Importance of Research

By Sarah Innes

Quantitative and Qualitative Research How Students Go About Doing This

Definition: quantitative and qualitative research

Qualitative researchA body of research techniques which seeks insights through loosely structured, mainly verbal data rather than measurements. Analysis is interpretative, subjective, impressionistic and diagnostic.

Quantitative researchResearch which seeks to make measurements as distinct from qualitative research

This research is important for students and other people researching topics to complete because of it helping back up any queries that you may have before creating a product or carrying out an event. In Jeff Nash’s blog, ‘How To Be A Good Product Manager’ it states ‘If you want to be a good product manager, utilize both quantitative and qualitative research for decision making. Numbers are good, though on their own they can not tell the whole story. Quantitative research is especially useful in product development as a way of confirming findings through qualitative research… You may want to conduct a survey of a wider group of customers to confirm your findings and get more input on specific aspects …To generalize, qualitative research is usually better for exploring, understanding, and uncovering, while quantitative research is generally better for confirming and clarifying.’ This blog helps verify the knowledge that research of all types especially Quantitative and Qualitative is a key importance for a successful project, it shows how you know what the target audience wants and that your creation is going to work in that that field.

To show the research of Quantitative and Qualitative research is putting the findings in a chart, clearing showing your result from a questionnaire of an interview. This will help structure the feedback into different category's such as good, bad and improvements. In this example table it shows a set of results which a person has drawn up summarising the research they completed about which way was the best to read a textbook , the results will help the school change the way they hand the text book out in digital form or not.

Methods and Sources of Research Definition: Primary and secondary research

Primary research

A type of research which you have gone out and researched yourself such as a questionnaire or a interview.

Secondary research

A type of research which you have gathered using somebody else's research as back up found from a book or on the internet.

This research is important for students and businesses to complete as this type of research is crucial to any successful researching stage to any project as it gathers information from the public and information which other researchers has gathered from previous years . This will help many people compare results from now to a few years ago, making sure they have enough varied results go back and complete the project. Many businesses use primary and secondary research to help them connect with there customers to help their business grow and develop. ‘Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information - information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the methods for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes, and communicates the findings and their implications.”American Marketing association - Official Definition of Marketing Research. This marketing research manager believes that this research helps link the businesses and the customers together ending in a more successful company.

This survey was composed by the shop Shoe Zone, this survey was made to help gather feedback from the shopper to help improve the service of the store. This survey is an example of primary research due the company gathering more information about their customers to help improve the company due the getting to no the wants and needs of the buyers of there products.

Data Gathering Agencies

Definition: Data gathering agencies

Data collection is a term used to describe the process of preparing and collecting data. Data collection is used to obtain information to keep record of information to make it is to make important decisions as the information is clear displayed.

People use data gathering agencies to help make their data easier to see, it shows the information clearly in a form of a table or a chart, labelling the different data accordingly. people use data gathering agency to get specialist information. An example is a list of companies in a particular market sector, People would recommend data gathering agencies if it was proven that they could provide accurate data to help back up information you may have researched using primary methods.

Many companies use data gathering agencies such as the Nokia phone company, they use this to help their customers gather data using mobile phones instead of paper forms, PDAs or laptops. ‘Nokia Data Gathering offers organizations a fast, accurate and cost effective way to collect data using mobile phones. Jump to wiki for accessing Nokia Data Gathering resources including the software, manuals and source code or discussion to submit your questions and take part in the discussion.’

Research Board (BARB), Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd (RAJAR)

Definition: Research board and radio joint audience research ltd Research boardBARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) is the organisation responsible for providing the official measurement of UK television audiences. Radio joint audience research ltd RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Research and is the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. It Is jointly owned by the BBC and the RadioCentre on behalf of the commercial sector.

People would use BARB and RAJAR for many purposes, because these companies are government run it allows the users to be comforted in knowing that the facts they find are reliable and not biased which you may find in books. People would use these websites to research into viewing figures of different radio stations and TV shows. People would be interested in knowing these figures for to gather information on what their target audience may watch and listen to understand their likes and dislikes for a product they may want to create. Producers might turn to this website to find out what TV shows attract the eye of their target audience to help them develop a new TV show or help them come up with ideas for a movie to target these people. The research they will gather is a vital stage in any start to a project, it helps the creators develop an idea which the public will like and will be instantly attract to, if they get the correct information in the start of the project it will save a lot of time and money as if they did not carry out the correct research about their audience they creation may fail.

The pie chart is an example of the type of work BARB does, the chart shows combined share of viewing for different television companies in the UK.Figures from http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyViewingSummary?_s=4

Self-GeneratedDefinition: Self-generated (own video, audio or photographic records of events) Self-generated research is the research you have produced your self, taking photos at an event to help you capture the moment to explain the event at a later date.

Many people use this type of research on a daily basis, the most common use of this is having the job as a journalist. An example of this would be needing to write up about a festival, they would need to research into the event before they wrote about it, they would start this by going down to the vent and documenting it. They would do they by using a video camera, photo and audio recorders to capture the different parts of the festival documenting peoples reactions and the events taking place. This would help their writing process as it would let them look back at the photos or video as a permanent documentation of the event to help them develop different stories for the article with the knowledge that the information is reliable.

This journalist from the Henley Standard film their interviews to then later write up in written form to the publishes in thatweeks Standard. The later uploaded the videos onto the website to show the viewers the rest of the more detailed interview if they wanted to find out more about the views of the public.

In this video they are asking the Henley public about their reaction to the What do you think about the Queen visiting Henley as a part of the Jubilee celebration?

Purposes of ResearchAudience researchAudience research ensures that the people they reach are the ones that their certain product is aimed at, this is to insure that the product is aimed at the right audience. Audience research can provide the necessary changes to a product ensuring it is tailored to the target market as it make sure that money is not being wasted, the industries which may be effect by poor audience research would include the different media industries due to the marketing being targeted at the wrong audience.

Market research Many people would under go market research to help generate revenue, the purpose of a market research company's report is to conduct good research that people want to buy or use the product. Producing poor quality reports may lead to a lower revenue as buyers become less satisfied with work produced by the market research company and refuse to purchase additional reports.

Different way to complete market research:Qualitative marketing research – Used for exploratory purposes; examples include focus groups, in-depth interviews, and projective techniquesQuantitative marketing research – Used to draw conclusions; examples include surveys and questionnaires. Techniques may include choice modelling, maximum difference preference scaling, and covariance analysis.

Production research Production research is used to ensure that a product is produced according to demand in the marketplace and that the product has sufficient quality to please consumers. The research stage begins with a research and development phase, inventors create a prototype, the prototypes get studied for the pros and to begin making refinements and adjustments. Each prototype is refined making the product closer to become the finished product.

An example of a constructed focus group, this session is being filmed to help the company look back at the feedback they have gathered from the selected people.

Bibliography • Introduction to social research: quantitative and qualitative approaches by Keith F. Punch,

Keith Punch• MRS: http://www.mrs.org.uk/mrindustry/glossary.htm• How To Be A Good Product Manager by Jeff Nash:

http://www.goodproductmanager.com/2008/01/22/understand-qualitative-vs-quantitative-research/

• Market Research, Primary and Secondary: http://www.businessteacher.org.uk/markets/primary-secondary-market-research/

• Nokia, Data Gathering: http://projects.developer.nokia.com/ndg• How to do your research project: a guide for students in education and applied social

sciences by Garry Thomes• BARB: http://www.barb.co.uk/about/tv-measurement• RAJAR: http://www.rajar.co.uk/• Self-Generated research, Henley Standard journalist work: http

://www.henleystandard.co.uk/media/video_flv/index_player.php?id=gbrowers.flv#• Research methods in applied setttings: an integrated approach to design and analysis by

Jeffrey A. Gliner, George Arthur Morgan, Nancy L. Leech• Audience Research, Ratings analysis: the theory and practice of audience research by James

G. Webster, Patricia F. Phalen, Lawrence Wilson Lichty• Market Research by Robin Birn, Patrick Forsyth