Definition of Research

The word "research" is used to describe a number of similar and often overlapping activities involving a search for information .
Research is done in order to gain knowledge and solve difficulties encountered in life. Research is done in order to learn
something new and more diversely, to pursue your own interest and to develop your problem-solving skills. It also helps you in
challenging yourself in more ways than you expected. Research is defined as the searching of knowledge in an open way and
mind in order to find the facts.

Business research is based on a business problem or situation e.g consumer behavior research etc.

Research is usually done when trying to establish something about a fact or hypothesis. Research is usually done in a
systematic manner and there is usually a conclusion after every research. There has been an increase in research firms in the
recent past.

Business Research is defined as the creation of new knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative
way so as to generate new concepts, methodologies and understandings related to business environment. This could include
synthesis and analysis of previous research to the extent that it leads to new and creative outcomes.

Why study Business Research

Business research is the process of gathering the necessary data for an industry to be successful. Business research is
synonymous with market research, but companies typically use every type of market research available to fully analyze their
business situation: industry analysis, product research, and even identifying key customer groups. The business research
process is necessary to assist managers in making major business decisions.

Defining Business Objective

Before a business can start operating, it first must define its business. For example, a new discount health-care company may
define its objective as providing affordable health care to individuals and families. After a company defines its main objective, it
then is ready to study the industry and competition. The process of defining a business objective is necessary for managers to
properly align their business plans with the right customers.

Data Collection: Companies usually start the data collection process by studying secondary research data. Some of this
information may be available in business articles or at local libraries. A company often will need to purchase this data from
vendors. Businesses can acquire information through secondary research about the size of their industry and how sales have
trended. The second part of data collection entails primary research surveys. Companies do research surveys to measure
satisfaction among customers, to ensure that the customer's needs are being met with current products and to identify
consumers that are most likely to use their products.

Analysis: Marketing managers and other business professionals analyze data so they fully understand where they stand
versus competitors in sales volume and market share. A company may also learn more about its key strengths and
weaknesses versus competitors. For example, secondary research may reveal that a key competitor is on the verge of merging
with another company. Another competitor may be suffering financially. Additionally, analyzing primary research can help a
company understand how it fares against competitors in product quality, service, price and value. Customers also may want
additional features added to the company's products. The ultimate goal of the analysis stage is to start developing some
relevant choices or alternatives.

Alternatives: After fully analyzing all available data, business managers usually will list possible alternatives for harnessing
strengths and overcoming weaknesses. These alternatives eventually will need to be winnowed down to one viable solution or
alternative. The goal of this solution will be to better satisfy key customers, increase distribution or whatever it takes to improve
the company's sales and profits.

Decision Making: Ultimately, the business research process will lead to certain company decisions or strategies. The savvy
business man knows that he can learn a lot from business research. However, he must also use it to avoid being
outmanoeuvred by competitors on important issues such as service and product features. For example, a company may
revamp its customer service department to deal with low customer satisfaction scores revealed in the research. New product
features may be added to satisfy the sector of the market that requested them.

What is good research?

Whatever may be the types of research works and studies, one thing that is important is that they all meet on the common
ground of scientific method employed by them. One expects scientific research to satisfy the following criteria:
The purpose of the research should be clearly defined and common concepts bemused. The research procedure used should
be described in sufficient detail to permit another researcher to repeat the research for further advancement, keeping the
continuity of what has already been attained. The procedural design of the research should be carefully planned to yield results
that areas objective as possible. The researcher should report with complete frankness, flaws in procedural design and
estimate their effects upon the findings. The analysis of data should be sufficiently adequate to reveal its significance and the
methods of analysis used should be appropriate. The validity and reliability of the data should be checked carefully.
Conclusions should be confined to those justified by the data of the research and limited to those for which the data provide an
adequate basis. Greater confidence in research is warranted if the researcher is experienced, has a good reputation in
research and is a person of integrity.
In other words, we can state the qualities of a good research as under: Good research is systematic: It means that research is
structured with specified steps to be taken in a specified sequence in accordance with the well defined set of rules. Systematic
characteristic of the research does not rule out creative thinking but it certainly does reject the use of guessing and intuition in
arriving at conclusions. Good research is logical: This implies that research is guided by the rules of logical reasoning and the
logical process of induction and deduction are of great value in carrying out research. Induction is the process of reasoning
from a part to the whole whereas deduction is the process of reasoning from some premise to a conclusion which follows from
that very premise. In fact, logical reasoning makes research more meaningful in the context of decision making.Good research

1
is empirical: It implies that research is related basically to one or more aspects of a real situation and deals with concrete data
that provides a basis for external validity to research results. Good research is replicable: This characteristic allows research
results to be verified by replicating the study and thereby building a sound basis for decisions.
Decision Support

A decision support system (DSS) is a computer-based information system that supports business or organizational decision-
making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization (usually mid and higher
management) and help people make decisions about problems that may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in
advance—i.e. Unstructured and Semi-Structured decision problems. Decision support systems can be either fully
computerized, human-powered or a combination of both.
While academics have perceived DSS as a tool to support decision making process, DSS users see DSS as a tool to facilitate
organizational processes. Some authors have extended the definition of DSS to include any system that might support decision
making and some DSS include a decision-making software component; Sprague (1980)[2] defines a properly termed DSS as
follows:
DSS tends to be aimed at the less well structured, underspecified problem that upper level managers typically face;
SS attempts to combine the use of models or analytic techniques with traditional data access and retrieval functions;
DSS specifically focuses on features which make them easy to use by non-computer-proficient people in an interactive mode;
and
DSS emphasizes flexibility and adaptability to accommodate changes in the environment and the decision making approach of
the user.
DSSs include knowledge-based systems: A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help
decision makers compile useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, and personal knowledge, or business
models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.
Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present includes:
Inventories of information assets (including legacy and relational data sources, cubes, data warehouses, and data marts),
Comparative sales figures between one period and the next,
Projected revenue figures based on product sales assumptions.
Business Intelligence

The potential benefits of business intelligence programs include accelerating and improving decision making; optimizing
internal business processes; increasing operational efficiency; driving new revenues; and gaining competitive advantages over
business rivals. BI systems can also help companies identify market trends and spot business problems that need to be
addressed.
BI data can include historical information, as well as new data gathered from source systems as it is generated, enabling BI
analysis to support both strategic and tactical decision-making processes. Initially, BI tools were primarily used by data analysts
and other IT professionals who ran analyses and produced reports with query results for business users. Increasingly, however,
business executives and workers are using BI software themselves, thanks partly to the development of self-service BI and
data discovery tools.
Business intelligence combines a broad set of data analysis applications, including ad hoc analysis and querying, enterprise
reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), mobile BI, real-time BI, operational BI, cloud and software as a service BI, open
source BI, collaborative BI and location intelligence. BI technology also includes data visualization software for designing charts
and other infographics, as well as tools for building BI dashboards and performance scorecards that display visualized data on
business metrics and key performance indicators in an easy-to-grasp way. BI applications can be bought separately from
different vendors or as part of a unified BI platform from a single vendor.
Research applications in Functional Areas of Business

Research has a wide scope to use in different areas such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, biology,
mathematics, science and management. It helps us to find out solutions for the operational problems.
As here we have major concern with business research. Different functional areas which come under this are as follows.
Finance & accounts: finance and account of any organization revolves around
Cash inflows – Revenue from sales.
Cash outflows – paying for materials & equipments
Capital – loans & shares.
Issues in relation with above points can be resolved with the help of research. For example we can consider following topics for
research.
To do financial restructuring – To restructuring the financial policies we need research. This research may vary for each firm
industry or sector.
How to manage receivables without losing customer satisfaction – credit sales are essential part of the modern competitive
business world. It certainly promotes sales. However extension of credit involves risk of bad debt cost. So it in necessary find
ways to manage it effectively we need research.
Ratio analysis & its impact on financial position of the selected organization – from above topic we can investigates the
relationship between different type of ratio i.e. liquidity, profitability, solvency & turnover ratios & the earning per share.
A conceptual analysis of e-banking pros & cons – it helps us to find distinguishing factors between traditional banking & today’s
e-banking. As e-banking is becoming part & partial of our life.
A comparative study of LIC with private sector

2
Analysis of dividend per share & earning per share – we can prepare case for any selected industries from any sector.
Technology in banking sector – by conducting research on this we can find out
The way IT products have changed the face of banking.
Environment of banking industry.
Factors that have brought change banking sector.
A study of conceptual framework mergers & acquisitions – We can study the forms of mergers & acquisitions in different
sectors.
Investment avenues (investment perception & preference) we can find out
Emerging trends in Business Research

Business intelligence and analytics are in high demand as organizations seek to use information assets to improve business
outcomes, customer relationships, and operational efficiency. Yet, it has perhaps never been more challenging to keep up with
the changing demands and expectations of a growing BI and analytics user community. IT-driven application development,
limited access to historical data, and canned business reports are no longer satisfactory. Users want more control, better
visualization and analysis capabilities, and faster development cycles.
Organizations are closely watching emerging technology trends to discover the next great competitive advantage in the use of
information. One trend is easy to identify: more information. Data volumes are growing across the board, with organizations
seeking to tap new sources generated by social media and online customer behavior. This trend is spurring tremendous
interest in better access and analysis of the variety of information available in unstructured or semi-structured content sources.
1. Data Discovery Accelerates Self-Service BI and Analytics: From a macro perspective, it’s easy to identify the biggest
long-term trend in business intelligence: providing nontechnical users with the tools and capabilities to access, analyze, and
share data on their own. However, the road to this destination has not been easy. With IT driving application development and
deployment, standard approaches to extending enterprise BI and data analysis capabilities have been difficult and slow.
Getting the requirements right for the data, reports, visualization, and drill-down analysis capabilities is difficult and never fully
satisfactory. By the time requirements have been gathered and turned into application features, users will have identified
different requirements.
Today, “data discovery” technology is leading the way toward making it possible for users to determine their own BI
requirements by authoring reports, assembling their own dashboards, and so on. Users across organizations have varying
degrees of experience with data, as well as clarity about what kind of reports, visualizations, and analysis capabilities they
want. For some, simple, shareable reports with good visuals are enough; others require more control of development options.
Data discovery tools are cut from the same cloth as BI tools, but also provide users with greater self-service capabilities—that
is, more control of their environment, including the ability to do rapid proof-of-concept applications that could ultimately be
deployed more widely by IT.
TDWI’s recent Best Practices Report, Self-Service Business Intelligence: Empowering Users to Generate Insights (Q3 2011),
found that responding to constantly changing business needs is the dominant reason organizations are seeking self-service
capabilities. At the same time, however, giving users more control of their BI and analytics environments raises concerns about
inadequate user skills and the potential for data quality, control, and governance problems.
Leading data discovery tools offer users the option of implementing in-memory analytics, which can be a good choice
depending on workloads and the types of queries made. Data discovery tools employ inexpensive memory to bring selected
detailed data closer to users, enabling them to test predictive models and perform iterative analysis without incurring the
performance issues of accessing data on disk. Some data discovery tools include search capabilities and extended or hybrid
SQL for different types of data, such as semi-structured “big data” found in social media and geographical location data. Some
tools are also able to mask or encapsulate ETL, metadata, and other information management concerns to shield users from
having to know the complexities of data access.
Analytics is all about discovery; users need the flexibility to ask new questions of the data as they move through their analysis.
Along with self-service dashboard creation and visualization choices to improve reporting, data discovery tools give users the
ability to perform what-if analysis and dive deeper into detailed data. The new tools in the market are putting pressure on
market-leading BI systems to catch up. The result is a positive trend for users toward greater self-service and more BI agility
without sacrificing analytical flexibility and depth.
2. Unified Access and Analysis of All Types of Information Improves User Productivity: As the implementation of BI and
analytics tools spreads to more users within organizations, a question inevitably arises: What about all the information in text
and document formats, which accounts for the vast majority of what users encounter? Difficulty in finding information, whether
structured or unstructured, is a productivity cost to organizations. If one of the measures of BI’s value is improved productivity,
then BI should help users access and analyze unstructured as well as structured information.
Historically, BI systems have developed in technology ecosystems limited to structured, alphanumeric data, leaving
unstructured content to document and content management systems, search engines, and a lot of manual paperwork. With the
majority of content increasingly being stored and generated in digital form, users are demanding better integration between
content access and analysis and the structured realm of BI. Integrated views of all types of information can help managers and
frontline workers see the context surrounding the numbers in structured systems. This enables them to uncover business
opportunities and find the root causes of problems more quickly.
BI and data discovery tools are advancing the integration of search capabilities into the user experience to help users find
reports and other BI artifacts more quickly, and search for information inside internal content sources and on the Web.
However, products in the search-centric unified information access (UIA) tool category have been moving faster to bring search
and SQL-based access and analysis together in one environment. With UIA tools, users can explore information that is not
represented in the BI system’s metadata. Search options are more expansive in UIA tools than in most BI systems, with
support for sophisticated concept classification, faceted search, and inverted indexes to speed the discovery of information.
The unification of access and analysis of structured and unstructured data is an important emerging trend in BI, data discovery,
and UIA. This unification is critical to giving users a complete view of information about customers, patients, products, and other

3
objects of interest. For managers and frontline employees accountable for processes that are both data- and content-intensive,
the unification will help them use information to increase efficiency, productivity, and business agility.
3. Big Data Generated by Social Media Drives Innovation in Customer Analytics: Customer data intelligence has long
been a major driver behind growth in the implementation of sophisticated analytics for prediction and pattern recognition as well
as advanced data warehousing. In the brick-and-mortar days, organizations wanted to slice, dice, and mine transaction data
and interpret it against demographic information. Advanced organizations sought to mine the data to uncover buying patterns
and product affinities. As e-commerce and call centers proliferated, organizations needed to expand customer analysis to
include interaction information recorded in all channels, bringing more terabytes into their data warehouses.
Now, with Twitter, Facebook, and other sites, we have hit the social media age: customers are using social networks to
influence others and express their shopping interests and experiences. Organizations are hungry to capture and analyze
activity by current and potential customers in social networks and comment fields across the Internet marketplace.
The race is on to gain business advantage from social media activity. Organizations born in the Internet age live and die by this
information; eBay, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, Zynga, and others use it to influence feature development and content placement on their
Web sites in real time. Firms with physical and online sales channels hope to gain new perspectives on customer satisfaction
with experiences in each channel. These organizations want to do more than just track social network activity; they want to use
insights to improve marketing strategies, customer service, product development, and more.
The big data generated by social media is a magnet for many types of advanced analytics, including some that break away
from standard data warehousing designs and practices. Hadoop and MapReduce give developers frameworks and techniques
for data-intensive applications that let them bypass some of the structural requirements of traditional relational data
warehouses. This helps to more quickly and inexpensively leverage the power of massively parallel platforms for deep analysis
of large volumes of data. Hadoop’s growth is shared by an explosion in open source database technology development that
includes Cassandra, Hive, MongoDB, Pig, and others, which are used by developers to both avoid the price tag of established
database systems and enable them to implement the exact functionality they need for analysis of social media and online
behavior.
Established BI, analytics, and data warehousing systems are beginning to integrate, incorporate, and provide access to
Hadoop files. Thus, the emerging trend may be as much the integration of exotic data analysis technologies and frameworks
into traditional systems as it is the growth in their implementation. How these technology trends and practices play out will have
a “big data” impact on customer analytics.
4. Text Analytics Enables Organizations to Interpret Social Media Sentiment Trends and Commentary: Rising interest in
social media analysis is putting the spotlight on text analytics, which is the critical technology for understanding “sentiment” in
social media, as well as customer reviews and other content sources. Like data mining, the text mining and analytics category
stretches to include a range of techniques and software, such as natural language processing, relationship extraction,
visualization, and predictive analysis.
Text analytics falls within the realm of interpretation rather than exact science, which makes it a nice complement to BI and
structured data analytics. Sentiment analysis, for example, employs statistical and linguistic text analysis methods to
understand positive and negative comments. While this analysis can provide an early sense of the reception of a new product
or service, the interpretation cannot replace the more exacting analysis of the numbers done with BI or structured analytics
tools. Sentiment analysis, however, can help organizations become more proactive in taking steps to address negative
reactions to products and services before they lead to the poor sales that BI and data warehouse users detect later in the
reporting and analysis of sales transaction figures.
While social media analysis gets the headlines, text analytics is proving highly useful for understanding sentiments expressed
by customers interacting with call or contact centers. Due to a lack of tools, many organizations record “voice of the customer”
(VOC) comments in calls and customer surveys, but are unable to analyze and share them with any rigor or regularity.
Organizations can turn sentiment analysis techniques loose on VOC comments to detect levels of anger or dissatisfaction.
Leading organizations then use sophisticated presentation tools to visualize, in near real time, where and when they are seeing
a rise in certain sentiments in VOC comments, which could indicate a widespread problem with products, services, or incorrect
marketing offers.
Social networks enable customers to exchange information in a neutral setting that can be rich with clues about the success or
failure of certain products and services. In healthcare contexts, for example, text analytics can help organizations monitor social
networks to understand how patients are experiencing certain drugs or other treatments. Some healthcare organizations and
pharmaceutical providers can then implement alerts or systems to detect the use of certain phrases or words so that they can
respond to problems rapidly.
Text analytics is still a maturing field that features much experimentation and study of the effectiveness of tools and practices.
However, current and potential contributions to a range of business operations and processes make text analytics a powerful
emerging technology.
5. Decision Management Enables Organizations to be Predictive and Proactive in Real Time: Trailblazing organizations
in many industries are applying automated information technology to dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, delays in how they
respond to customer interactions, adjust to changes in supply chains, prevent fraudulent activity, and more. The goal is to
operate in as close to real time as possible. Along with automation, organizations are striving to use information analysis to
become predictive and proactive. The objective is to develop predictive models and forecast behavior patterns so that
organizations can anticipate certain events; then, they can orchestrate processes so that they can be proactive and fully
prepared when predicted events or patterns occur.
When limited to a reactive posture, organizations face delays and confusion in how to respond to events, which can lead to
increased costs and missed opportunities. Reactive organizations lack a well-orchestrated plan and can only respond to events
on a case-by-case basis. With speed and complexity rising in many industries, a reactive posture isn’t good enough.
Organizations need business intelligence and analytics applications and services that will help them shift from a reactive to a
proactive and predictive posture. Traditional BI systems are not enough for organizations to make this shift.
Decision management is the term industry experts and vendors use to describe the integration of analytics with business rules
and process management systems to achieve a predictive and proactive posture in a real-time world. Decision management
requires several technologies. Business rules, or conditional statements for guiding decision processes, are common in
application code and logic; the challenge is to implement business rules systems that can guide decisions across applications

4
and processes, not just within one system. Business process management systems help organizations optimize processes that
cross applications and use analytics as part of the continuous improvement of those processes.
Along with business rules and business process management, a third technology important to decision management is
complex (or business) event processing. Events are happening everywhere; they are recorded or “sensed” from online
behavior, RFID tags, manufacturing systems, surveillance, financial services trading, and so on. Integrated with analytics and
data visualization, event processing systems can enable organizations to pick out meaningful events from a stream or “cloud”
of noise that is not important.
Organizations can use decision management technologies to automate decisions where speed and complexity overwhelm
human-centered decision processes, and where there are competitive advantages to having decisions executed in real time
and driven by predictive models. Decision management is an emerging technology area currently focused on specialized
systems, but as demand for greater execution speed and efficiency grows, more organizations will evaluate its potential for
mainstream requirements.
Characteristics of Scientific Method

The scientific method is the system used by scientists to explore data, generate and test hypotheses, develop new theories and
confirm or reject earlier results. Although the exact methods used in the different sciences vary (for example, physicists and
psychologists work in very different ways), they share some fundamental attributes that may be called characteristics of the
scientific method.
Empirical: The scientific method is empirical. That is, it relies on direct observation of the world, and disdains hypotheses that
run counter to observable fact. This contrasts with methods that rely on pure reason (including that proposed by Plato) and with
methods that rely on emotional or other subjective factors.
Replicable: Scientific experiments are replicable. That is, if another person duplicates the experiment, he or she will get the
same results. Scientists are supposed to publish enough of their method so that another person, with appropriate training,
could replicate the results. This contrasts with methods that rely on experiences that are unique to a particular individual or a
small group of individuals.
Provisional: Results obtained through the scientific method are provisional; they are (or ought to be) open to question and
debate. If new data arise that contradict a theory, that theory must be modified. For example, the phlogiston theory of fire and
combustion was rejected when evidence against it arose.
Objective: The scientific method is objective. It relies on facts and on the world as it is, rather than on beliefs, wishes or
desires. Scientists attempt (with varying degrees of success) to remove their biases when making observations.
Systematic: Strictly speaking, the scientific method is systematic; that is, it relies on carefully planned studies rather than on
random or haphazard observation. Nevertheless, science can begin from some random observation. Isaac Asimov said that the
most exciting phrase to hear in science is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny." After the scientist notices something funny, he or
she proceeds to investigate it systematically.
Steps of Research Process

Scientific research involves a systematic process that focuses on being objective and gathering a multitude of information for
analysis so that the researcher can come to a conclusion. This process is used in all research and evaluation projects,
regardless of the research method (scientific method of inquiry, evaluation research, or action research). The professionals
need to understand the eight Steps of the research process as they apply to conducting a study. table above lists the Steps of
the research process and provides an example of each step for a sample research study.

Step 1: Identify the Problem: The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a research question. The
research problem may be something the agency identifies as a problem, some knowledge or information that is needed by the
agency, or the desire to identify a Recreation trend nationally. In the example in table above above the problem that the agency
has identified is childhood obesity, which is a local problem and concern within the community. This serves as the focus of the
study.
Step 2: Review the Literature: Now that the problem has been identified, the researcher must learn more about the topic
under investigation. To do this, the researcher must review the literature related to the research problem. This step provides
foundational knowledge about the problem area. The review of literature also educates the researcher about what studies have
been conducted in the past, how these studies were conducted, and the conclusions in the problem area. In the obesity study,
the review of literature enables the programmer to discover horrifying statistics related to the long-term effects of childhood
obesity in terms of health issues, death rates, and projected medical costs. In addition, the programmer finds several articles
and information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that describe the benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day.
The information discovered during this step helps the programmer fully understand the magnitude of the problem, recognize the
future consequences of obesity, and identify a strategy to combat obesity (i.e., walking).
Step 3: Clarify the Problem: Many times the initial problem identified in the first step of the process is too large or broad in
scope. In step 3 of the process, the researcher clarifies the problem and narrows the scope of the study. This can only be done
after the literature has been reviewed. The knowledge gained through the review of literature guides the researcher in clarifying

5
and narrowing the research project. In the example, the programmer has identified childhood obesity as the problem and the
purpose of the study. This topic is very broad and could be studied based on genetics, family environment, diet, exercise, self-
confidence, leisure activities, or health issues. All of these areas cannot be investigated in a single study; therefore, the
problem and purpose of the study must be more clearly defined. The programmer has decided that the purpose of the study is
to determine if walking 10,000 steps a day for three days a week will improve the individual’s health. This purpose is more
narrowly focused and researchable than the original problem.
Step 4: Clearly Define Terms and Concepts: Terms and concepts are words or phrases used in the purpose statement of the
study or the description of the study. These items need to be specifically defined as they apply to the study. Terms or concepts
often have different definitions depending on who is reading the study. To minimize confusion about what the terms and
phrases mean, the researcher must specifically define them for the study. In the obesity study, the concept of “individual’s
health” can be defined in hundreds of ways, such as physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health. For this study, the
individual’s health is defined as physical health. The concept of physical health may also be defined and measured in many
ways. In this case, the programmer decides to more narrowly define “individual health” to refer to the areas of weight,
percentage of body fat, and cholesterol. By defining the terms or concepts more narrowly, the scope of the study is more
manageable for the programmer, making it easier to collect the necessary data for the study. This also makes the concepts
more understandable to the reader.
Step 5: Define the Population: Research projects can focus on a specific group of people, facilities, park development,
employee evaluations, programs, financial status, marketing efforts, or the integration of technology into the operations. For
example, if a researcher wants to examine a specific group of people in the community, the study could examine a specific age
group, males or females, people living in a specific geographic area, or a specific ethnic group. Literally thousands of options
are available to the researcher to specifically identify the group to study. The research problem and the purpose of the study
assist the researcher in identifying the group to involve in the study. In research terms, the group to involve in the study is
always called the population. Defining the population assists the researcher in several ways. First, it narrows the scope of the
study from a very large population to one that is manageable. Second, the population identifies the group that the researcher’s
efforts will be focused on within the study. This helps ensure that the researcher stays on the right path during the study.
Finally, by defining the population, the researcher identifies the group that the results will apply to at the conclusion of the study.
In the example in table above, the programmer has identified the population of the study as children ages 10 to 12 years. This
narrower population makes the study more manageable in terms of time and resources.
Step 6: Develop the Instrumentation Plan: The plan for the study is referred to as the instrumentation plan. The
instrumentation plan serves as the road map for the entire study, specifying who will participate in the study; how, when, and
where data will be collected; and the content of the program. This plan is composed of numerous decisions and considerations
that are addressed in chapter 8 of this text. In the obesity study, the researcher has decided to have the children participate in a
walking program for six months. The group of participants is called the sample, which is a smaller group selected from the
population specified for the study. The study cannot possibly include every 10- to 12-year-old child in the community, so a
smaller group is used to represent the population. The researcher develops the plan for the walking program, indicating what
data will be collected, when and how the data will be collected, who will collect the data, and how the data will be analyzed. The
instrumentation plan specifies all the steps that must be completed for the study. This ensures that the programmer has
carefully thought through all these decisions and that she provides a step-by-step plan to be followed in the study.
Step 7: Collect Data: Once the instrumentation plan is completed, the actual study begins with the collection of data. The
collection of data is a critical step in providing the information needed to answer the research question. Every study includes
the collection of some type of data—whether it is from the literature or from subjects—to answer the research question. Data
can be collected in the form of words on a survey, with a questionnaire, through observations, or from the literature. In the
obesity study, the programmers will be collecting data on the defined variables: weight, percentage of body fat, cholesterol
levels, and the number of days the person walked a total of 10,000 steps during the class.
The researcher collects these data at the first session and at the last session of the program. These two sets of data are
necessary to determine the effect of the walking program on weight, body fat, and cholesterol level. Once the data are collected
on the variables, the researcher is ready to move to the final step of the process, which is the data analysis.
Step 8: Analyze the Data: All the time, effort, and resources dedicated to steps 1 through 7 of the research process culminate
in this final step. The researcher finally has data to analyze so that the research question can be answered. In the
instrumentation plan, the researcher specified how the data will be analyzed. The researcher now analyzes the data according
to the plan. The results of this analysis are then reviewed and summarized in a manner directly related to the research
questions. In the obesity study, the researcher compares the measurements of weight, percentage of body fat, and cholesterol
that were taken at the first meeting of the subjects to the measurements of the same variables at the final program session.
These two sets of data will be analyzed to determine if there was a difference between the first measurement and the second
measurement for each individual in the program. Then, the data will be analyzed to determine if the differences are statistically
significant. If the differences are statistically significant, the study validates the theory that was the focus of the study. The
results of the study also provide valuable information about one strategy to combat childhood obesity in the community.
As you have probably concluded, conducting studies using the eight steps of the scientific research process requires you to
dedicate time and effort to the planning process. You cannot conduct a study using the scientific research process when time is
limited or the study is done at the last minute. Researchers who do this conduct studies that result in either false conclusions or
conclusions that are not of any value to the organization.
Formulation of Research Problem

Once the general topic or problem has been identified, this should then be stated as a clear research problem, that is, taken
from just a statement about a problematic situation to a clearly defined researchable problem that identifies the issues you are
trying to address.
It is not always easy to formulate the research problem simply and clearly. In some areas of scientific research the investigator
might spend years exploring, thinking, and researching before they are clear about what research questions they are seeking to
answer. Many topics may prove too wide-ranging to provide a researchable problem. Choosing to study, for instance a social
issue such as child poverty, does not in itself provide a researchable problem. The problem is too wide-ranging for one
researcher to address. Time and resources would make this unfeasible and the results from such a study would consequently
lack depth and focus.

6
Statement of research problem: An adequate statement of the research problem is one of the most important parts of the
research. Different researchers are likely to generate a variety of researchable problems from the same situation since there
are many research issues that can arise out of a general problem situation. Your research will be able to pursue only one in
depth.
For a problem statement to be effective in the planning of applied research it should have the following characteristics (Andrew
and Hildebrand 1982).
The problem reflects felt needs
The problem is non-hypothetical, ie it must be based on factual evidence
It should suggest meaningful and testable hypotheses - to avoid answers that are of little or no use to the alleviation of the
problem
The problems should be relevant and manageable
Formulating the research problem allows you to make clear, both to yourself and the reader, what the purpose of your research
is. Subsequent elaboration of method should be oriented to providing information to address that problem. The problem
statement is therefore a very important device for keeping you on track with your research. It is also one means by which your
research will be evaluated - does the research address the problem as stated.
Research Question And Investigation Question

Research Question: After having clear understanding of the objective and the management question, a research translates
the management question into research question. Management question generally explore all the possibilities for the solution of
the problem. Some of the possibilities may not be relevant for the problem under consideration. out of the several management
question, only few are selected by the researcher for further analysis. There should be understanding between the
management and the researcher (if they are different) while selecting the research questions for further investigations. the
questions chosen should address the management dilemma and achieve the objective. Research questions are more specific
than the management questions. The selected management questions are examined in-depth for further investigation.
Investigative Question: The next level of the question ‘hierarchy is the investigative questions. These questions disclose
specific information that is useful to answer the research question. Also, these are more specific than the research questions.
Further, these questions need to be satisfactorily answered to arrive at conclusions and lead to selecting appropriate research
design.
Research Proposal: Elements of a Research Proposal

The elements of a research proposal are highlighted below:

1. Title: It should be concise and descriptive. It must be informative and catchy. An effective title not only prick’s the readers
interest, but also predisposes him/her favorably towards the proposal. Often titles are stated in terms of a functional
relationship, because such titles clearly indicate the independent and dependent variables. The title may need to be revised
after completion of writing of the protocol to reflect more closely the sense of the study.
2. Abstract: It is a brief summary of approximately 300 words. It should include the main research question, the rationale for
the study, the hypothesis (if any) and the method. Descriptions of the method may include the design, procedures, the sample
and any instruments that will be used. It should stand on its own, and not refer the reader to points in the project description.
3. Introduction: The introduction provides the readers with the background information. Its purpose is to establish a framework
for the research, so that readers can understand how it relates to other research. It should answer the question of why the
research needs to be done and what will be its relevance. It puts the proposal in context.
The introduction typically begins with a statement of the research problem in precise and clear terms. The importance of the
statement of the research problem: The statement of the problem is the essential basis for the construction of a research
proposal (research objectives, hypotheses, methodology, work plan and budget etc). It is an integral part of selecting a
research topic. It will guide and put into sharper focus the research design being considered for solving the problem. It allows
the investigator to describe the problem systematically, to reflect on its importance, its priority in the country and region and to
point out why the proposed research on the problem should be undertaken. It also facilitates peer review of the research
proposal by the funding agencies.
Then it is necessary to provide the context and set the stage for the research question in such a way as to show its necessity
and importance. This step is necessary for the investigators to familiarize themselves with existing knowledge about the
research problem and to find out whether or not others have investigated the same or similar problems. This step is
accomplished by a thorough and critical review of the literature and by personal communication with experts. It helps further
understanding of the problem proposed for research and may lead to refining the statement of the problem, to identify the study
variables and conceptualize their relationships, and in formulation and selection of a research hypothesis. It ensures that you
are not "re-inventing the wheel" and demonstrates your understanding of the research problem. It gives due credit to those who
have laid the groundwork for your proposed research. In a proposal, the literature review is generally brief and to the point. The
literature selected should be pertinent and relevant.
Against this background, you then present the rationale of the proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doing.
4. Objectives: Research objectives are the goals to be achieved by conducting the research. They may be stated as ‘general’
and ‘specific’.
The general objective of the research is what is to be accomplished by the research project, for example, to determine whether
or not a new vaccine should be incorporated in a public health program.
The specific objectives relate to the specific research questions the investigator wants to answer through the proposed study
and may be presented as primary and secondary objectives, for example, primary:
To determine the degree of protection that is attributable to the new vaccine in a study population by comparing the vaccinated
and unvaccinated groups. Secondary:
To study the cost-effectiveness of this programme.

7
Young investigators are advised to resist the temptation to put too many objectives or over-ambitious objectives that cannot be
adequately achieved by the implementation of the protocol.
5. Variables: During the planning stage, it is necessary to identify the key variables of the study and their method of
measurement and unit of measurement must be clearly indicated. Four types of variables are important in research:
a. Independent variables: variables that are manipulated or treated in a study in order to see what effect differences in them
will have on those variables proposed as being dependent on them. The different synonyms for the term ‘independent variable’
which are used in literature are: cause, input, predisposing factor, risk factor, determinant, antecedent, characteristic and
attribute.
b. Dependent variables: variables in which changes are results of the level or amount of the independent variable or
variables.
c. Confounding or intervening variables: variables that should be studied because they may influence or ‘mix’ the effect of
the independent variables. For instance, in a study of the effect of measles (independent variable) on child mortality (dependent
variable), the nutritional status of the child may play an intervening (confounding) role.
d. Background variables: variables that are so often of relevance in investigations of groups or populations that they should
be considered for possible inclusion in the study. For example sex, age, ethnic origin, education, marital status, social status
etc.
The objective of research is usually to determine the effect of changes in one or more independent variables on one or more
dependent variables. For example, a study may ask "Will alcohol intake (independent variable) have an effect on development
of gastric ulcer (dependent variable)?"
Certain variables may not be easy to identify. The characteristics that define these variables must be clearly identified for the
purpose of the study.
6. Questions and/ or hypotheses: If you as a researcher know enough to make prediction concerning what you are studying,
then the hypothesis may be formulated. A hypothesis can be defined as a tentative prediction or explanation of the relationship
between two or more variables. In other words, the hypothesis translates the problem statement into a precise, unambiguous
prediction of expected outcomes. Hypotheses are not meant to be haphazard guesses, but should reflect the depth of
knowledge, imagination and experience of the investigator.5 In the process of formulating the hypotheses, all variables relevant
to the study must be identified. For example: "Health education involving active participation by mothers will produce more
positive changes in child feeding than health education based on lectures". Here the independent variable is types of health
education and the dependent variable is changes in child feeding.
A research question poses a relationship between two or more variables but phrases the relationship as a question; a
hypothesis represents a declarative statement of the relations between two or more variables.
For exploratory or phenomenological research, you may not have any hypothesis (please do not confuse the hypothesis with
the statistical null hypothesis). Questions are relevant to normative or census type research (How many of them are there? Is
there a relationship between them?). Deciding whether to use questions or hypotheses depends on factors such as the
purpose of the study, the nature of the design and methodology, and the audience of the research (at times even the outlook
and preference of the committee members, particularly the Chair).
7. Methodology: The method section is very important because it tells your research Committee how you plan to tackle your
research problem. The guiding principle for writing the Methods section is that it should contain sufficient information for the
reader to determine whether the methodology is sound. Some even argue that a good proposal should contain sufficient details
for another qualified researcher to implement the study. Indicate the methodological steps you will take to answer every
question or to test every hypothesis illustrated in the Questions/hypotheses section. It is vital that you consult a biostatistician
during the planning stage of your study,8 to resolve the methodological issues before submitting the proposal.
This section should include:
Research design: The selection of the research strategy is the core of research design and is probably the single most
important decision the investigator has to make. The choice of the strategy, whether descriptive, analytical, experimental,
operational or a combination of these depend on a number of considerations, but this choice must be explained in relation to
the study objectives.
Research subjects or participants: Depending on the type of your study, the following questions should be answered.
What are the criteria for inclusion or selection?
What are the criteria for exclusion?
What is the sampling procedure you will use so as to ensure representativeness and reliability of the sample and to minimize
sampling errors? The key reason for being concerned with sampling is the issue of validity-both internal and external of the
study results.
Will there be use of controls in your study? Controls or comparison groups are used in scientific research in order to increase
the validity of the conclusions. Control groups are necessary in all analytical epidemiological studies, in experimental studies of
drug trials, in research on effects of intervention programmes and disease control measures and in many other investigations.
Some descriptive studies (studies of existing data, surveys) may not require control groups.
What are the criteria for discontinuation?
Sample size: The proposal should provide information and justification (basis on which the sample size is calculated) about
sample size in the methodology section. A larger sample size than needed to test the research hypothesis increases the cost
and duration of the study and will be unethical if it exposes human subjects to any potential unnecessary risk without additional
benefit. A smaller sample size than needed can also be unethical as it exposes human subjects to risk with no benefit to
scientific knowledge. Calculation of sample size has been made easy by computer software programmes, but the principles
underlying the estimation should be well understood.
Interventions: If an intervention is introduced, a description must be given of the drugs or devices (proprietary names,
manufacturer, chemical composition, dose, frequency of administration) if they are already commercially available. If they are in
phases of experimentation or are already commercially available but used for other indications, information must be provided

8
on available pre-clinical investigations in animals and/or results of studies already conducted in humans (in such cases,
approval of the drug regulatory agency in the country is needed before the study).
Ethical issues: Ethical considerations apply to all types of health research. Before the proposal is submitted to the Ethics
Committee for approval, two important documents mentioned below (where appropriate) must be appended to the proposal. In
additions, there is another vital issue of Conflict of Interest, wherein the researchers should furnish a statement regarding the
same.
The Informed consent form (informed decision-making): A consent form, where appropriate, must be developed and
attached to the proposal. It should be written in the prospective subjects’ mother tongue and in simple language which can be
easily understood by the subject. The use of medical terminology should be avoided as far as possible. Special care is needed
when subjects are illiterate. It should explain why the study is being done and why the subject has been asked to participate. It
should describe, in sequence, what will happen in the course of the study, giving enough detail for the subject to gain a clear
idea of what to expect. It should clarify whether or not the study procedures offer any benefits to the subject or to others, and
explain the nature, likelihood and treatment of anticipated discomfort or adverse effects, including psychological and social
risks, if any. Where relevant, a comparison with risks posed by standard drugs or treatment must be included. If the risks are
unknown or a comparative risk cannot be given it should be so stated. It should indicate that the subject has the right to
withdraw from the study at any time without, in any way, affecting his/her further medical care. It should assure the participant
of confidentiality of the findings.
Ethics checklist: The proposal must describe the measures that will be undertaken to ensure that the proposed research is
carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical research
involving Human Subjects. It must answer the following questions:
Is the research design adequate to provide answers to the research question? It is unethical to expose subjects to research
that will have no value.
Is the method of selection of research subjects justified? The use of vulnerable subjects as research participants needs special
justification. Vulnerable subjects include those in prison, minors and persons with mental disability. In international research it is
important to mention that the population in which the study is conducted will benefit from any potential outcome of the research
and the research is not being conducted solely for the benefit of some other population. Justification is needed for any
inducement, financial or otherwise, for the participants to be enrolled in the study.
Are the interventions justified, in terms of risk/benefit ratio? Risks are not limited to physical harm. Psychological and social
risks must also be considered.
For observations made, have measures been taken to ensure confidentiality?
Research setting: The research setting includes all the pertinent facets of the study, such as the population to be studied
(sampling frame), the place and time of study.
Study instruments: Instruments are the tools by which the data are collected. For validated questionnaires/interview
schedules, reference to published work should be given and the instrument appended to the proposal. For new a questionnaire
which is being designed specifically for your study the details about preparing, precoding and pretesting of questionnaire should
be furnished and the document appended to the proposal. Descriptions of other methods of observations like medical
examination, laboratory tests and screening procedures is necessary- for established procedures, reference of published work
cited but for new or modified procedure, an adequate description is necessary with justification for the same.
Collection of data: A short description of the protocol of data collection. For example, in a study on blood pressure
measurement: time of participant arrival, rest for 5p. 10 minutes, which apparatus (standard calibrated) to be used, in which
room to take measurement, measurement in sitting or lying down position, how many measurements, measurement in which
arm first (whether this is going to be randomized), details of cuff and its placement, who will take the measurement. This
minimizes the possibility of confusion, delays and errors.
Data analysis: The description should include the design of the analysis form, plans for processing and coding the data and
the choice of the statistical method to be applied to each data. What will be the procedures for accounting for missing, unused
or spurious data?
Monitoring, supervision and quality control: Detailed statement about the all logistical issues to satisfy the requirements of Good
Clinical Practices (GCP), protocol procedures, responsibilities of each member of the research team, training of study
investigators, steps taken to assure quality control (laboratory procedures, equipment calibration etc)
Gantt chart: A Gantt chart is an overview of tasks/proposed activities and a time frame for the same. You put weeks, days or
months at one side, and the tasks at the other. You draw fat lines to indicate the period the task will be performed to give a
timeline for your research study (take help of tutorial on youtube).
Significance of the study: Indicate how your research will refine, revise or extend existing knowledge in the area under
investigation. How will it benefit the concerned stakeholders? What could be the larger implications of your research study?
Dissemination of the study results: How do you propose to share the findings of your study with professional peers,
practitioners, participants
and the funding agency?
Budget: A proposal budget with item wise/activity wise breakdown and justification for the same. Indicate how the study will be
financed.
Drafting a Research Proposal

A research proposal informs the reader (your advisor) about the scope and scale of the issue or idea that you wish to explore in
your project. Your proposal should include the following sections:
1. The problem: Provide a succinct statement (one paragraph): Research is not a summary of what is available on a given
topic but an original analysis of a specific problem. A research problem is distinct from a topic in that it is more specific and
orients research toward an analysis or solution.
Research questions have to be complex. If you already know the answer to the question, or if it can be obtained through a few
simple inquiries, it is not an adequate research problem. It should be a puzzle, a mystery that you want to solve. It should

9
also require you to look at multiple sources. In introducing your problem in a research proposal, you should provide a succinct
statement which will help you to remain focused on the issue that you are addressing and how the information you will be
discussing is related to that issue.
2. Background: Create a common ground of understanding: In order for the reader to understand the issue you are
presenting, it is necessary to provide a context. In a proposal, that section provides a brief overview of the larger issues and
ideas of your topic, and how this specific research problem relates to these larger issues. Whatever you choose to highlight,
the reader should be convinced that your research will contribute to our understanding of broader social, historical or cultural
issues.
3. Literature review: Enter into the scholarly conversation: A research project should be original, rather than reproducing
existing literature on the topic. Yet it is helpful to consider any current research as part of a scholarly conversation. The
literature review section of your proposal is an opportunity to begin that conversation by reviewing the research to date,
indicating what aspects of it your project will build upon and the ways that your proposed research differs from what has already
been done. You should be able to identify themes that emerge from the existing research as well as its shortcomings. Or, you
may find that what exists on the topic is truly excellent, but that it doesn’t account for the specific problem you have identified.
In this section, you should also clarify the theoretical orientation of your project and identify specific sources from which you will
draw.
4. Objectives: Preliminary arguments: In order to build an argument, you must begin to lay out for the reader the claims you
are making and the basis on which you are making them. You should also indicate, even in a preliminary fashion, the “solution”
or interpretation you anticipate will result from your analysis of the problem. It’s likely (perhaps inevitable) that once you’ve
completed your research and are writing your final paper, your “solution” will be rather different than you anticipated. That, in
fact, may become a useful point for you to discuss in the conclusion to your work. But having some sense of the result you
expect will help keep your work focused on the relevant issues and will keep you alert to information which may lead to
conclusions other than what you expected.
5. Methods: How the research will be conducted: Once you have provided a context for your research, you should be able
to outline for the reader the specific steps you will take to address the problem you have identified. This will include a
discussion of research methods. In this section, it is important to be clear about how each step, or how each specific method
you will employ, will help you get at the problem that guides the research. In other words, if you say you will be doing focus
groups, provide a rationale. Why is a focus group a better way to collect data for your research than a few in-depth interviews?
Evaluating a Research Proposal

Make Sure the Proposal Responds to Your Objectives: The proposal process begins before the research firm offers you
their take on how they recommend you conduct your survey and for what price. Instead, the process begins with the first
discussion you have regarding the survey. Did the researcher take the opportunity to ask you specific questions about your
objectives, the group of people you’d like to survey, and your ultimate goals? Details regarding your situation should pop up
throughout the proposal. Surveys whose proposals do not incorporate your individual needs cannot possibly meet them.
For example, one research firm may recommend a very straightforward survey plan with a low price tag. Another may take time
to recommend a more involved approach that considers your needs and objectives, but at a higher price.
Ask the higher priced firm to account for the differences. They should have no problem explaining the rationale behind their
recommendations. On the other hand, have the low cost provider explain why they believe such a straightforward survey is
right for you.
Sampling Plan: When reviewing the sampling plan, make sure the proposal mentions sample size, response rate, number of
responses, and maximum sampling error. These figures help you determine whether you’ll be able to confidently project the
survey results to your entire population of interest. If you’re unsure of the impact these figures have on the quality of your
results, ask the researcher. They should be able to explain them in terms you can understand.
If you’re interested in learning details about specific segments of your circulation, make sure that the sampling plan accounts
for them. Sometimes a simple random selection of names is sufficient. In other cases small, but important groups should be
over-sampled in order to collect enough responses to tell a story about the group.
Questionnaire: The quantity and types of information sought from respondents will impact cost. Quantity encompasses the
number of questionnaire pages and number of variables to process. Type refers to how the questions will be processed, the
data entry involved, and whether all, or just some data will be cleaned.
No evaluation is complete until you know the approximate number and types of questions planned for the survey. The number
of open-ended questions should be included as well, because open-ended questions that capture verbatim responses can
impact the response rate and the price of your survey. While these details can change during design, knowing the starting point
helps establish what additional questions, pages, or transcribed questions will add to your bottom-line.
In addition, make sure the proposal clearly indicates who will develop the questionnaire content and whether it includes enough
collaboration time to be sufficiently customized to meet your particular needs.
Data Collection Approach: For online surveys that invite respondents via email to respond to a web-based survey, paying
attention to the data collection series can mean the difference between conducting a successful survey and one that frustrates
your circulation. Multiple emails to respondents can encourage response by arriving at the inbox at a variety of times, some of
which will be more convenient to your sample than others. However, follow-up emails should only be sent to non-respondents.
Out of privacy concerns, sample members should be given the opportunity to opt-out with each contact. Outbound emails
should be coded to only allow one response per person, and to prevent others from taking the survey.
Proposals for mailed surveys should clearly outline the data collection series and each component of the survey kit. A
sophisticated mailing series can efficiently improve response rates and increase the quality of data. Some cost effective
techniques that can boost response rates include the use of incentives, stamped reply envelopes, follow-up survey kits to non-
respondents, alert letters or postcards, and personalization.
Data Processing: Your proposal should highlight the steps the research company will take to ensure that the data is accurate
and representative. Depending on the type of survey, checking logic, consistency, and outliers can take a significant amount of
time. There should be some process noted to identify inconsistent answers for surveys that collect a significant amount of

10
numerical data (salary survey, market studies, budget planning). Finally, some percentages of mailed surveys need to be
verified for data entry accuracy.
Analysis: Straightforward analysis of survey data can meet many objectives. In other cases, multivariate statistical analysis will
provide deeper insights to achieve your objectives— making results easier to use. If your objectives include learning about
separate segments of your circulation, cross tabulations should be specified.
Deliverables: A variety of reporting options exist for a survey: data tables, a summary of the results, in-depth analysis, graphed
presentations, etc. As a result, you need to understand exactly what you’ll receive following your survey and in what format.
If report and data table samples aren’t offered, ask for them. You want to make sure that data tables are easy to read and
attractive. Consider how well write-ups enhance the clarity and usability of the results. If you plan to use your reports in
presentations, make sure they’ll reflect well on you, or consider the time you’ll have to take to reformat the results.

UNIT-2

Meaning of research design: The probability of success of a research project is greatly enhanced when the “beginning” is
correctly defined as a precise statement of goals and justification. Having accomplished this, the sequential steps necessary for
writing a research plan and then successfully executing a research project are easier to identify and organize. A research
design is a detailed outline of how an investigation will take place. A research design will typically include how data is to be
collected, what instruments will be employed, how the instruments will be used and the intended means for analyzing data
collected.
A research design is:

 a framework for the research plan of action.

 a master plan that specifies the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the needed information
 a strategy for how the data will be collected.

Characteristics of good research design: Generally a good research design minimizes bias and maximizes the reliability of
the data collected and analyzed. The design which gives the smallest experimental error is reported to be the best design in
scientific investigation. Similarly, a design which yields maximum information and provides a opportunity for considering
different aspects of a problem is considered to be the most appropriate efficient design . Thus the question of a good design is
related to the purpose or objective of the research problem and also with the nature of the problem to be studied. A good
research design should satisfy the following four conditions namely objectivity, reliability, validity and generalization of the
findings.
1. Objectivity: It refers to the findings related to the method of data collection and scoring of the responses. The research
design should permit the measuring instrument which are fairly objective in which every observer or judge scoring the
performance must precisely give the same report. In other words, the objectivity of the procedure may be judged by the degree
of agreement between the final scores assigned to different individuals by more than one independent observer. This ensures
the objectivity of the collected data which shall be capable of analysis and drawing generalizations.
2. Reliability: Reliability refers to consistency through out a series of measurements. For eg: if a respondent gives out a
response to a particular item, he is expected to give the same response to that item even if he is asked repeatedly. If he is
changing his response to the same item, the consistency will be lost. So the researcher should frame the items in a
questionnaire in such a way that it provides consistency or reliability.
3. Validity: Any measuring device or instrument is said to be valid when it measures what it is expected to measure. For eg: an
intelligence test conducted for measuring the I.Q should measure only the intelligence and nothing else, and the questionnaire
shall be framed accordingly.
4. Generalizability: It means how best the data collected from the samples can be utilized for drawing certain generalizations
applicable to a large group from which sample is drawn. Thus a research design helps an investigator to generalize his findings
provided he has taken due care in defining the population, selecting the sample, deriving appropriate statistical analysis etc.
while preparing the research design.
Thus a good research design is one which is methodologically prepared and should ensure that:
a) The measuring instrument can yield objective, reliable and valid data.
b) The population is clearly defined.
c) Most appropriate techniques of sample selection is used to form an appropriate sample.
d) Appropriate statical analysis has been carried out, and
e) The findings of the study is capable of generalisations.
Broad Types of research –Qualitative and Quantitative Research:
There are two main approaches to a research problem:
Quantitative Research
Qualitative Research
Difference between quantitative and qualitative research:
In a nutshell, quantitative research generates numerical data or information that can be converted into numbers. Qualitative
Research on the other hand generates non-numerical data.
Only measurable data are being gathered and analyzed in quantitative research.
Qualitative research focuses on gathering of mainly verbal data rather than measurements. Gathered information is then
analyzed in an interpretative manner, subjective, impressionistic or even diagnostic.

11
Here’s a more detailed point-by-point comparison between the two types of research:
Goal or Aim of the Research: The primary aim of a Qualitative Research is to provide a complete, detailed description of the
research topic. It is usually more exploratory in nature.
Quantitative Research on the other hand focuses more in counting and classifying features and constructing statistical models
and figures to explain what is observed.
Qualitative
Hypothesis Broad Narrow
Description Whole pictureFocused
Type of Research Exploratory Conclusive

Usage: Qualitative Research is ideal for earlier phases of research projects while for the latter part of the research project,
Quantitative Research is highly recommended. Quantitative Research provides the researcher a clearer picture of what to
expect in his research compared to Qualitative Research.
QualitativeQuantitative
PhaseEarly Late
Data Gathering Instrument
The researcher serves as the primary data gathering instrument in Qualitative Research. Here, the researcher employs various
data-gathering strategies, depending upon the thrust or approach of his research. Examples of data-gathering strategies used
in Qualitative Research are individual in-depth interviews, structured and non-structured interviews, focus groups, narratives,
content or documentary analysis, participant observation and archival research.
On the other hand, Quantitative Research makes use of tools such as questionnaires, surveys, measurements and other
equipment to collect numerical or measurable data.
Type of Data: The presentation of data in a Qualitative Research is in the form of words (from interviews) and images (videos)
or objects (such as artifacts). If you are conducting a Qualitative Research what will most likely appear in your discussion are
figures in the form of graphs. However, if you are conducting a Quantitative Research, what will most likely appear in your
discussion are tables containing data in the form of numbers and statistics.
Approach: Qualitative Research is primarily subjective in approach as it seeks to understand human behavior and reasons that
govern such behavior. Researchers have the tendency to become subjectively immersed in the subject matter in this type of
research method.
In Quantitative Research, researchers tend to remain objectively separated from the subject matter. This is because
Quantitative Research is objective in approach in the sense that it only seeks precise measurements and analysis of target
concepts to answer his inquiry.
Determining Which Method Should Be Used: Debates have been ongoing, tackling which method is better than the other.
The reason why this remains unresolved until now is that, each has its own strengths and weaknesses which actually vary
depending upon the topic the researcher wants to discuss. This then leads us to the question “Which method should be used?”
If your study aims to find out the answer to an inquiry through numerical evidence, then you should make use of the
Quantitative Research. However, if in your study you wish to explain further why this particular event happened, or why this
particular phenomenon is the case, then you should make use of Qualitative Research.
Some studies make use of both Quantitative and Qualitative Research, letting the two complement each other. If your study
aims to find out, for example, what the dominant human behavior is towards a particular object or event and at the same time
aims to examine why this is the case, it is then ideal to make use of both methods.
Types of research designs:

Exploratory Research Design: Exploratory research is the broadest and least theoretically-grounded of the three types of
research. Essentially, you have no starting theory or hypothesis about a problem. In fact, you don't even know if there is a
problem to begin with. In exploratory research, you simply start collecting information about something. It is similar to data
mining, and it does not always produce results that can be useful. However, it generally gives you a better idea about
something. Where the researcher does not know the actual problem and the ways and means of searching the solution for the
problem encountered. You have no secondary data or literature review or guidance for this research design.
As the term suggests, exploratory research is often conducted because a problem has not been clearly defined as yet, or its
real scope is as yet unclear. It allows the researcher to familiarize him/herself with the problem or concept to be studied, and

12
perhaps generate hypotheses (definition of hypothesis) to be tested. It is the initial research, before more conclusive
research(definition of conclusive research) is undertaken. Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data
collection method and selection of subjects, and sometimes it even concludes that the problem does not exist!
Another common reason for conducting exploratory research is to test concepts before they are put in the marketplace, always
a very costly endeavour. In concept testing, consumers are provided either with a written concept or a prototype for a new,
revised or repositioned product, service or strategy.
Exploratory research can be quite informal, relying on secondary research such as reviewing available literature and/or data, or
qualitative (definition of qualitative research) approaches such as informal discussions with consumers, employees,
management or competitors, and more formal approaches through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case
studies or pilot studies.
The results of exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making by themselves, but they can provide significant
insight into a given situation. Although the results of qualitative research can give some indication as to the "why", "how" and
"when" something occurs, it cannot tell us "how often" or "how many". In other words, the results can neither be generalized;
they are not representative of the whole population being studied.
Descriptive Research Design:
Meaning : Descriptive research design is a type of research method that is used when one wants to get information on the
current status of a person or an object. It is used to describe what is in existence in respect to conditions or variables that are
found in a given situation.
As the name implies, descriptive research methods are used when the researcher wants to describe specific behavior as it
occurs in the environment. There are a variety of descriptive research methods available, and once again, the nature of the
question that needs to be answered drives which method is used.
Descriptive research does not fit neatly into the definition of either quantitative or qualitative research methodologies, but
instead it can utilize elements of both, often within the same study. The term descriptive research refers to the type of research
question, design, and data analysis that will be applied to a given topic. Descriptive statistics tell what is, while inferential
statistics try to determine cause and effect.
Descriptive studies, primarily concerned with finding out "what is," .
Example : To investigate the following questions: Do teachers hold favorable attitudes toward using computers in schools?
What kinds of activities that involve technology occur in sixth-grade classrooms and how frequently do they occur? What have
been the reactions of school administrators to technological innovations in teaching the social sciences? How have high school
computing courses changed over the last 10 years? How do the new multimediated textbooks compare to the print-based
textbooks? How are decisions being made about using Channel One in schools, and for those schools that choose to use it,
how is Channel One being implemented? What is the best way to provide access to computer equipment in schools? How
should instructional designers improve software design to make the software more appealing to students? To what degree are
special-education teachers well versed concerning assistive technology? Is there a relationship between experience with
multimedia computers and problem-solving skills? How successful is a certain satellite-delivered Spanish course in terms of
motivational value and academic achievement?
Descriptive research can be either quantitative or qualitative. It can involve collections of quantitative information that can be
tabulated along a continuum in numerical form, such as scores on a test or the number of times a person chooses to use a-
certain feature of a multimedia program, or it can describe categories of information such as gender or patterns of interaction
when using technology in a group situation.
Uses of Descriptive Design: Descriptive research can be used to increase understanding and knowledge about the behavior
and thought processes of people.
Types of Descriptive Design: There are two types of descriptive research designs 1. Cross Sectional 2.Longitudinal
Cross Sectional: Cross-sectional research is a research method often used in developmental psychology, but also utilized in
many other areas including social science and education. This type of study utilizes different groups of people who differ in the
variable of interest, but share other characteristics such as socioeconomic status, educational background, and ethnicity.
For example, researchers studying developmental psychology might select groups of people who are remarkably similar in
most areas, but differ only in age. By doing this, any differences between groups can presumably be attributed to age
differences rather than to other variables.
Cross-sectional studies are observational in nature and are known as descriptive research, not causal or relational.
Researchers record the information that is present in a population, but they do not manipulate variables. This type of research
can be used to describe characteristics that exist in a population, but not to determine cause-and-effect relationships between
different variables. These methods are often used to make inferences about possible relationships or to gather preliminary data
to support further research and experimentation.
This type of research differs from longitudinal research in that cross-sectional studies are designed to look at a variable at a
particular point in time. Longitudinal studies involve taking multiple measures over an extended period of time, while cross-
sectional research is focused on looking at variables at a specific point in time.
Longitudinal Research Design: Longitudinal research is a type of research method used to discover relationships between
variables that are not related to various background variables. This observational research technique involves studying the
same group of individuals over an extended period of time.
Data is first collected at the outset of the study, and may then be gathered repeatedly throughout the length of the study. In
some cases, longitudinal studies can last several decades.
The benefit of this type of research is that it allows researchers to look at changes over time. Because of this, longitudinal
methods are particularly useful when studying development and lifespan issues.
Experimental Research Design: In scientific studies, experimental design is the gold standard of research designs. This
methodology relies on random assignment and laboratory controls to ensure the most valid, reliable results. Although
researchers recognize that correlation does not mean causation, experimental designs produce the strongest, most valid

13
results. However, experimental design is often not practical for many studies in social science, education and business
because researchers cannot, in many instances, exercise laboratory controls in natural-world settings or randomly assign
subjects. A blueprint of the procedure that enables the researcher to test his hypothesis by reaching valid conclusions about
relationships between independent and dependent variables. It refers to the conceptual framework within which the experiment
is conducted.
Concept and Types of variable : All experiments examine some kind of variable(s). A variable is not only something that we
measure, but also something that we can manipulate and something we can control for. To understand the characteristics of
variables and how we use them in research, this guide is divided into three main sections. First, we illustrate the role of
dependent and independent variables. Second, we discuss the difference between experimental and non-experimental
research. Finally, we explain how variables can be characterized as either categorical or continuous.
Dependent and Independent Variables: An independent variable, sometimes called an experimental or predictor variable, is
a variable that is being manipulated in an experiment in order to observe the effect on a dependent variable, sometimes called
an outcome variable.
Imagine that a tutor asks 100 students to complete a maths test. The tutor wants to know why some students perform better
than others. Whilst the tutor does not know the answer to this, she thinks that it might be because of two reasons:
(1) some students spend more time revising for their test; and
(2) some students are naturally more intelligent than others.
As such, the tutor decides to investigate the effect of revision time and intelligence on the test performance of the 100 students.
The dependent and independent variables for the study are:
Dependent Variable: Test Mark (measured from 0 to 100)
Independent Variables: Revision time (measured in hours) Intelligence (measured using IQ score)
The dependent variable is simply that, a variable that is dependent on an independent variable(s). For example, in our case the
test mark that a student achieves is dependent on revision time and intelligence. Whilst revision time and intelligence (the
independent variables) may (or may not) cause a change in the test mark (the dependent variable), the reverse is implausible;
in other words, whilst the number of hours a student spends revising and the higher a student's IQ score may (or may not)
change the test mark that a student achieves, a change in a student's test mark has no bearing on whether a student revises
more or is more intelligent (this simply doesn't make sense).
Confounding variable: A variable that obscures the effects of another variable. If one elementary reading teacher used used a
phonics textbook in her class and another instructor
used a whole language textbook in his class, and students in the two classes were given achievement tests to see how well
they read, the independent variables (teacher effectiveness and textbooks) would be confounded. There is no way to determine
if differences in reading between the two classes were caused by either or both of the independent variables
Control variable: A control variable is a variable that effects the dependent variable. When we "control a variable" we wish to
balance its effect across subjects and groups so that we can ignore it, and just study the relationship between the independent
and the dependent variables. You control for a variable by holding it constant, e.g., keep humidity the same, and vary
temperature, to study comfort levels.
Extraneous variable: This is a variable that probably does influence the relationship between the independent and dependent
variables, but it is one that we do not control or manipulate. For example, barometric pressure may effect pain thresholds in
some clients but we do not know how this operates or how to control for it. Thus, we note that this variable might effect our
results, and then ignore it. Often research studies do not find evidence to support the hypotheses because of unnoticed
extraneous variables that influenced the results. Extraneous variables which influence the study in a negative manner are often
called confounding variables.
Concomitant Variable: A variable that is observed in a statistical experiment, but is not specifically measured or utilized in the
analysis of the data. It is sometimes necessary to correct for concomitant variables in order to prevent distortion of the results of
experiments or research. Also called an incidetal, seconday, or subordinate variable.
Hypothesis – Types and testing:
Meaning of Hypothesis: A hypothesis is an educated guess or proposition that attempts to explain a set of facts or natural
phenomenon. It is used mostly in the field of science, where the scientific method is used to test it. A research hypothesis is a
prediction of the outcome of a study. The prediction may be based on an educated guess or a formal theory
Research hypotheses are the specific testable predictions made about the independent and dependent variables in the study.
Usually the literature review has given background material that justifies the particular hypotheses that are to be tested.
Hypotheses are couched in terms of the particular independent and dependent variables that are going to be used in the study.
Examples of Hypothesis: An example would be : "Children who are exposed to regular singing of the alphabet will show
greater recognition of letters than children who are exposed to regular pronouncing of the alphabet”
Example 1
It is hypothesized that first grade girls will show better reading comprehension than first grade boys.
In Example 1, the author is predicting that he or she will find higher comprehension among girls than boys. To test it, a
nonexperimental study would be appropriate because nothing in the hypothesis suggests that treatments will be given.
A simple research hypothesis predicts a relationship between two variables. From your study of variables, it should be clear
that the two variables in Example 1 are (1) gender and (2) reading comprehension. The hypothesis states that reading
comprehension is related to gender.
Example 2 is a hypothesis for an experimental study.
Example 2: It is hypothesized that children who arc shown a video with mild violence will be more aggressive on the playground
than those who are shown a similar video without the violence.

14
In Example 2, the independent variable is violence (mild vs. none), and the dependent variable is aggressiveness on the
playground.
The hypotheses in Examples 1 and 2 are examples of directional hypotheses. In a directional hypothesis, we predict which
group will be higher or have more of something.
Types of Hypothesis: There are two types of Hypothesis: Null and Alternate Hypothesis
The Null Hypothesis: The null hypothesis reflects that there will be no observed effect for our experiment. In a mathematical
formulation of the null hypothesis there will typically be an equal sign. This hypothesis is denoted by H0.
The null hypothesis is what we are attempting to overturn by our hypothesis test. We hope to obtain a small enough p-
value that we are justified in rejecting the null hypothesis.
If the null hypothesis is not rejected, then we must be careful to say what this means. The thinking on this is similar to a legal
verdict. Just because a person has been declared "not guilty", it does not mean that he is innocent. In the same way, just
because a null hypothesis is not rejected does not mean that the statement is true.
For example, we may want to investigate the claim that despite what convention has told us, the mean adult body temperature
is not the accepted value of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The null hypothesis for an experiment to investigate this is “The mean
adult body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.” If we fail to reject the null hypothesis, then our working hypothesis remains
that the average adult has temperature of 98.6 degrees.
If we are studying a new treatment, the null hypothesis is that our treatment will not change our subjects in any meaningful way.
The Alternative Hypothesis: The alternative or experimental hypothesis reflects that there will be an observed effect for our
experiment. In a mathematical formulation of the alternative hypothesis there will typically be an inequality, or not equal to
symbol. This hypothesis is denoted by either Ha or by H1.
The alternative hypothesis is what we are attempting to demonstrate in an indirect way by the use of our hypothesis test. If the
null hypothesis is rejected, then we accept the alternative hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is not rejected, then we do not
accept the alternative hypothesis. Going back to the above example of mean human body temperature, the alternative
hypothesis is “The average adult human body temperature is not 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.”
If we are studying a new treatment, then the alternative hypothesis is that our treatment does in fact change our subjects in a
meaningful and measureable way.
Negation: The following set of negations may help when you are forming your null and alternative hypotheses. Most technical
papers rely on just the first formulation, even though you may see some of the others in a statistics textbook.

 Null hypothesis: “x is equal to y.” Alternative hypothesis “x is not equal to y.”

 Null hypothesis: “x is at least y.” Alternative hypothesis “x is less than y.”
 Null hypothesis: “x is at most y.” Alternative hypothesis “x is greater than y.”

Hypothesis Testing:
Hypothesis testing follows following steps:

1. Begin by stating the claim or hypothesis that is being tested. Also form a statement for the case that the hypothesis is
false.
2. Express both of the statements from the first step in mathematical symbols. These statements will use symbols such
as inequalities and equals signs.
3. Identify which of the two symbolic statements does not have equality in it. This could simply be a "not equals" sign,
but could also be an "is less than" sign ( < ) or an "is greater than" sign ( > ). The statement containing inequality is
called the alternative hypothesis, and is denoted H1 or Ha.
4. The statement from the first step that makes the statement that a parameter equals a particular value is called the
null hypothesis, denoted H0.
5. Choose which significance level that we want. A significance level is typically denoted by the Greek letter alpha. Here
we should consider Type I errors. A Type I error occurs when we reject a null hypothesis that is actually true. If we
are very concerned about this possibility occurring, then our value for alpha should be small. There is a bit of a trade
off here. The smaller the alpha, the most costly the experiment. The values 0.05 and 0.01 are common values used
for alpha, but any positive number between 0 and 0.50 could be used for a significance level.
6. Determine which statistic and distribution we should use. The type of distribution is dictated by features of the data.
Common distributions include: z score, t score and chi-squared.
7. Find the test statistic and critical value for this statistic. Here we will have to consider if we are conducting a two tailed
test (typically when the alternative hypothesis contains a “is not equal to” symbol, or a one tailed test (typically used
when an inequality is involved in the statement of the alternative hypothesis).
8. From the type of distribution, confidence level, critical value and test statistic we sketch a graph.
9. If the test statistic is in our critical region, then we must reject the null hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis stands.
If the test statistic is not in our critical region, then we fail to reject the null hypothesis. This does not prove that the
null hypothesis is true, but gives a way to quantify how likely it is to be true.
10. We now state the results of the hypothesis test in such a way that the original claim is addressed.

Errors in Hypothesis Testing:

The process of hypothesis testing can seem to be quite varied with a multitude of test statistics. But the general process is the
same. Hypothesis testing involves the statement of a null hypothesis, and the selection of a level of significance. The null
hypothesis is either true or false, and represents the default claim for a treatment or procedure. For example, when examining
the effectiveness of a drug, the null hypothesis would be that the drug has no effect on a disease.
After formulating the null hypothesis and choosing a level of significance, we acquire data through observation. Statistical
calculations tell us whether or not we should reject the null hypothesis.

15
In an ideal world we would always reject the null hypothesis when it is false, and we would not reject the null hypothesis when it
is indeed true. But there are two other scenarios that are possible, each of which will result in an error.
Type I Error: The first kind of error that is possible involves the rejection of a null hypothesis that is actually true. This kind of
error is called a type I error, and is sometimes called an error of the first kind.
Type I errors are equivalent to false positives. Let’s go back to the example of a drug being used to treat a disease. If we reject
the null hypothesis in this situation, then ssour claim is that the drug does in fact have some effect on a disease. But if the null
hypothesis is true, then in reality the drug does not combat the disease at all. The drug is falsely claimed to have a positive
effect on a disease.
Type I errors can be controlled. The value of alpha, which is related to the level of significance that we selected has a direct
bearing on type I errors. Alpha is the maximum probability that we have a type I error. For a 95% confidence level, the value of
alpha is 0.05. This means that there is a 5% probability that we will reject a true null hypothesis. In the long run, one out of
every twenty hypothesis tests that we perform at this level will result in a type I error.
Type II Error: The other kind of error that is possible occurs when we do not reject a null hypothesis that is false. This sort of
error is called a type II error, and is also referred to as an error of the second kind.
Type II errors are equivalent to false negatives. If we think back again to the scenario in which we are testing a drug, what
would a type II error look like? A type II error would occur if we accepted that the drug had no effect on a disease, but in reality
it did.
The probability of a type II error is given by the Greek letter beta. This number is related to the power or sensitivity of the
hypothesis test, denoted by 1 – beta.
UNIT-3

Meaning of measurements: A researcher uses a lot of variables while doing research .Purpose of measurement is to
accurately represent the research variables numerically . Measurement refers to the way that a variable is measured.
Measurement is a procedure for assigning symbols, letters, or numbers to empirical properties of variables according to rules.
Numerals are labels that have no inherent meaning, for example, in drivers' license numbers, zip codes, or social security
numbers. Numbers are numerals that have quantitative meaning and are amenable to statistical analysis, for example, age,
height, or weight. Rules for assigning labels to properties of variables are the most important component of measurement,
because poor rules can make the outcome meaningless. It is difficult to measure concepts directly, e.g., "work effort," so what
are usually measured are indicators of concepts, such as speed, repetitiveness, etc.
Problems in measurement in management research - Validity and Reliability
Validity :Validity is often definedas the extent to which an instrumentmeasures what it purports to measure.Validity requires
that an instrumentis reliable, but an instrumentcan be reliable without being valid.For example, a scale that is
incorrectlycalibrated may yield exactly thesame, albeit inaccurate, weight values.A multiple-choice test intendedto evaluate the
counseling skills ofpharmacy students may yield reliablescores, but it may actually evaluatedrug knowledge rather than the
abilityto communicate effectively withpatients in making a recommendation.While we speak of the validityof a test or instrument,
validity is nota property of the test itself. Instead,validity is the extent to which theinterpretations of the results of a testare
warranted, which depend on thetest’s intended use (i.e., measurementof the underlying construct).
Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results. We often think of reliability and
validity as separate ideas but, in fact, they're related to each other. Here, I want to show you two ways you can think about their
relationship. One of my favorite metaphors for the relationship between reliability is that of the target. Think of the center of the
target as the concept that you are trying to measure. Imagine that for each person you are measuring, you are taking a shot at
the target. If you measure the concept perfectly for a person, you are hitting the center of the target. If you don't, you are
missing the center. The more you are off for that person, the further you are from the center.

The figure above shows four possible situations. In the first one, you are hitting the target consistently, but you are missing the
center of the target. That is, you are consistently and systematically measuring the wrong value for all respondents. This
measure is reliable, but no valid (that is, it's consistent but wrong). The second, shows hits that are randomly spread across the
target. You seldom hit the center of the target but, on average, you are getting the right answer for the group (but not very well
for individuals). In this case, you get a valid group estimate, but you are inconsistent. Here, you can clearly see that reliability is
directly related to the variability of your measure. The third scenario shows a case where your hits are spread across the target
and you are consistently missing the center. Your measure in this case is neither reliable nor valid. Finally, we see the "Robin
Hood" scenario -- you consistently hit the center of the target. Your measure is both reliable and valid (I bet you never thought
of Robin Hood in those terms before).
Levels of measurement - Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio: Level of measurement refers to the way that a variable is
measured. There are four main levels of measurement that variables can have: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Being
familiar with the level of measurement of the variables in your data set is crucial because they will help determine what
statistical procedure you use. Not every statistical operation can be used with every variable. The type of procedure used
depends on the variables’ level of measurement. There are four levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.

16
These constitute a hierarchy where the lowest scale of measurement, nominal, has far fewer mathematical properties than
those further up this hierarchy of scales. Nominal scales yield data on categories; ordinal scales give sequences; interval
scales begin to reveal the magnitude between points on the scale and ratio scales explain both order and the absolute distance
between any two points on the scale.
Nominal scales: This, the crudest of measurement scales, classifies individuals, companies, products, brands or other entities
into categories where no order is implied. Indeed it is often referred to as a categorical scale. It is a system of classification and
does not place the entity along a continuum. It involves a simply count of the frequency of the cases assigned to the various
categories, and if desired numbers can be nominally assigned to label each category as in the example below:
An example of a nominal scale
Which of the following food items do you tend to buy at least once per month? (Please tick)
Okra Palm Oil Milled Rice
Peppers Prawns Pasteurized milk
The numbers have no arithmetic properties and act only as labels. The only measure of average which can be used is the
mode because this is simply a set of frequency counts. Hypothesis tests can be carried out on data collected in the nominal
form. The most likely would be the Chi-square test. However, it should be noted that the Chi-square is a test to determine
whether two or more variables are associated and the strength of that relationship. It can tell nothing about the form of that
relationship, where it exists, i.e. it is not capable of establishing cause and effect.
Ordinal scales: Ordinal scales involve the ranking of individuals, attitudes or items along the continuum of the characteristic
being scaled. For example, if a researcher asked farmers to rank 5 brands of pesticide in order of preference he/she might
obtain responses like those in table 3.2 below.
An example of an ordinal scale used to determine farmers' preferences among 5 brands of pesticide.
Order of preferenceBrand
1 Rambo
2 R.I.P.
3 Killalot
4 D.O.A.
5 Bugdeath
From such a table the researcher knows the order of preference but nothing about how much more one brand is preferred to
another, that is there is no information about the interval between any two brands. All of the information a nominal scale would
have given is available from an ordinal scale. In addition, positional statistics such as the median, quartile and percentile can be
determined. It is possible to test for order correlation with ranked data. The two main methods are Spearman's Ranked
Correlation Coefficient and Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance. Using either procedure one can, for example, ascertain the
degree to which two or more survey respondents agree in their ranking of a set of items. Consider again the ranking of
pesticides example. The researcher might wish to measure similarities and differences in the rankings of pesticide brands
according to whether the respondents' farm enterprises were classified as "arable" or "mixed" (a combination of crops and
livestock). The resultant coefficient takes a value in the range 0 to 1. A zero would mean that there was no agreement between
the two groups, and 1 would indicate total agreement. It is more likely that an answer somewhere between these two extremes
would be found.
Interval scales: It is only with an interval scaled data that researchers can justify the use of the arithmetic mean as the
measure of average. The interval or cardinal scale has equal units of measurement, thus making it possible to interpret not only
the order of scale scores but also the distance between them. However, it must be recognized that the zero point on an interval
scale is arbitrary and is not a true zero. This of course has implications for the type of data manipulation and analysis we can
carry out on data collected in this form. It is possible to add or subtract a constant to all of the scale values without affecting the
form of the scale but one cannot multiply or divide the values. It can be said that two respondents with scale positions 1 and 2
are as far apart as two respondents with scale positions 4 and 5, but not that a person with score 10 feels twice as strongly as
one with score 5. Temperature is interval scaled, being measured either in Centigrade or Fahrenheit. We cannot speak of 50°F
being twice as hot as 25°F since the corresponding temperatures on the centigrade scale, 10°C and -3.9°C, are not in the ratio
2:1.
Most of the common statistical methods of analysis require only interval scales in order that they might be used. These are not
recounted here because they are so common and can be found in virtually all basic texts on statistics.
Ratio scales
The highest level of measurement is a ratio scale. This has the properties of an interval scale together with a fixed origin or
zero point. Examples of variables which are ratio scaled include weights, lengths and times. Ratio scales permit the researcher
to compare both differences in scores and the relative magnitude of scores. For instance the difference between 5 and 10
minutes is the same as that between 10 and 15 minutes, and 10 minutes is twice as long as 5 minutes.
Scaling Techniques : The measurement scales, commonly used in marketing research, can be divided into two groups;
comparative and non-comparative scales. Comparative scales involve the respondent in signaling where there is a difference
between two or more producers, services, brands or other stimuli. Examples of such scales include; paired comparison, dollar
metric, unity-sum-gain and line marking scales. Non-comparative scales, described in the textbook, are; continuous rating
scales, itemized rating scales, semantic differential scales and Likert scales.
Comparative scales
Paired comparison: It is sometimes the case that marketing researchers wish to find out which are the most important factors
in determining the demand for a product. Conversely they may wish to know which are the most important factors acting to
prevent the widespread adoption of a product. Take, for example, the very poor farmer response to the first design of an
animal-drawn mould board plough. A combination of exploratory research and shrewd observation suggested that the following
factors played a role in the shaping of the attitudes of those farmers who feel negatively towards the design:

17
  Does not ridge
 Does not work for inter-cropping
 Far too expensive
 New technology too risky
 Too difficult to carry.

Suppose the organization responsible wants to know which factors is foremost in the farmer's mind. It may well be the case that
if those factors that are most important to the farmer than the others, being of a relatively minor nature, will cease to prevent
widespread adoption. The alternatives are to abandon the product's re-development or to completely re-design it which is not
only expensive and time-consuming, but may well be subject to a new set of objections.
The process of rank ordering the objections from most to least important is best approached through the questioning technique
known as 'paired comparison'. Each of the objections is paired by the researcher so that with 5 factors, as in this example,
there are 10 pairs-

In 'paired comparisons' every factor has to be paired with every other factor in turn. However, only one pair is ever put to the
farmer at any one time.
The question might be put as follows:
Which of the following was the more important in making you decide not to buy the plough?
The plough was too expensive
It proved too difficult to transport
In most cases the question, and the alternatives, would be put to the farmer verbally. He/she then indicates which of the two
was the more important and the researcher ticks the box on his questionnaire. The question is repeated with a second set of
factors and the appropriate box ticked again. This process continues until all possible combinations are exhausted, in this case
10 pairs. It is good practice to mix the pairs of factors so that there is no systematic bias. The researcher should try to ensure
that any particular factor is sometimes the first of the pair to be mentioned and sometimes the second. The researcher would
never, for example, take the first factor (on this occasion 'Does not ridge') and systematically compare it to each of the others in
succession. That is likely to cause systematic bias.
Below labels have been given to the factors so that the worked example will be easier to understand. The letters A - E have
been allocated as follows:
A = Does not ridge
B = Far too expensive
C =New technology too risky
D =Does not work for inter-cropping
E = Too difficult to carry.
The data is then arranged into a matrix. Assume that 200 farmers have been interviewed and their responses are arranged in
the grid below. Further assume that the matrix is so arranged that we read from top to side. This means, for example, that 164
out of 200 farmers said the fact that the plough was too expensive was a greater deterrent than the fact that it was not capable
of ridging. Similarly, 174 farmers said that the plough's inability to inter-crop was more important than the inability to ridge when
deciding not to buy the plough.
A preference matrix
AB C D E
A100164120174180
B36 100160176166
C80 40 100168124
D26 24 32 100102
E 20 34 76 98 100
If the grid is carefully read, it can be seen that the rank order of the factors is -
Most important E Too difficult to carry
D Does not inter crop
C New technology/high risk
B Too expensive
Least importantA Does not ridge.
It can be seen that it is more important for designers to concentrate on improving transportability and, if possible, to give it an
inter-cropping capability rather than focusing on its ridging capabilities (remember that the example is entirely hypothetical).
One major advantage to this type of questioning is that whilst it is possible to obtain a measure of the order of importance of
five or more factors from the respondent, he is never asked to think about more than two factors at any one time. This is
especially useful when dealing with illiterate farmers. Having said that, the researcher has to be careful not to present too many

18
pairs of factors to the farmer during the interview. If he does, he will find that the farmer will quickly get tired and/or bored. It is
as well to remember the formula of n(n - 1)/2. For ten factors, brands or product attributes this would give 45 pairs. Clearly the
farmer should not be asked to subject himself to having the same question put to him 45 times. For practical purposes, six
factors is possibly the limit, giving 15 pairs.
It should be clear from the procedures described in these notes that the paired comparison scale gives ordinal data.
The Unity-sum-gain technique: A common problem with launching new products is one of reaching a decision as to what
options, and how many options one offers. Whilst a company may be anxious to meet the needs of as many market segments
as possible, it has to ensure that the segment is large enough to enable him to make a profit. It is always easier to add products
to the product line but much more difficult to decide which models should be deleted. One technique for evaluating the options
which are likely to prove successful is the unity-sum-gain approach.
The procedure is to begin with a list of features which might possibly be offered as 'options' on the product, and alongside each
you list its retail cost. A third column is constructed and this forms an index of the relative prices of each of the items. The table
below will help clarify the procedure. For the purposes of this example the basic reaper is priced at $20,000 and some possible
'extras' are listed along with their prices.
The total value of these hypothetical 'extras' is $7,460 but the researcher tells the farmer he has an equally hypothetical $3,950
or similar sum. The important thing is that he should have considerably less hypothetical money to spend than the total value of
the alternative product features. In this way the farmer is encouraged to reveal his preferences by allowing researchers to
observe how he trades one additional benefit off against another. For example, would he prefer a side rake attachment on a 3
metre head rather than have a transporter trolley on either a standard or 2.5m wide head? The farmer has to be told that any
unspent money cannot be retained by him so he should seek the best value-for-money he can get.
In cases where the researcher believes that mentioning specific prices might introduce some form of bias into the results, then
the index can be used instead. This is constructed by taking the price of each item over the total of $ 7,460 and multiplying by
100. Survey respondents might then be given a maximum of 60 points and then, as before, are asked how they would spend
these 60 points. In this crude example the index numbers are not too easy to work with for most respondents, so one would
round them as has been done in the adjusted column. It is the relative and not the absolute value of the items which is
important so the precision of the rounding need not overly concern us.
The unity-sum-gain technique
Item Additional Cost ($s)IndexAdjusted Index
2.5 wide rather than standard 2m 2,000 27 30
Self lubricating chain rather than belt 200 47 50
Side rake attachment 350 5 10
Polymer heads rather than steel 250 3 5
Double rather than single edged cutters 210 2.5 5
Transporter trolley for reaper attachment650 9 10
Automatic levelling of table 300 4 5
The unity-sum-gain technique is useful for determining which product features are more important to farmers. The design of the
final market version of the product can then reflect the farmers' needs and preferences. Practitioners treat data gathered by this
method as ordinal.
Noncomparative scales
Continuous rating scales: The respondents are asked to give a rating by placing a mark at the appropriate position on a
continuous line. The scale can be written on card and shown to the respondent during the interview. Two versions of a
continuous rating scale are depicted in
Continuous rating scales

When version B is used, the respondent's score is determined either by dividing the line into as many categories as desired and
assigning the respondent a score based on the category into which his/her mark falls, or by measuring the distance, in
millimetres or inches, from either end of the scale.
Whichever of these forms of the continuous scale is used, the0 results are normally analysed as interval scaled.
Itemised rating scales: With an itemised scale, respondents are provided with a scale having numbers and/or brief
descriptions associated with each category and are asked to select one of the limited number of categories, ordered in terms of

19
scale position, that best describes the product, brand, company or product attribute being studied. Examples of the itemised
rating scale are illustrated in figure
Itemised rating scales

Itemised rating scales can take a variety of innovative forms as demonstrated by the two illustrated which are graphic.
Graphic itemised scales
Whichever form of itemised scale is applied, researchers usually treat the data as interval level.
Semantic scales: This type of scale makes extensive use of words rather than numbers. Respondents describe their feelings
about the products or brands on scales with semantic labels. When bipolar adjectives are used at the end points of the scales,
these are termed semantic differential scales. The semantic scale and the semantic differential scale are illustrated in figure
3.11.
Semantic and semantic differential scales

Likert scales: A Likert scale is what is termed a summated instrument scale. This means that the items making up a Liken
scale are summed to produce a total score. In fact, a Likert scale is a composite of itemised scales. Typically, each scale item
will have 5 categories, with scale values ranging from -2 to +2 with 0 as neutral response. This explanation may be clearer from
the example in figure
The Likert scale

20
 Strongly
Strongly Agree AgreeNeitherDisagree
Disagree
If the price of raw materials fell firms would reduce the price of their food products. 1 2 3 4 5
Without government regulation the firms would exploit the consumer. 1 2 3 4 5
Most food companies are so concerned about making profits they do not care about
1 2 3 4 5
quality.
The food industry spends a great deal of money making sure that its manufacturing
1 2 3 4 5
is hygienic.
Food companies should charge the same price for their products throughout the
1 2 3 4 5
country
Likert scales are treated as yielding Interval data by the majority of marketing researchers.
The scales which have been described in this chapter are among the most commonly used in marketing research. Whilst there
are a great many more forms which scales can take, if students are familiar with those described in this chapter they will be well
equipped to deal with most types of survey problem.
Types of Data and Questionnaire method:
Sources of Data: For the study purpose both primary and secondary data are used. The primary data collected from sales
men of the companies, customers and dealers dealing in the products of the company. The secondary data collected from
records of the company, retailers and dealers. The data of past sales also have been collected. The primary and secondary
data have been collected to cover every aspect of the study. The primary data are related to behaviour and response of
employees, dealers and customers. The secondary data shows the sales of the company product wise. These data used in
combination as per need of the study. These data having different merits and demerits and have serves our purpose of the
research study.
These are explained below:
(a) Primary Data: Primary data are information collected by a researcher specifically for a research assignment. In other
words, primary data are information that a company must gather because no one has compiled and published the information
in a forum accessible to the public. Companies generally take the time and allocate the resources required to gather primary
data only when a question, issue or problem presents itself that is sufficiently important or unique that it warrants the
expenditure necessary to gather the primary data. Primary data are original in nature and directly related to the issue or
problem and current data. Primary data are the data which the researcher collects through various methods like interviews,
surveys, questionnaires etc. The primary data have own advantages and disadvantages:
(i) Advantages of primary data: Advantages of primary data are as follows:

 The primary data are original and relevant to the topic of the research study so the degree of accuracy is very high.
 Primary data is that it can be collected from a number of ways like interviews, telephone surveys, focus groups etc. It
can be also collected across the national borders through emails and posts. It can include a large population and
wide geographical coverage.
 Moreover, primary data is current and it can better give a realistic view to the researcher about the topic under
consideration.
 Reliability of primary data is very high because these are collected by the concerned and reliable party.

(ii) Disadvantages of primary data: Following are the disadvantages of primary data:

 For collection of primary data where interview is to be conducted the coverage is limited and for wider coverage a
more number of researchers are required.
 A lot of time and efforts are required for data collection. By the time the data collected, analysed and report is ready
the problem of the research becomes very serious or out dated. So the purpose of the research may be defeated.
 It has design problems like how to design the surveys. The questions must be simple to understand and respond.
 Some respondents do not give timely responses. Sometimes, the respondents may give fake, socially acceptable
and sweet answers and try to cover up the realities.
 With more people, time and efforts involvement the cost of the data collection goes high. The importance of the
research may go down.
 In some primary data collection methods there is no control over the data collection. Incomplete questionnaire always
give a negative impact on research.
 Trained persons are required for data collection. In experienced person in data collection may give inadequate data
of the research.

(b) Secondary Data: Secondary data are the data collected by a party not related to the research study but collected these
data for some other purpose and at different time in the past. If the researcher uses these data then these become secondary
data for the current users. These may be available in written, typed or in electronic forms. A variety of secondary information
sources is available to the researcher gathering data on an industry, potential product applications and the market place.
Secondary data is also used to gain initial insight into the research problem. Secondary data is classified in terms of its source
– either internal or external. Internal, or in-house data, is secondary information acquired within the organization where
research is being carried out. External secondary data is obtained from outside sources. There are various advantages and
disadvantages of using secondary data.
(i) Advantages of Secondary Data: Advantages of secondary data are following:

21
  The primary advantage of secondary data is that it is cheaper and faster to access.
 Secondly, it provides a way to access the work of the best scholars all over the world.
 Thirdly, secondary data gives a frame of mind to the researcher that in which direction he/she should go for the
specific research.
 Fourthly secondary data save time, efforts and money and add to the value of the research study.

(ii) Disadvantages of Secondary data: Following are the disadvantage of secondary data:

 The data collected by the third party may not be a reliable party so the reliability and accuracy of data go down.
 Data collected in one location may not be suitable for the other one due variable environmental factor.
 With the passage of time the data becomes obsolete and very old
 Secondary data collected can distort the results of the research. For using secondary data a special care is required
to amend or modify for use.
 Secondary data can also raise issues of authenticity and copyright. Keeping in view the advantages and
disadvantages of sources of data requirement of the research study and time factor, both sources of data i.e. primary
and secondary data have been selected. These are used in combination to give proper coverage to the topic.

Instruments for Data Collection: For collection of data the following instruments have been used:
(a) Questionnaire: Questionnaire is a set of questions has been prepared to ask a number of questions and collect answers
from respondents relating to the research topic. A number of questions usually in printed or electronic form are to be answered
by the individuals. The forms often have blank spaces in which the answers can be written. Sets of such forms are distributed
to groups and the answers are collected relating to research topic. A questionnaire is a series of questions asked to individuals
to obtain statistically useful information about a given topic. When properly constructed and responsibly administered,
questionnaires become a vital instrument by which statements can be made about specific groups or people or entire
populations. Inappropriate questions, incorrect ordering of questions, incorrect scaling, or bad questionnaire format can make
the survey valueless, as it may not accurately reflect the views and opinions of the participants. A useful method for checking a
questionnaire and making sure it is accurately capturing the intended information is to pretest among a smaller subset of target
respondents. In a research or survey questions asked to respondents, and designed to extract specific information. It serves
four basic purposes: to (1) collect the appropriate data, (2) make data comparable and amenable to analysis, (3) minimize bias
in formulating and asking question, and (4) to make questions engaging and varied. For our study purpose a set of questions
has been prepared to collect information relating to the topic of the study. In this study a structured questionnaire has been
used with different types of questions such as closed ended and open ended. Special case has been taken to select the scales
for the questions for collection of responses very effectively.
(b) Telephone, Mobile Phone and Facsimile: Telephone and other devices can be used for collecting data verbally and
written on fax from respondents located away from the researcher and having these facilities plus the researcher having their
contact numbers. Use of interviewers encourages sample persons to respond, leading to higher response rates. Interviewers
can increase comprehension of questions by answering respondents' questions. It is fairly cost efficient, depending on local call
charge structure. It is good for large national or international respondents and gives wider coverage. It cannot be used for non-
audio information (graphics, demonstrations, taste/smell samples) this instrument is not suitable for the respondents where the
telephone facility is not available.
(c) Mail: For collection of data from the respondents who are located at a long distance and do not have any communication
facility. They can be contacted through mailed questionnaire. Only thing is required that the researcher should have the postal
addresses of the respondents. The questionnaire may be handed to the respondents or mailed to them, but in all cases they
are returned to the researcher via mail. The cost involved is very less but no clarification can be given to the respondents if
required. Respondents can answer at their own convenience. The respondents cannot be biased by the researchers and the
detail information can be collected for the research purpose. Only one disadvantage this instrument gives is that the response
rate is very less due to lack of interest in the topic of respondents and low literacy rate.
(d) Interview: In this method the interviewer personally meets the informants and asks necessary questions to them regarding
the subject of enquiry. Usually a set of questions or a questionnaire is carried by him and questions are also asked according to
that. The interviewer efficiently collects the data from the informants by cross examining them. The interviewer must be very
efficient and tactful to get the accurate and relevant data from the informants. Interviews like personal interview/depth interview
or telephone interview can be conducted as per the need of the study.
(i) Advantages: Advantages of interview are following:

 In this method information can be gathered from illiterate people too.

 There are no chances of non-response as the interviewer personally collects data.
 The collected data is very reliable since the interviewer tactfully collects the data by cross examining the responders.

(ii) Disadvantages: The major disadvantages of interview are:

 There is a chance of bias.

 The informants may not answer some personal questions.
 It is a time-consuming process.
 Money and manpower requirements are very high.
 Some time the interviewers are involved in pressurising respondents to share their personal information.

22
To study the topic of the research out of available instruments for research mainly questionnaire, interview and
telephone/mobile phones have been used because these instruments were found suitable for data collection purpose. Mailed
questionnaire has not been used because the need has not been felt during the study. For collection of primary data for this
research work survey and observation methods have been used. Experimental method is not found suitable for this study
because the topic is a theoretical topic and there is no need to have experiments. These two methods are explained below:
(a) Survey Method: Survey is used to collect quantitative information about items in a population. Surveys are used in different
areas for collecting the data even in public and private sectors. A survey may be conducted in the field by the researcher. The
respondents are contacted by the research person personally, telephonically or through mail. This method takes a lot of time,
efforts and money but the data collected are of high accuracy, current and relevant to the topic. When the questions are
administered by a researcher, the survey is called a structured interview or a researcher-administered survey. When the
questions are administered by the respondent, the survey is referred to as a questionnaire or a self-administered survey. It is
an efficient way of collecting information from a large number of respondents. Very large samples are possible. Statistical
techniques can be used to determine validity, reliability, and statistical significance. Surveys are flexible in the sense that a wide
range of information can be collected. They can be used to study attitudes, values, beliefs, and past behaviors. Because they
are standardized, they are relatively free from several types of errors. There is an economy in data collection due to the focus
provided by standardized questions. Only questions of interest to the researcher are asked, recorded, codified, and analyzed.
(b) Observation Method: Observation is a complex research method because it often requires the researcher to play a
number of roles and to use a number of techniques; including her/his five senses, to collect data. The observer puts himself in
the actual situation and watch carefully. On the basis of his knowledge, skills and experience he collects the data without
contacting the respondents. The results of observation entirely depend on the talents of the researcher. This method can be
used only by expert persons in the research. Observation methods have been developed with the objective of 'observing
people in their natural setting - as they go about their everyday lives. Observation methods can overcome some of the
criticisms of quantitative research methods (Validity, bias etc.) and can be useful when its subject can't provide information, or
can only provide inaccurate information. Out of available methods for collecting primary data, survey and observation methods
have been found suitable for the topic study. These have fulfilled the requirements for data collection properly.

Unit 4

Need for sample: There would also be difficulties measuring whole populations because: -
The large size of many populations
Inaccessibility of some of the population - Some populations are so difficult to get access to that only a sample can be used.
E.g. prisoners, people with severe mental illness, disaster survivors etc. The inaccessibility may be associated with cost or time
or just access.
Destructiveness of the observation- Sometimes the very act of observing the desired characteristic of the product destroys it
for the intended use. Good examples of this occur in quality control. E.g. to determine the quality of a fuse and whether it is
defective, it must be destroyed. Therefore if you tested all the fuses, all would be destroyed.
Accuracy and sampling - A sample may be more accurate than the total study population. A badly identified population can
provide less reliable information than a carefully obtained sample.
Basic Concepts related to sampling:
Universe or Population: A population is a group of experimental data, persons, etc. A population is built up of elementary
units, which cannot be further decomposed. Population Total is the sum of all the elements in research.
Sampling Frame: The sample frames for most market research projects are often supplied by the sponsor of the study – in
other words they are lists of customers or potential customers. Names, addresses and telephone numbers are all that is
required, possibly with an indication as to which category they fit – customer or non customer. If no lists are forthcoming from
the client/research sponsor, it will be necessary to buy lists or build them from directories or the electoral register. One of the
easiest solutions is to buy a sample frame from one of a number of companies that specialize in supplying lists to market
research organizations.
Sampling Unit: This is that element or set of elements considered for selection in some stage of sampling (same as the
elements, in a simple single-stage sample). In a multi-stage sample, the sampling unit could be blocks, households, and
individuals within the households.
Sample Size and its determinants: Before deciding how large a sample should be, you have to define your study population
(who you are including and excluding in your study). The question of how large a sample should be is a difficult one. Sample
size can be determined by various constraints (funding available, the time constraints etc.)
Sample size depends on
The type of data analysis to be performed
The desired precision of the estimates one wishes to achieve
The kind and number of comparisons that will be made
The number of variables that have to be examined simultaneously
How heterogeneous the sampled population is.
Deciding on a sample size for qualitative inquiry can be even more difficult than quantitative because there are no definite rules
to be followed. It will depend on what you want to know, the purpose of the inquiry, what is at stake, what will be useful, what
will have credibility and what can be done with available time and resources. You can choose to study one specific
phenomenon in depth with a smaller sample size or a bigger sample

23
Errors in sampling: There are two types of errors in sampling –Sampling errors and non-sampling errors.
Sampling Errors: Sampling errors are the errors related to sample e.g. inadequate sample size .Sampling errors occur as a
result of calculating the estimate (estimated mean, total, proportion, etc) based on a sample rather than the entire population.
This is due to the fact that the estimated figure obtained from the sample may not be exactly equal to the true value of the
population. For example, if a sample of blocks is used to estimate the total number of persons in the city, and the block and the
blocks in the sample are larger than the average — then this sample will overstate the true population of the city.
Non sampling errors: Non sampling errors are not related to sample but some other aspects of research e.g. faulty
calculations .The accuracy of an estimate is also affected by errors arising from causes such as incomplete coverage and faulty
procedures of estimation, and together with observational errors, these make up what are termed non sampling errors.
Sampling Techniques –Probability and Non-probability :
i. Probability sampling is one in which each person in the population has the same probability/chance of being selected. In
addition, the selection of persons from the population is based on some form of random procedure. Samples that have this
quality are often labelled as EPSEM (Equal probability of Selection Method).
Types of probability sampling are:
Simple Random Sampling- is a sampling scheme with the probability that any of the possible subsets of the sample is equally
likely to be the chosen sample. A way of selecting the sample is by means of a table of random numbers. Once a sampling
frame is available, each person in the population is assigned a number. SRS can be with or without replacement.
Systematic sampling (interval random sampling) is an EPSEM strategy which gives each element in the population the
same chance of being selected for the sample. We would proceed down the sampling frame selecting for the sample every Kth
person, starting with a person randomly selected from among the first K persons and choosing systematically form inclusion in
the sample. Two terms are often used in connection with systematic sampling are sampling interval (the standard distance
between elements selected in the sample) and sampling ratio (the proportion of elements in the population that are selected).
Stratified sampling is where we begin by grouping elements that share certain characteristics, or dividing the population into
several large groups, or clusters. Its purpose is to classify populations into subpopulations or strata based on some
supplementary information and then a selection of separate samples from each of the strata. The two types of stratified
sampling are proportionate stratified (is where the strata sample size are made proportional to the strata population size) and
disproportionate stratified (where a varying sampling is used).
Cluster (Area) sampling-may be one-stage, two-stage or multi-stage cluster/area sampling (eg.-studying blacks' attitudes
toward transracial adoption). It is where all the elements in selected clusters are included in the sample. Usually the sampling
unit contains more than one population element, eg., sampling households as sampling units only a sample of elements is
taken from each selected cluster, this is called two-stage sampling. The whole technique is referred to as multi-stage sampling.
Non probability Sampling
i. Quota sampling begins with a matrix describing the characteristics of the target population. The goal is to select people to
reflect characteristics found in the population.
ii. Purposive/Judgmental sampling is where the sample is selected on the basis of knowledge of the research problem to
allow selection of "typical" persons for inclusion in the sample.
iii. Snowball sampling is appropriate when the members of a special population are difficult to locate. This is also called as
referral sampling.

24
Unit 5

Editing: It is the process in which the data is ready for the purpose of coding and is transferred to the data storage, this is
known as editing. Its purpose is to ensure the completeness, consistency and reliability of data.
Types of editing:

 Field Editing – preliminary editing by a field supervisor on the same day as the interview; its purpose is to catch
technical omissions, check legibility of handwriting, and clarify responses that are logically or conceptually
inconsistent.
 In-house Editing – A rigorous editing job performed by centralized office staff.

Coding: The process of identifying and classifying each answer with a numerical score or other character symbol is called
coding.
Code – A rule used for interpreting, classifying, and recording data in the coding processes; the numerical or other symbol
assigned to raw data.
Field – A collection of characters that represents a single type of data.
Record – A collection of related fields.File – A collection of related records.
Data Matrix – A rectangular arrangement of data into rows and columns.
What is Analysis?
Analysis of data is the process by which data is converted into useful information.
Types of Analysis:

 Univariate, involving a single variable at a time,

 Bivariate, involving two variables at a time, and
 Multivariate, involving three or more variables simultaneously.

Tabular representation of data

1. Data Representation: Frequency Distribution : A frequency distribution of data can be shown in a table or graph. Some
common methods of showing frequency distributions include frequency tables, histograms or bar charts.
Frequency Table: A frequency table is a simple way to display the number of occurrences of a particular value or
characteristic.
Table may be Univariate means only one variable , Bivariate means two variables and Multivariate meaning more than two
variables .
For example, if we have collected data about height from a sample of 50 children, we could present our findings as:

25
Height of Children
Height (cm) of children Absolute frequency
120 – less than 130 9
130 – less than 140 10
140 – less than 150 13
150 – less than 160 11
160 – less than 170 7
Total 50
From this frequency table we can quickly identify information such as 7 children (14% of all children) are in the 160 to less than
170 cm height range, and that there are more children with heights in the 140 to less than 150 cm range (26% of all children)
than any other height range.
Data can also be presented in graphical form.
BAR Chart: A bar chart is a type of graph in which each column (plotted either vertically or horizontally) represents a
categorical variable or a discrete ungrouped numeric variable. It is used to compare the frequency (count) for a category or
characteristic with another category or characteristic.
Features of a bar chart:
1.In a bar chart, the bar height (if vertical) or length (if horizontal) shows the frequency for each category or characteristic.
2. The distribution of the dataset is not important because the columns each represent an individual category or characteristic
rather than intervals for a continuous measurement. Therefore, gaps are included between each bar and each bar can be
arranged in any order without affecting the data.

For example:
If data had been collected for 'country of birth' from a sample of children, a bar chart could be used to plot the data as 'country
of birth' is a categorical variable.

Birthplace of Children
Country of Birth Absolute frequency
Australia 16
Fiji 3
India 8
Italy 10
New Zealand 9
United States of America 4
Total 50
The bar chart below shows us that 'Australia' is the most commonly observed country of birth of the 50 children sampled, while
'Fiji' is the least common country of birth.

2. Measures of central tendency : A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set of data by
identifying the central position within that set of data. As such, measures of central tendency are sometimes called measures of
central location. They are also classed as summary statistics. The mean (often called the average) is most likely the measure
of central tendency that you are most familiar with, but there are others, such as the median and the mode.
The mean, median and mode are all valid measures of central tendency, but under different conditions, some measures of
central tendency become more appropriate to use than others. In the following sections, we will look at the mean, mode and
median, and learn how to calculate them and under what conditions they are most appropriate to be used.

26
Mean (Arithmetic): The mean (or average) is the most popular and well known measure of central tendency. It can be used
with both discrete and continuous data, although its use is most often with continuous data. The mean is equal to the sum of all
the values in the data set divided by the number of values in the data set. So, if we have n values in a data set and they have
values x1, x2, ..., xn, the sample mean, usually denoted by (pronounced x bar), is:

This formula is usually written in a slightly different manner using the Greek capitol letter, , pronounced "sigma", which means
"sum of...":

The mean is essentially a model of your data set. It is the value that is most common. You will notice, however, that the mean is
not often one of the actual values that you have observed in your data set. However, one of its important properties is that it
minimizes error in the prediction of any one value in your data set. That is, it is the value that produces the lowest amount of
error from all other values in the data set.
An important property of the mean is that it includes every value in your data set as part of the calculation. In addition, the mean
is the only measure of central tendency where the sum of the deviations of each value from the mean is always zero.
Median: The median is the middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in order of magnitude. The median is less
affected by outliers and skewed data. In order to calculate the median, suppose we have the data below:
65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45 92
We first need to rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):
14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92
Our median mark is the middle mark - in this case, 56 (highlighted in bold). It is the middle mark because there are 5 scores
before it and 5 scores after it. This works fine when you have an odd number of scores, but what happens when you have an
even number of scores? What if you had only 10 scores? Well, you simply have to take the middle two scores and average the
result. So, if we look at the example below:
65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45
We again rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):
14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92
Only now we have to take the 5th and 6th score in our data set and average them to get a median of 55.5.
Mode: The mode is the most frequent score in our data set. On a histogram it represents the highest bar in a bar chart or
histogram. You can, therefore, sometimes consider the mode as being the most popular option.
3. Bivariate Analysis: Bivariate analysis is one of the simplest forms of the quantitative (statistical) analysis. It involves the
analysis of two variables (often denoted as X, Y), for the purpose of determining the empirical relationship between them. In
order to see if the variables are related to one another, it is common to measure how those two variables simultaneously
change together . Bivariate analysis can be contrasted with univariate analysis in which only one variable is analyzed.
4. Correlation Analysis: The correlation measures the strength of the linear relationship between numerical variables, for
example, the height of men and their shoe size or height and weight. In these situations the goal is not to use one variable to
predict another but to show the strength of the linear relationship that exists between the two numerical variables.
Correlation coefficient, symbolized as r, is a numerical summary of a bivariate relationship and can range from –1.00 to +1.00.
Any r that is positive indicates a direct or positive relationship between two measured variables. Negative r indicates indirect or
inverse relationship.
Example
A company wanted to know if there is a significant relationship between the total number of salespeople and the total number of
sales. They collect data for five months.
Variable 1 Variable 2
207 6907
180 5991
220 6810
205 6553
190 6190
--------------------------------
Correlation coefficient r = .921
So we can interpret there is positive correlation between number of sales person and sales achieved .
Properties of the correlation coefficient :

1. It can be positive or negative (and will have the same sign as the covariance)
2. It is a measure of linear relationship between two variables
3. It will always lie between –1 and 1

27
 4. It is a pure number – i.e. devoid of units of measurement (so can compare across variables)
5. If two variables are statistically independent, their covariance is zero, and so the correlation coefficient. However, if
the correlation coefficient is zero, this does not mean that the covariance will be too. A zero correlation coefficient
may mean that there is no linearrelationship, but this does not mean that the variables are independent or the
covariance is equal to zero
6. Correlation does not necessarily imply causality

5. Association of attributes : In statistics, an association is any relationship between two measured quantities that renders
them statistically dependent. The term "association" refers broadly to any such relationship, whereas the narrower term
"correlation" refers to a linear relationship between two quantities.
Example:
Eighty-eight residents of an Indian city, who were interviewed during a sample survey, are classified below according to their
smoking and tea drinking habit. Calculate Yule’s Coefficient of Association and comment on its value.
Smoker Non-Smoker
Tea drinker: 40 33
Non tea Drinker: 3 12
Solution:
Let A= Smokers. α = non smoker, B= tea drinker; β = non- tea drinker
(AB) = No. of smokers and tea drinker= 40
(Aβ) = Number of smokers and non-tea drinkers =3
(αβ ) = Number of tea drinker and non smoker= 33
(αβ ) = Number of non smokers and non tea drinker = 12
Applying Yule’s method:

Substituting the values: we have Q = (480-99)/(480+99) = 0.658

This shows that the attributes tea drinking and smoking are positively associated.
6. Linear Regression Analysis: Regression analysis is a statistical process for estimating the relationships among variables.
It includes many techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a
dependent variable and one or more independent variables. Regression is a statistical measure that attempts to determine the
strength of the relationship between one dependent variable (usually denoted by Y) and a series of other changing variables
(known as independent variables).
Regression is the measure of the relation between the mean value of one variable (e.g. output) and corresponding values of
other variables (e.g. time and cost).
More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent variable (or 'Criterion
Variable') changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed.
The two basic types of regression are linear regression and multiple regression. Linear regression uses one independent
variable to explain and/or predict the outcome of Y, while multiple regression uses two or more independent variables to predict
the outcome. The general form of each type of regression is:
Linear Regression: Y = a + bX + u
Multiple Regression: Y = a + b1X1 + b2X2 + B3X3 + ... + BtXt + u

Where:
Y= the variable that we are trying to predict
X= the variable that we are using to predict Y
a= the intercept
b= the slope
u= the regression residual
7. Hypothesis Tests
Chi-Squared Test of Association: The Chi-Squared Test of Association allows the comparison of two attributes in a sample of
data to determine if there is any relationship between them.
The idea behind this test is to compare the observed frequencies with the frequencies that would be expected if the null
hypothesis of no association / statistical independence were true. By assuming the variables are independent, we can also
predict an expected frequency for each cell in the contingency table.
If the value of the test statistic for the chi-squared test of association is too large, it indicates a poor agreement between the
observed and expected frequencies and the null hypothesis of independence / no association is rejected.
Example :
A psychologist is interested in the voting differences of males and females on the run up to a general election. The psychologist
randomly samples voters and questions them on their voting intentions. The psychologist discovers that of the females
sampled, 16 intend to vote for Labour, 5 for Conservatives and 8 for another party. 10 of the sampled males intend to vote for
Labour, 7 for Conservatives and 4 for another party. This information may be displayed in a contingency table as follows:

28
SEX PARTY
Labour Conservatives Other TOTAL
Male 10 7 4 21 (n1)
Female 16 5 8 29 (n2)
TOTAL 26 (n3) 12 (n4) 12 (n5) 50 (N)
A chi-squared test of association may be carried out on this data to assess whether or not gender is associated with political
affiliation.
To carry out this test, the expected frequencies for each party by gender must be calculated. The expected number of males
who intend to vote labour is [KL 110], the expected number of females who intend to vote conservative is [KL 111] and the
expected number of males who intend to vote for some other party is [KL 112]. The rest of the expected frequencies are
calculated in a similar manner. The following table shows the expected frequencies:
Gender PARTY
Labour Conservatives Other TOTAL
Male 10.92 5.04 5.04 21
Female 15.08 6.96 6.96 29
TOTAL 26 12 12 50
The test statistic is [KL 113], where O= observed frequency and E= expected frequency. The test statistic is therefore [KL 114].
As the test statistic is less than 6 (the critical value of the 95th percentile of the chi-squared distribution with 2 degrees of
freedom), the null hypothesis that there is no association between gender and political affiliation cannot be rejected.
Research Report: A research report can be based on practical work, research by reading or a study of an organization or
industrial/workplace situation. A report is a systematic, well organized document which defines and analyses a subject or
problem. Reports must always be accurate, concise, clear, well structured
Steps in writing report:
1. Preparing: Identify the purpose/the aims of the research/research question.
Identify the audience.– lecturer/supervisor/company/organization management/staff. The amount of background included will
vary depending on the knowledge of the “audience”.
2. Collecting and organizing information: There are two main sources of information depending on the research task:

 Reading: theory and other research

 Research: experiments, data collection ‐ questionnaires, surveys, observation, interviews. Organize and collate the
information in a logical order. Make sure you record the bibliographic information of your reading as you go along.
 Planning: Before writing the report, prepare a detailed plan in outline form.

Consider the following:

Logical organisation: Information in a report must be organized logically. Communicate the main ideas followed by
supporting details and examples. Start with the more important or significant information and move on to the least important
information.
Headings: Use headings and suitable sub headings to clearly show the different sections. In longer reports the sections
should
be numbered.
4. Writing the report
1. Draft the report from your detailed plan.
2. Do not worry too much about the final form and language, but rather on presenting the ideas coherently and logically.
3. Redraft and edit. Check that sections contain the required information and use suitable headings , check ideas flow in a
logical order and remove any unnecessary information.
4. Write in an academic style and tone.
• Use a formal objective style.
• Generally avoid personal pronouns; however, some reports based on your own field experience or work placement can be
reflective the first person can be used. For example, “I observed..”. If in doubt about this, check with the lecturer.
Following points to be covered in the report .
SR. No. TOPIC PAGE NO.
Executive Summary
Introduction
Objectives & Scope of the project
Company Profile
Theoretical Background
Research Methodology

29
 Data Analysis &
Interpretation

Finding & Suggestions

9 Limitations of the Project

10 Conclusion
Bibliography
Annexure

30