Market Research-Basics

1. What is a research design and what are the kinds of basic research designs?

A research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the marketing research project. It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to structure or solve marketing research problems.

There are three traditional categories of Research Designs :

– Exploratory

– Descriptive

– Causal

The choice of the most appropriate design depends largely on the objectives of the research and how much is known about the problem and research objectives.

2. How can the basic research designs be compared and contrasted?

The different categories of Research designs can be compared on the basis of objective , for instance in exploratory research the objective is discovery of ideas and insights whereas in descriptive research the objective is to describe market characteristics and functions and finally in causal research the objective is to understand cause and effect relationships.It can also be compared by its characteristics, exploratory research is very flexible and versatile while descriptive research is marked by the prior formulation of specific hypotheses while causal research is manipulation of one or more independent variables.The final comparison can be made by the methods used in each research process

Exploratory research : Expert surveys

Pilot surveys

Secondary data

Qualitative research

Descriptive Research : Secondary data

Surveys

Panels

Observation and other data

Causal Research : Experiments

1. What are the major sources of errors in a research design?

The main sources of errors in research design are :

Total Error : The total error is the variation between the true mean value in the population of the variable of interest and the observed mean value obtained in the marketing research project.

Random Sampling Error : Random sampling error is the variation between the true mean value for the population...