Marketing Research

1
Marketing Research

• Dr. David M. Andrus
• Exam 2
• Lecture 4

2
Themes of My Presentation

• Attitude Measurement
• Questionnaire Design
• Proper Question Wording
• Physical Layout and Question Sequencing
• Pretesting the Questionnaire

3
Attributes of Effective Questionnaires

• Questionnaire A formal set of questions or
  statements designed to get information from
  respondents to accomplish the research goals.
• Used to measure peoples attitudes, behavior, and
  feelings toward marketing variables.
• Provides a uniform structure that allows
  responses to be analyzed and compared.
• We are trying to measure existing variation in
  marketing phenomena with the questionnaire so
  that we can explain, describe or predict
  something.

4
Attributes of Effective Questionnaires

• Questionnaires should
• Be user-friendly
• Look professional
• Be valid and reliable
• Be attractive and motivational in nature
• Encourage respondents to answer honestly and
  accurately

5
Developing Research Questions

• A research question is used to obtain overt,
  verbal communication from respondents.
• It is intended to elicit meaningful verbal
  responses from participants.
• Research questions measure
• Attitudes
• Emotions
• Beliefs
• Behaviors
• Demographics

6
What to Ask Participants

• Purchase/Ownership Questions
• Have you bought a Coors beer in the last two
  weeks?
• Usage Rate Questions
• How many times did you eat a Pizza Hut deep dish
  pizza in the last two weeks?
• Decision Maker Identity Questions
• The last time you ate at McDonalds, how
  involved were your children?

7
What to Ask Participants

• Payment Method Questions
• Did you pay by check, cash, debit card, credit
  card, or gift certificate?
• Information Source Questions
• Do you recall seeing this advertisement in the
  Manhattan Mercury?
• Shopping Pattern Questions
• In-store questions ask about time spent in the
  store, what they like/dislike about the interior,
  how they like the salespeople.
• Out-of-store items ask about number of stores
  shopped, how often they shop at the store, store
  image
• Socioeconomic Questions
• Age, gender, marital status, income, educational
  attainment, stage in the life cycle, geographic
  location, religion, race

8
Questionnaire DesignProcess (First Five Steps)
1. Specify the Information Needed
2. Specify the Type of Interviewing Method
3. Determine the Content of Individual Questions
4. Design the Question to Overcome the
Respondents Inability and
Unwillingness to Answer
5. Decide the Question Structure
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Questionnaire DesignProcess (Last Five Steps)
6. Determine the Question Wording
7. Arrange the Questions in Proper Order
8. Identify the Form and Layout
9. Reproduce the Questionnaire
10. Eliminate Errors by Pretesting
10
Obtain Client Approval

• Many times researchers will conduct studies for
  an individual or organization that is external to
  their company.
• Share a draft questionnaire with the client to
  allow feedback prior to implementing it.
• The client must approve the final questionnaire.

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Five Functions of Introduction

• Identification of the marketing researcher
• Purpose of survey and how to complete it
• Explanation of respondent selection
• Request for participation/provide incentive
• Incentives
• Anonymity
• Confidentiality
• Voluntary Consent
• Screening of respondent

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Considerations in Questionnaire Design

• What information is required?
• Who are the target respondents?
• What data collection method will be used to
  survey these respondents?
• Are you interested in past, present, or future
  consumer behavior?

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Question Topics

• Refers to basic behavior or socioeconomic
  variable measured by a topic
• Only measure variables related to your research
  objectives
• Have at least one item for every independent and
  dependent variable
• Only include variables that are meaningful to
  your participants and use filtering or
  contingency items
• Questions that require a lot of effort by your
  respondents should be deleted

14
Question Wording Guidelines

• Why am I asking this question?
• Response choices should not overlap and be
  exhaustive.
• Avoid double-barreled questions.
• Questions should be reliable and valid.
• Use proper grammar.
• A questionnaire must be written as a formal
  conversation with a respondent.
• It must be arranged in a logical sequence.

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Question Wording Guidelines

• Question should be focused on a single issue or
  topic.
• Question should be brief, specific, and concrete.
• Question should use respondents familiar
  vocabulary.
• Use a dictionary because words have a precise
  meaning.
• Write simple stems in the active voice and be
  succinct.
• More formal manner and no ambiguous terms.

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Question Wording Guidelines

• Avoid adjectives and adverbs.
• No abbreviations or technical jargon.
• Questions should be referenced to specific time
  periods, brand names, stores, product models,
  competitors, and other frames of reference.
• Avoid the use of not and connectives such as
  and, or, or but.
• Use neutral words and avoid leading questions,
  emotion laden words, and stereotypical words.

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Question Wording Guidelines

• No slang.
• Avoid sexist, ageist, or racist terms.
• Make instructions easy to understand.
• Keep the questionnaire short.
• There should be only one way to interpret each
  question for all respondents.

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Question Wording Guidelines

• Question should not assume criteria that are not
  obvious.
• Question should not be beyond the respondents
  ability or experience.
• Question should not use a specific example to
  represent a general case.
• Question should not ask the respondent to recall
  specifics when only generalities will be
  remembered.
• Question should not require the respondent to
  guess a generalization.

19
Steps in Designing and Implementing A
Questionnaire

• Prepare interviewer instructions for pilot test
  and train interviewers
• Pilot test the questionnaire on small sample.
  Obtain comments of respondents and interviewers.
• Prepare final interviewer instructions on trained
  interviewers.

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Steps in Designing and Implementing A
Questionnaire

• Prepare a list of information needs.
• Determine the method of administration.
• Conduct a search for existing questions.
• Draft new questions of revised existing
  questions.
• Sequence the questionnaire to minimize order
  effects, develop a logical flow.

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Steps in Designing and Implementing A
Questionnaire

• Determine skip instructions for branching.
• Format the questionnaire to minimize confusion.
• Precode all closed questions.
• Get peer evaluations of draft questionnaire in
  group sessions and/or individually.
• Revise the draft and test the revised
  questionnaire on yourself, co-workers, friends
  and relatives. Revise again.

22
Steps in Designing and Implementing A
Questionnaire

• Proceed with interviewing.
• After all interviewing is completed, analyze
  interviewer reports.
• Debrief interviewers and coders to determine if
  questionnaire problems would affect analysis.

23
Rules For The Physical Questionnaire

• Use a booklet format
• Identify the questionnaire
• Do not crowd questions
• Use large, clear font
• Number all questions
• Do not split questions across pages
• Put special instructions on the questionnaire
• Use vertical answer formats for closed questions.
• Provide a beginning and end to the interview.

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Precoding the Questionnaire

• Precoding placement of numbers on the
  questionnaire to facilitate data entry after the
  survey has been conducted
• Numbers are preferred because
• Numbers are easier and faster to keystroke into a
  computer file.
• SPSS is more efficient when it processes numbers.
• Each questionnaire will have a consecutive number
  at the top once you have collected the data for
  ease of identification.

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Guidelines for Question Sequencing

• Use simple, interesting opening questions
• Use the funnel approach, asking broad questions
  first
• Carefully design branching questions
• Place difficult or sensitive questions near the
  end
• Place demographic items last and thank
  respondents

26
Pretesting the Questionnaire

• All aspects of the questionnaire should be
  pretested in an environment as similar as
  possible to the one in which the questionnaire
  will ultimately be administered.
• Pre-testing involves a trial run of a
  questionnaire with a small sample from the target
  population to detect any problems.
• A debriefing procedure should be used.

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Revise Questionnaire Based On Pre-Test Results

• Make changes to the questionnaire based on the
  findings during the pre-test.
• It may be necessary to pre-test the questionnaire
  a second time.
• After pre-testing is compete, tabulate the data
  and run some simple statistical tests to get an
  indication of results from administering the
  full-scale test.

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Typical Questionnaire Problems

• Double-barreled questions
• Ambiguous questions
• Ambiguous word meanings
• Leading questions or phrases
• High level of question difficulty
• Unbalanced response categories
• Missing response categories
• Missing questions

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Typical Questionnaire Problems

• Relevance of individual questions
• Questions that bias responses
• Nonresponse rates
• Perceptions of pictures