Questionnaire Development

We seemed to create our questionaire without much difficulty. We thought of a lot of great questions to ask, but we had to narrow it down to eliminate questions we did not need so much. We will see how well our questionnaire was put together when we actually go out and get feedback on it.

Sampling Procedures

If money were not an issue, i would use the quota sampling method. It is not too expensive and depending on the type of research you are doing it can be much more helpful. Using the quota method, you will target specific proportions of the population which can help you to determine problems within different segments, with more emphasis on chosen segments.

We will be using the simple random sampling method for our research, since we will be randomly picking students on campus and each student has an equal chance of walking by to get selected.

Bad Questionnaire

Problem #1- The first problem with this questionnaire is that it is completely geared towards college students. If you gave this survey to someone who is not enrolled in college you are wasting their time as well as your own. The first question should be asked to would be participants prior to taking the survey

Problem #2- Question # 3 is almost a good question, but the people taking the questionnaire may become confused by the lack of information given for the grading scale it uses. You can rate it "Fun" or "Boring" but their is not scale to judge how much you are in between these two feelings toward your campus.

Problem #3- Question 5 has a limited number of closed answers for responses. Many people dislike many more things about their car that is offered for an answer. The question could be made better with an option of "other" and a blank line to specify what.

Online Surveys

I have received several emails for surveys from Greenfield Online. The first one tried to take was about entertainment and it paid $5.00, but for some reason i did not qualify for it. The second one i tried to take was over consumer topics, and i did qualify for this one. it took around 30 minutes and kept asking the same questions just flipped around a little bit. Most of the questions were about the current economical problems and how i feel about them in relation to how i purchase new products now. After this one i took another quiz on a related topic that popped up after i completed the first one. this one asked a lot of questions based on my purchasing influence over my family and wanted to know if had to buy top of the line stuff and replace appliances before they break. All of these surveys take more time than the sites estimate them to and they keep asking repetitive questions that get annoying and the ones that offer cash rewards have a narrow target group that i don't think i will get anything from them except for entries into their sweepstakes.

Online Panels

I have joined three of the four online panels, ZoomPanel, NDP online, and Greenfield online. All three of these website offer surveys to their members based on the profile you submit to them when you sign up. All of these sites use surveys to collect data for large corporations, which provides them insight to which products are big hits, and which ones they should stay away from. These three sites offer rewards for the surveys you complete, they range from small prizes to large sums of cash, just for answering a couple of surveys, but providing valuable information to the companies the are working for. A free membership and a chance to win cash and prizes makes this a great opportunity to come out on top while these corporations are getting the information they need without actually going out of their way to perform these surveys on their own.

Projective Test

1. The ending analysis of the projective test was a little different than what i was expecting. Some of the analytical questions would apply to how i answered the story, but some don't really make much sense. For my view of life, I described the trees, plants and animal noises, which I don't know how to interpret. I do agree with the second question about the path relating to our journey through life, I described a worn down path, which I currently feel I am walking down now. I don't know why a key would be in the forest, but i would pick it up to possible use later. And I'm not sure how a cup ties into religion. As for the water and sex, I wouldn't hesitate to strip down and get across. I'm sure that everyone would rather walk down hill so i guess everyone wants a smooth ride with the rest of their lives. I can't see the Field relating to old age, or the wall relating to death because it is not something we look forward to and if i knew it was death waiting on the other side I wouldn't attempt to climb it.

2. Projective techniques could be used in numerous ways for business research. One way would to use the sentence completion method to see what people say about your product and find categories for this information to help you to find a target market.
Sometimes, the person you are surveying does not feel completely comfortable with giving their opinion on certain topics. In this case, you could use the third person technique and ask them what their friends may think on the subject to get their opinions out anyways.
The Thematic Appreciation Tests would probably be best with helping to determine the usefulness of corporate logos or slogans. Showing a picture to a group and letting them elaborate on it will give you great feedback on its effectiveness.

Ethical Issues

Ethical Question #1

The researcher should report back the the V.P. of McDonald's with all the statistical data they have collected. Even though the V.P. wants to hear good results, you have an ethical obligation to present them with your results good or bad. If you failed to tell the V.P. that 92% of health-conscious Americans would eat McDonald's, he may continue to waste millions of dollars trying to target the wrong people with their marketing and the V.P. would be wanting to know why you didn't perform well.

Ethical Question #2

While selecting my tenth candidate for my final focus group I would love to be able to use my dad as a quick and easy way to fill the spot, but I couldn't allow him to ethically. Even though he just turned 56 two weeks ago, he is still outside the target age we are basing our research on and would not yield optimum results. Chances are, if i did include my father, there would be a lot of sampling bias on his part due to him trying to answer questions to please me rather than be truthful about Home Depot. In conclusion, i would not allow my father to participate in my focus group and will have to continue searching.