Course Catalogue

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This course aims to help students to understand the nature and scope of marketing research and its role in supporting the design and implementation of successful marketing decisions.

Teaching will be delivered through a series of 5 x 2 hour lectures, 3 x 2 hours lab sessions and 2 x 2 hours tutorials in semester 2.

Please refer to the current graduate prospectus at http://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/prospectus

None

Not Applicable

The summative assessment encapsulates several pieces of work in a project portfolio format of individual pieces of work. The lectures, tutorials and lab sessions guide students through the principles and techniques of conducting a piece of marketing research. Students are expected to develop a marketing research proposal as part of their summative assessment. Along with the marketing research proposal they must submit their research instruments (an interview guide and a questionnaire) and critically reflect on how their research is intended to be conducted (e.g., critically discuss the intended academic contributions, managerial implications, critically review the literature, define and critically discuss key terms, set relevant research aim and questions/objectives, hypotheses, critically discuss various steps in collecting and analysing qualitative and quantitative data, critically discuss sampling, participant/respondent recruitment procedures, ethical implications, research constraints/limitations, etc, and other relevant points/documentations where applicable). These elements collectively form the portfolio of assessed work. The word limit (2500 words) corresponds to a required 2500 words on the marketing research proposal and critical discussions; there will then be additional documentation for which a specified word count would not be appropriate (2500 words excluding references, any appendices, tables/charts, figures, diagrams and exhibits). Rules of - and + 10% apply.

Specifically, the course aims to:

■ Develop students' ability to recognise the relative values and importance of marketing research, especially in the international marketing environment.

■ Encourage the acquisition of skills relating to the critical analysis, interpretation and discussion of the different marketing research designs and methods.

■ Equip students with the appropriate knowledge of marketing research techniques in order to be able to conduct primary research.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Clearly identify various research designs, and explain the differences between exploratory, descriptive and causal research designs.

■ Analyse the nature and scope of secondary, and primary data and be able to collect, analyse and assess secondary, and primary data for specific research purposes.

■ Differentiate between situations that call for qualitative, and situations that call for quantitative research.

■ Explain the differences between qualitative and quantitative marketing research in terms of the objectives, sampling, data collection, and analysis.

■ Select the most appropriate qualitative research methods (e.g. focus-groups, in-depth interviews, semi-structured interviews, etc.) based on the purpose of the research problem.

■ Apply a range of survey, scale, and questionnaire techniques in order to effectively conduct a survey.

■ Recognise, and recommend the best sampling technique for different situations, and defend that recommendation.

■ Explain the nature of descriptive statistics, and other methods of data analysis (e.g. t-tests, ANOVA, correlation analysis, etc.)

■ Effectively write a marketing research proposal.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.