Week 1: Foundations of survey research Flashcards
what is the purpose of business research?
Discover the truth about something
Find a good way of doing something
Check a hypothesis or other data
What are some critical characteristics of business research?
Needs to be systematic and as through and trustworthy as possible
Clearly written so readers can check details
Critical (Possible objections discussed and/or answered)
Examples of research
Surveys
Analysis of existing data
Experiments
Case studies
Participant observation
What is a survey?
Usually large and produce data which means statistical techniques can be applied and generalisations made.
Disadvantages of case studies
Cases studied may be untypical and cant be used for statistical generalisation.
What are the steps in a research process
Defining the problem
Defining the research question
Deciding appropriate study design, data types and sources and outcomes
Writing a protocol
Collecting the data
Analysing the data
Writing up the findings
What is a survey?
A method of gathering information from a sample of sample.
Key components of researching ethically
Confidentiality and anonymity- preservation of individuals rights to privacy.
The principle of informed consent.
Personal safety of researchers
Legality
What are the two classes of questions?
Classification- Used to put respondents into categories
Primarily demographic
Basic- Questions are those that elicit the information based on which the categories are to be compared
Related to the subject of the survey
Can use them to define groups
Classified as facts, opinions r attitudes
What are leading questions?
Where the respondent may be persuaded by the question to give a particular answer.
Avoid:
Loaded language
Ambiguity
What are the 3 question types?
Open questions:
Blank space for answers
Allows personal opinions
Closed questions:
Must answer from opinions given
Options must be mutually exclusive
Restricts respondent
Semi-closed questions
Advantages of open (unstructured) questions
Unlimited possible answers
Detailed and qualified answers
Allow unanticipated responses
Good for complex issues
Allows rich detail
Reveal thinking process
Disadvantages of open questions
Variation in response detail
Unnecessary detail
Time consuming to participate
Difficulties with coding
May be off-putting
Advantages of closed questions
Quick and easy to answer
Coding straightforward
Easy to compare responses
Fewer irrelevant responses
Easier replication
Disadvantages of closed questions
May suggest responses
Difficult to cover all possible responses
No opinion/ knowledge responders
Can be confusing/ frustrating
Misinterpretation can go unnoticed
Force simplistic or choices not ‘ real world’
What is the sale of measurement?
This indicates the amount of information in the data
It determines the analytical techniques that are appropriate.
What is nominal data?
Observations consists of labels that can be numeric or non-numeric.
The labels are typically used to distinguish categories or individual elements.
e.g. gender, occupation
What is ordinal data?
Consists of observations that are either numeric or non-numeric labels.
ordinal data can be used to rank or order observations
e.g. academic grades, finishing position in a race
limitation: There is no distance between values defined
What is interval data?
Consists of observations that are labels and can be ranked.
Interval data is always numeric, and the difference between values has meaning.
The intervals between observations are expressed in fixed units of measurements.
e.g. temperature, calendar dates
`What is ratio data?
Consists of observations that are numeric labels that can be ranked, and the intervals between the observations are meaningful.
e.g. distance, weight, time
What is categorical data?
It provides labels for sets of homogenous elements.
Either numeric or non-numeric.
Can be nominal or ordinal
What is measurement data?
Specifies how many or how much of something.
Always numeric
Can be interval or ratio data
