
diary is customised at placement. The way it works is that each
respondent sorts through a set of cards with the names of local radio
stations and invite all the stations that they may listen to or hear in
various situations. The data is then processed and there are three stages
for this. First is that all information is scanned. They use optical scanning
technology to look at all questionnaires and diaries. The data is then
scanned and goes through a series of checking procedures which includes
a computer program which is designed to test the quality. The second is
that they write in. This is when a respondent writes in the name of a
station where this no label, if it is attributed to the BBC or another local
commercial is applicable, however if the station cannot be identified it is
coded as other listening. Thirdly, editing. Listening records are cross
referenced with platform ownership and access claims are collected from
recruitment questionnaires.

Self-generated
Self-generated is where the research has come from something that you
have created.

Purpose of Research
Audience research
Audience research is the analysis of who consumes what media products
and why. Audience research is an important part of the procedure as it
enables the producers to gain a better insight into the audience as it
would be pointless to create something which wouldnt appeal to anyone.
Its an important part because it is time consuming and would be waste of
money if the product was created in a way that was not expected.
Audience research can be done by interviews, questionnaires, surveys,
online forums, vox pops and discussion groups. These can all have a
variety of advantages and disadvantages. Advantages, some types of
research methods are often easy to evaluate and enable more people to
tell the truth as they remain anonymous. Some research methods such as
online forums and discussion groups allow the participants to express

their honest opinion and to also go in to a large amount of depth.

However, there are equally as many disadvantages. In methods such as
interviews the interviewer could make the interviewee feel uncomfortable
and therefore lead them to not giving an honest answer.

Market research
This is investigations into the way that products could produce income by
looking at the demands of consumers. Markets are constantly changing so
companies need to have a clear understanding of both the supply and
demand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research
http://www.knowthis.com/data-collection-low-cost-secondaryresearch/what-is-secondary-research
http://www.knowthis.com/data-collection-primary-research-methods/whatis-primary-research
http://www.slideshare.net/AnnieRose95/audience-research-22808080