BM0421 Business Research Analysis
Assessment Brief – Postgraduate
Assignment Brief: In this assignment you are required to complete these parts:
Part 1 Total 40 marks
(a) Develop a questionnaire (15 marks)
(b) Discussion of distribution method and associated documents [250 words] (10 marks)
(c) Critical evaluation of the questionnaire [1000 words] (15 marks)
Part 2 Total 60 marks
Data analysis, findings and managerial implications [1750 words] (60 marks)
The word count should be declared on the front page of the assignment.
Scenario
Part 1 (a) – Develop a questionnaire (15 marks)
A large University has recently constructed a new sports facility for the use of students, staff, and members of the public. The sports centre has swimming pools (adult and child) along with spaces for all types of games (such as tennis, badminton, table-tennis, squash, football, netball, basketball etc).
There is one main hall that has space for spectators and a number of side halls without spectator space. There is also a fully equipped gym with cardio-vascular and weights exercise machines and space for weight lifting. The centre is open all days between 7am and 10pm and facilities can be
booked through an online booking process or in person at the reception. The centre has a small refreshment area where drinks and snacks can be purchased and also has a number of vending machines around the centre.
The manager of the sports centre wishes to canvass opinion regarding the facilities and also to get a picture of the usage of the facilities. You are a self-employed professional analyst and have been commissioned by the manager of the sports centre to undertake this important market research
exercise. You have two months to design a questionnaire, disseminate this, code the survey returns, analyse the data and provide a report for the sports centre manager.
You are required to develop a short questionnaire (a maximum of three pages) to assess the various issues described here. You should use the above information along with any further research you may wish to do to decide on the questionnaire content.
The questionnaire should be presented in an appendix to the assignment.
Students are permitted to use the ‘Qualtrics’ software to produce their questionnaire, but this is not compulsory and students can choose to produce their questionnaire using normal word processing packages. The marks awarded for the questionnaire will not be dependent on the
software used to design the questionnaire, however if Qualtrics is used then presentation should still be of a professional report standard, and a coding plan should still be provided.
Part 1 (b) – Discussion of distribution method and associated documents (10 marks)
In this section you should discuss how the questionnaire should be distributed. In your discussion, you should assess the benefits and challenges of using your chosen method of questionnaire dissemination, including methods for tackling non-response. You should also design a full and appropriate coding plan for your questionnaire and include any other supporting documentation.
The coding plan and any supporting documentation should be presented in an appendix to the assignment.
Part 1 (c) - Critical evaluation of your questionnaire (15 marks)
In this section of the assignment you are required to provide a critical evaluation of the questionnaire you have developed (word limit is 1000). The evaluation of the questionnaire will consider your design decisions: the structure, presentation, types of questions used and supporting instructions for the potential respondents. You should justify your design decisions by considering the case scenario presented above and your justification should be supported with reference to Research Methods textbooks and journal articles.
Important information: The questionnaire and associated documentation do not count towards the word limit because they are included in the appendices. You are not going to use your questionnaire to collect data and the questionnaire you design should not aim to collect the data as presented in Part 2 below, which involves a different perspective of the placement experience (i.e. that of the students, not the organizations). Instead, you will be provided with a set of data in Part 2. Although the general scenario is the same for Parts 1 and 2 of this assignment, there is not a direct link between your questionnaire and the data in Part 2.
Part 2 – Data analysis, findings and managerial implications [1750 words] (60 marks)
For this part of the assignment, you have been provided with a data set consisting of 150 responses from a survey carried out by the University regarding their library facilities.
The data can be found in the Excel file BM0421_SEM3_2016-17.xlsx and the SPSS file BM0421_SEM3_2016-17.sav, both of which are available from the module’s site on the e-learning portal (Blackboard).
Data provided:
The data consists of 150 responses as follows:
• The respondent ID number, recorded as 1 to 150 inclusive.
• Gender of student (0= female, 1 = male).
• Age of student (in years)
• Year of study (4,5,6,7,8)
Where 4 = Year 1 Undergraduate
5 = Year 2 Undergraduate
6 = Year 3 Undergraduate (Final Year)
7 = Postgraduate (eg MBA, MSc)
8 = Doctoral (eg PhD)
• Study mode (0=Part time, 1= Full time)
• Number of hours they use the library in a typical week
• Rating of the library stock, ie the books, journals etc (out of 10)
• Rating of the library quiet study areas (out of 10)
• Rating of the library staff (out of 10)
• Overall satisfaction rating awarded by the student to the library (out of 100%) Note: You may assume that the overall satisfaction variable has a Normal distribution.
Note: You should treat the ratings for ‘stock’, ‘quiet’ and ‘staff’ as quantitative variables
Analysis required:
In this section of the assignment marks will be awarded for a justification and full interpretation of the displays, measures and tests undertaken. You should show the main results using Excel/SPSS tables and graphs and these must be relevant and fully explained. You must include an explanation with your tables and graphs. Do not attempt Multiple Regression. It is recommended that you set out your answers as we have done in the workshops. Any very large tables or graphs should be placed in the appendices of your report. Where hypothesis tests are undertaken, you should state the significance level you have used.
Provide a brief interpretation of the meaning and managerial implications of the results as part of each answer (this is particularly important when a null hypothesis has been rejected).
You are required to carry out the following analysis:
(i) Describe the following data using appropriate graphical displays and summary statistics:
year of study; gender; number of hours used per week; overall satisfaction; and the three satisfaction ratings for stock; quiet areas; staff. Use your results to provide a summary of any issues, highlighting potential areas for improvement.
(18 marks)
(ii) Is there a significant difference of opinion between males and females relating to the three satisfaction ratings for stock, quiet areas and staff?
(8 marks)
(iii) Is there a difference between number of hours spent in the library per week by students from the different modes of study?
(6 marks)
(iv) Are there any significant differences in the overall satisfaction rating according to the year of study?
(8 marks)
(v) Using appropriate graphical displays and statistical measures assess the extent to which the overall satisfaction is associated with the three rating scores for stock, quiet areas and staff.
(6 marks)
(vi) Using the best of the three relationships from the previous section, develop and interpret a simple regression model to predict overall satisfaction. Consider the following two cases:
• one who gives scores of 3, 5 and 8 for stock, quiet areas and staff
respectively;
• one who gives scores of 9, 10 and 7 for stock, quiet areas and staff
respectively.
Use your regression model to predict these students overall score and comment critically on the predictions made.
(14 marks)
Total Part Two (60 marks)
End of assignment