Understanding Business Research Terms and Concepts Essay Example for Free

Understanding Business Research Terms and Concepts Essay Historically, qualitative methodologies have been available much longer some as early as the 19th century as the quantitative tools marketers rely on so heavily. (2014) Donald R. Cooper Quantitative research attempts precise measurement of something. In business research, quantitative methodologies usually measure consumer behavior, knowledge, opinions, or attitudes. Such methodologies answer questions related to how much, how often, how many, when, and who (2014) Donald R. Cooper There are a few methods researchers’ uses to acquire or validate data; The interview is the primary data collection technique for gathering data in qualitative methodologies. Interviews vary based on the number of people involved during the interview, the level of structure, the proximity of the interviewer to the participant, and the number of interviews conducted during the research. The interview can be conducted individually (individual depth interview or IDI) or in groups. (2014) Donald R. Cooper Questionnaires often make use of Checklist and rating scales. These devices help simplify and quantify peoples behaviors and attitudes. A checklist a list of behaviors, characteristics, or other entities that the researcher is looking for. Either the researcher or survey participant simply checks whether each item on the list is observed, present or true or vice versa. A rating scale is more useful when a behavior needs to be evaluated on a continuum. They are also known as Likert scales. (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001) http://people.uwec.edu/ Some strengths of each statistical approach is that they can help to find the studies generalized to the population about which information is required, samples of individuals, communities, or organizations can be selected to ensure that the results will be representative of the population studied. Structural factors that determine how inequalities (such as gender inequalities) are produced can be analyzed, QUANT estimates can be obtained of the magnitude and distribution of impacts, QUANT estimates can be obtai ned of the costs and benefits of interventions. Some weakness of each  statistical is there is often no information on contextual factors to help interpret the results or to explain variations in behavior between households with similar economic and demographic characteristics, administration of a structured questionnaire creates an unnatural situation that may alienate respondents, studies are expensive and time-consuming, and even the preliminary results are usually not available for a long period of time, research methods are inflexible because the instruments cannot be modified once the study begins.(2014) interaction.org When it comes to statistic analysis, there are two classifications: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. In a nutshell, descriptive statistics intends to describe a big hunk of data with summary charts and tables, but do not attempt to draw conclusions about the population from which the sample was taken. You are simply summarizing the data you have with pretty charts and graphs–kind of like telling someone the key points of the book as opposed to just handing them a thick book. (2012) mymarketresearchmethods Sampling is a shortcut method for investigating a whole population which it gathers data here on a small part of the whole parent population or sampling frame, and used to inform what the whole picture is like Systematic point sampling a grid can be used, and the points can be at the intersections of the grid lines or in the middle of each grid square. Sampling is done at the nearest feasible place. Along a transect line, sampling points for vegetation/pebble data collection could be identified systematically. Systematic line sampling the easting’s or nothings of the grid on a map can be used to identify transect lines, along a beach it could be decided that a transect up the beach will be conducted every 20 metros along the length of the beach Systematic area sampling A ‘pattern of grid squares to be sampled can be identified using a map of the study area. Advantages: It is more straight-forward than random sampling, a grid doesnt necessarily have to be used; sampling just has to be at uniform intervals, good coverage of the study area can be more easily achieved than using random sampling Disadvantages: It is more biased, as not all members or points have an equal chance of being selected; it may, therefore, lead to over or under-representation of a particular pattern In this article, we analyzed a dataset of fraudul ent credit card transactions to uncover patterns in fraudulent transactions and to demonstrate the importance of  focusing on suspicious transactions. We argue that revealed patterns in fraudulent transactions may help financial The ability to combine to combine different research approach across conventional methodological often frustrated. Qualitative and quantitative researchers often operate with a different set of assumptions about the world and ways of learning about it. These assumptions may be seen as mutually and inevitably irreconcilable. Researchers are often taught to master only one type of method and, so, become comfortable with their expertise in handling either quantitative or qualitative analysis, but not both After reading all the material provided I must say that the best and most appropriate research method in my business would be qualitative research because it goes more in depth into the study of the business platform would give me a better and clear picture of the stability and understanding, another approach would be sampling because it gives me different choices of how to find data and make it more accurate . Inferential Article, macromolecular structures calculated from nuclear magnetic resonance data are not fully determined by experimental data but depend on subjective choices in data treatment and parameter settings. This makes it difficult to judge the precision of the structures objectively. We used Bayesian inference to derive a probability distribution that represents the unknown structure and its precision. This probability distribution also determines additional unknowns, such as theory parameters, which previously had to be chosen empirically. We implemented this approach by using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. Our method provides an objective figure of merit and improves structural quality. Because conventional structure ensembles depend on user-specific parameter settings and the minimization protocol, it is difficult if not impossible to assign statistically meaningful error bars to atomic coordinates. In contrast, stochastic samples drawn from the joint posterior density p(X, ÃŽ ³, ÏÆ'|D,I) are statistically well defined and can directly be used to calculate estimates of mean values and standard deviations (14). As a special case, we can derive an average structure with atomise error bars and are thus able to define an objective figure of merit for NMR structures (2014) Inferential Structure Determination Descriptive article Walking is second only to private cars as the most common means by which individuals get from place to place in the USA and Europe. The speed at which individuals walk is relevant to their  functioning in the community, mortality of older adults, incident ischemic stroke among postmenopausal women, and incident dementia among older adults, this study does have several limitations. First, it is not comprehensive. Although four databases were used to find relevant literature, the final search was up to the end of 2008. Between that time and the present, relevant articles other than the two identified through hand searches may have been published. Of the relevant articles identified, some did not provide data in a manner that enabled inclusion Reference (2014) Donald R. Cooper Business Research Methods 12e Entire eBook http://www.mymarketresearchmethods.com/descriptive-inferential-statistics-difference/ http://people.uwec.edu/ http://people.uwec.edu/ http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Schools/Fieldwork+and+local+learning/Fieldwork+techniques/Sampling+techniques.htm http://gbr.sagepub.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/content/14/3/373 http://www.interaction.org/annex-1-strengths-and-weaknesses-quant-evaluation-approaches http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/docview/213604856?pq-origsite=summon