ST327     
Market Research: An Integrated Approach

This information is for the 2015/16 session.

Teacher responsible

Dr James Abdey COL.7.09 and Mr Karsten Shaw

Availability

This course is available on the BSc in Business Mathematics and Statistics, BSc in Management and BSc in Statistics with Finance. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

Pre-requisites

Students must have completed one of the following: Elementary Statistical Theory (ST102), Statistics for Management Sciences (ST203), Learning and Quantitative Data (MG205), Analytical Methods for Management (MG202), or equivalent. Not to be taken with ST307.

Course content

The main ideas and applications of market research techniques. ST327.1 Topics covered are introduction to market research, defining the market research problem, research design, internal secondary data and the use of databases, qualitative research: focus group discussions, projective techniques, survey and quantitative observation techniques, measurement and scaling: fundamentals, comparative and non-comparative scaling, questionnaire design, sampling: design and procedures, final and initial sample size determination, cross-tabulation and hypothesis testing, analysis of variance and covariance, correlation and regression, discriminant analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis and conjoint analysis. ST327.2 Case Studies: Students use the information and techniques gained from ST327.1 to carry out a co-operative Market Research Case Study. Individual write up of the Case Study forms part of the assessment.

Teaching

20 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the MT. 6 hours of lectures in the LT. 1 hour of classes in the ST.

Lectures will run in weeks 1-10 and classes in weeks 2-11.

Formative coursework

Students are given weekly exercises to work on for discussion in class

Indicative reading

Malhotra, N.K., D.F. Birks and P.A. Wills (2012) Marketing Research: An Applied Research (Fourth edition), Pearson (earlier editions are also fine)

Assessment

Exam (60%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.
Coursework (25%) in the ST.
Presentation (15%) in the LT.

The assessed Case Study work is split into two parts; a group presentation and an individual piece of coursework. 

Student performance results

(2012/13 - 2014/15 combined)

Classification % of students
First 29.8
2:1 50.9
2:2 16.7
Third 0.9
Fail 1.8

Key facts

Department: Statistics

Total students 2014/15: 61

Average class size 2014/15: 14

Capped 2014/15: No

Value: One Unit

Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

PDAM skills

  • Application of numeracy skills
  • Commercial awareness