Market Research Specialization

This course concentrates on the foundations of market research. You will be introduced to the essentials and nature of market research, the research process and the importance of a research proposal. Focus will be devoted to problem formulation, problem solving, research questions and research objectives. The course will be completed with a discussion of ethics on market research.

Learners who successfully complete this course will be able to: - Discuss the fundamentals of market research - Reflect on the research process - Formulate research questions and research objectives - Develop a research proposal - Ethics in market research This course is for market research analysts, social media strategists, marketing managers, product managers and market researchers.

This course focuses on research methodologies. In this vein, the focus will be placed on qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, sampling approaches, and primary and secondary data collection. The course begins with a discussion on qualitative research approaches, looking at focus groups, personal interviews, ethnography, case studies and action research. We will also discuss quantitative research methods with a focus on experimental research design and survey methodology. There will be an exploration of the sampling design process and different sampling approaches, including probability and non-probability sampling as well as sample size and non-response issues. We will look at the nature and scope of primary and secondary data, and the importance of measurement. We will look at the role of the Internet in market research as well as non-comparative scaling techniques. The course ends with a discussion on different data collection approaches, with a focus on observation, content analysis, narrative research, phenomenology, and the collection of data using ethnography.

This course concentrates on the design and development of different research instruments. In this vein, the focus will be placed on the development of an instrument design strategy, scales of measurement and the components of the research report. The course begins by looking at the questionnaire development process with a focus on questionnaire design, question type and wording, pretesting and revising. We will consider the identification of scales of measurement and operationalisation, and the design of an online questionnaire. We are going to discuss sources of measurement differences, and the assessment of the reliability of measurements. The issue of the validity of measurements and the various types of validity will also be explored, as well as attitude measurement. We will discuss data preparation and processing, data coding, adjustment, and data analysis using multivariate data approaches. We are also going to explore frequency distribution and measures of location, variability and shape. The course ends with a discussion on hypothesis testing and the use of statistics relevant to cross-tabulations. We will discuss parametric and non-parametric tests in hypothesis testing and group comparison as well as the different sections of the research report.