University of Alberta

School of Business

Department of Marketing, Business Economics and Law

MARK 312, Section B1, Marketing Research Winter Session 2003

Instructor: Svetlana Poukliakova Course Outline

Class Location: Business Building, Room BUS 1 10

Class Times: 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.

Class Days: Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Course Duration: January 6th – April 9th, 2003

Office Hours: Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Room Bus 2-32A

E-mail:

Website: http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mark312-poukliakova

Textbook: Malhotra, Naresh K., (2002) Basic Marketing Research: applications to contemporary issues.

Course Description:

The focus of the course is on the nature and managerial importance of marketing research. The emphasis is made on various methods and techniques of marketing research together with investigation and analysis of specific questions. At the end of the course students will be able to prepare and present their own project and get a “taste of blood” while working on a real marketing research problem.

Method of Evaluation:


1. Midterm Exams 40% (February 14 and March 21)
2. Participation 10%

3. Project 50%

Project Due Dates:

Project proposal February 24

Project Presentation April 7, 9

Final report April 9


Please note: The final project are to be prepared by students in groups.

Class and project participation will also affect the final evaluation.

The final project report has to be submitted at the last day of classes (April 9) by all groups. You will be also asked to provide a confidential feedback about the contribution to the joint work of each member of your group. There are will be two midterm examinations.

Project preparation guidelines: I n this course it is expected that you do a practical marketing research project including marketing problem identification, primary and secondary data collection, data analysis and writing a comprehensive report. Typically this type of the research project will consist of the four main stages.

Stage One. Research proposal (the research proposal typically includes identification of the marketing problem, research objectives, methods of the research including following stages two and three, time lines, etc). The proposal should not exceed 5 pages of double spaced text. The proposal is due on Monday, February 24. Please see project proposal outline on the course website for further information.

Stage Two. Developing a proposed data collection method

Stage Three. Data collection, statistical analysis and interpretation of the results

Stage Four. Comprehensive report and presentation

In terms of project evaluation, the research proposal is 10%, content of the report is 30%, and the presentation is 10% of the project grade.

The format of the final report includes the title page, introduction, main part with data collection, sampling techniques, methods of data analysis and discussion of the results, conclusion, appendices and bibliography. It is expected that your final report should not exceed 15 pages of the double spaced text not including appendixes. The format and contents of the research project will be discussed in more details in class (as well as it is discusses in much detailed way in the required text). If you project requires a participation of human subjects, you will have to submit an ethic approval request with your proposal. Please refer to forms for ethics approval process posted on the course website.

Course Schedule

Dates /

Topic

/ Assigned Reading
January 6-10 / -Introduction to Marketing Research
- Defining the Research Problem /
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
January 13-17 / - Research Design
- Exploratory Research / Chapter 3
Chapter 4
January 20-24 / -Exploratory Research Design and Sources of Secondary Data
-Qualitative Research /
Chapter 4,5
Chapter 6
January 27-31 / -Descriptive Research Design
- Casual Research Design / Chapter 7
Chapter 8
February 3-7 / -Experimentation

-Measurement and Scaling

/ Chapter 8
Chapter 9
February 10-14 / -Measurement and Scaling
-Questionnaire Design
Midterm1
/ Chapter 10
Chapter 11
February 17-21 / Reading week
February 24-28 / -Sampling Procedures

-  Sample Size Determination

Project proposal due
/ Chapter 12
Chapter 13
March 3-7 / -Field Work
- Data Preparation and Analysis Strategy, Methods / Chapter 14
Chapter 15
March 10-14 / - Frequency Distribution,
Hypothesis Testing,
And Cross-Tabulation
/ Chapter16
March 17-21 /

-Hypothesis Testing

Related to Differences
Midterm 2
/ Chapter 17
March 24-28 / -Correlation, Regressions, Other Methods of Analysis / Chapter 18
March 31-April4 / -Correlation, Regressions, Other Methods of Analysis
-Report Preparation and
Presentation / Chapter 18
Chapter 19
April 7,9 / -Project Presentations
-Final project reports due