mark 312-‐marketing research – course syllabus

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MARK 312-‐MARKETING RESEARCH – COURSE SYLLABUS Instructor: Kangkang Wang, Assistant Professor

Class Time: MWF 10:00-‐10:50 am

Office Hour: Monday 12:00-‐1:00 pm, or by appointment Office: BUS 3-‐30H

Email: [email protected] Office Phone: 780 492 2810

Course Website: https://ulearn.ualberta.ca COURSE DESCRIPTION

The task of marketing is to facilitate exchanges that satisfy both consumer needs and

organizational objectives. In today’s complex market environment, the success of marketing activities is affected by a number of environmental factors and this reality creates uncertainty and difficulty for marketing decision makers. As a result, there is an urgent need for

organizations to obtain quality information to assist them in designing the optimal marketing strategy, which can be achieved through marketing research.

Marketing research is the systematic process of planning, collection and analysis of data to improve marketing decisions within an organization. This course provides you with an overview of marketing research process and methods. The chief objective is to acquaint you with the skills and techniques required to conduct solid marketing research. You will gain an

understanding of marketing research through this course as well as develop the necessary skills such as designing questionnaires, collecting primary and secondary data, analyzing data and writing a research report.

TEXTBOOK (optional)

Marketing Research Essentials (Second Canadian Edition) by McDaniel, Gates, and Sivaramakrishnan. John Wiley & Sons Canada, LTD, 2013

ASSESSMENT

Group Project 25%

Midterm Exam (Feb 12) 20%

Final Exam (Mar 30) 20%

In-‐Class Assignments 15%

Attendance 10%

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Class Participation 5%

Individual Project 5%

In determining a student’s final grade, the instructor will consider the student’s overall individual performance in an absolute sense, as well as the student’s performance relative to his/her peers.

Exams (20%+20%=40%)

There is a midterm exam and a final exam. Both exams are in-‐class, closed-‐book and each accounts for 20% of the student’s final grade. There is no exam during exam weeks. Exams consist of multiple-‐choice, true-‐false questions and short answers. The final exam covers all the materials up to the exam date, including those that have been covered in the midterm.

Important: absence from exam -‐ If a student misses the midterm exam, there will be no make-‐

up exam. The weight of the midterm will be automatically transferred to the student’s final exam, in which case the final exam will account for 40% of his/her final grade.

In-‐class assignments (15%)

Students need to complete 6 or 7 group assignments (depending on course progress) throughout the semester. All assignments are completed in class and submitted to the instructor before the end of the class. Some assignments are marked based on quality. Some assignments are not marked, in which case students will obtain full credit for the assignment as long as they complete it. Students should complete these assignments in the same group as the group project (see details about the group project below).

Attendance (10%)

The instructor will keep track of attendance using a sign-‐up sheet for every class except the optional statistics review and lab sessions. Each of the 33 classes for which attendance is

required accounts for approximately 0.3 point in a student’s final grade. Students need to notify and get approval from the instructor beforehand if they are unable to attend a particular class.

Important: attendance sheet – it is the student’s responsibility to sign on the attendance sheet before leaving the classroom. Failure to do so will result in no attendance mark for that

particular day. To avoid confusion and potential cheating behaviour, students should only sign up for themselves, not for their friends. Moreover, students who are late to class for more than 20 minutes will not get the attendance mark.

Lab sessions – there will be two lab sessions. The first lab session covers how to use Excel to conduct statistical analysis and the second one covers statistical analysis in SPSS. For students who already know to use these softwares, attendance is optional.

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Statistics review sessions – the second half of the course focuses on data analysis. Adequate knowledge of statistics is critical to the understanding of these topics. For students who are unfamiliar with probability and statistics, the instructor will spend two sessions going over the fundamental concepts and principles. For students who are already familiar with these

concepts, attendance is optional.

Class participation (5%)

Students are encouraged to participate actively in class discussions and activities. A class participation sheet will be used to track each student’s contribution in class. Students who participated in class discussions on a particular day should remember to mark themselves on the participation sheet before they leave the classroom.

Individual project (5%)

Each student needs to complete a small individual project using the knowledge points learnt in class. Details about the project will be revealed after related materials have been covered.

Group project (25%)

Students need to form groups of 3-‐4 people and carry out a comprehensive research project.

The research project should be about a company who targets the student market or whose products are consumed a lot among students. Each group needs to submit a research proposal earlier in the semester and a final research report at the end of the semester. They also need to make a formal presentation of their research project at the end of the semester. Some

important dates for the project are given below.

Group formed Jan 18

Research proposal due Feb 3 Presentation of proposal Feb 3

Presentation of final report Apr 4, 6 and 8

Final report due Apr 15

Students should turn in their group member list by email no later than 10:00am on Jan 18.

Research proposal (5%) – each group should submit a written research proposal. The proposal should state the research background and research objectives, explain why the current

research needs to be carried out, and describe the data collection and analysis methods they expect to use. The proposal should not exceed 5 pages (12 point font, double space, 1 inch margin). Each group also needs to make a brief presentation about their research proposal in class. Students will be marked based on the quality of their written proposal, not the

presentation. The research proposal should be submitted through Ulearn before the beginning of the class on the due date.

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Presentation of final report (10%) – each group needs to make a 15 min presentation in class at the end of the semester. Group members can choose the presenters and form of presentation they like.

Final report (10%) – final report is due one week after the last day of class. It should be a comprehensive research report that includes but is not limited to the following elements:

background introduction, research objective, data collection method and data description, data analysis, and managerial implications. The final report should be submitted through Ulearn before the end of the day on the due date.

Important: group member evaluation -‐ at the end of the semester an evaluation form will be distributed and each group member will have an opportunity to anonymously evaluate other members in the group. These evaluations are an important assessment of each member’s contribution to the group project. In most cases group members will receive the same grade.

But if the evaluations indicate certain people are significantly “free-‐riding” other group members, their project mark will be discounted.

CLASS SCHEDULE (tentative)

Date Lecture Topic Note

Jan 4 Course Introduction

Jan 6 Marketing Research Process 1

Jan 8 Marketing Research Process 2

Jan 11 Research Design and Data sources

Jan 13 Exploratory Research 1

Jan 15 Exploratory Research 2 Last day to add/drop course

Jan 18 Experimentation 1 Group member list due

Jan 20 Experimentation 2

Jan 22 Measurement and Attitude Scaling 1

Jan 25 Measurement and Attitude Scaling 2 Individual project available

Jan 27 Questionnaire Design 1

Jan 29 Questionnaire Design 2

Feb 1 Group work on research proposal

Feb 3 Presentation of research proposal Research proposal due

Feb 5 Survey

Feb 8 Statistics review 1 (optional)

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Feb 10 Statistics review 2 (optional)

Feb 12 Midterm Exam

Feb 15 Reading week, no class

Feb 22 Group project survey design

Feb 24 Group project survey pretesting

Feb 26 Sampling 1 Individual project due

Feb 29 Sampling 2

Mar 2 Data Editing 1

Mar 4 Data Editing 2

Mar 7 Hypotheses Testing 1

Mar 14 Regression 1

Mar 16 Regression 2

Mar 18 Logistic Regression

Mar 21 Lab session 1 Class location TBA

Mar 23 Lab session 2 Class location TBA

Mar 25 No class

Mar 28 No class

Mar 30 Final Exam

Apr 1 Group work on research project

Apr 4 Presentation of research project

ACADEMIC INTERITY

The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to

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familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior (online at www.ualberta.ca/secretariat/appeals.htm ) and avoid any behavior which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

RECORDING OF LECTURES

Audio or video recording of lectures, labs, seminars or any other teaching environment by students is allowed only with the prior written consent of the instructor or as a part of an approved accommodation plan. Recorded material is to be used solely for personal study, and is not to be used or distributed for any other purpose without prior written consent from the instructor. UNIVERSITY POLICY ON COURSE OUTLINES Policy about course outlines can be found in §23.4(2) of the University Calendar.