Market Research

Market Research

Marketing Research Part A

1. Choice of Independent variables

X: Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness refers to a good organization/orderly, industrious, reliable, conventional, self-discipline, and control of impulse. Proper planning and organization skills are commonly associated with improved work performance. We expected a positively significant relationship between conscientiousness with student performances.

Y: Availability of learning resources

Besides, resources such as the library, equipped lab, and educational technology, and teaching staff, etc. are needed for learning. The availability of adequate learning resources can enhance their academic performance. We, therefore, anticipate a positive correlation between student performance and the availability of learning resources.

1. The null and alternative hypothesis

H1o: There is no significant relationship between student conscientiousness and academic performance

H1a: There is a significant relationship between student conscientiousness and academic performance

H1o: Student performance is not significantly correlated with the availability of learning resources

H1a: Student performance is significantly correlated with the availability of learning resources

• Statistical Tests

The H1 and H2 hypothesis will be assessed using independent T-test. Typically independent T-test is used to evaluate the relationship between categorical independent variables and a continuous dependent variable. In this case, conscientiousness and availability of learning resources are ordinal/categorical qualitative variable variables, while student performance is a continuous quantitative variable. The test will determine whether differences in the academic performance of students are due to conscientiousness and availability of learning resources.

Market Research Part B:

1. Questionnaire Design

Introduction

The questionnaire to assess the influence of conscientiousness and the availability of learning resources on the academic performance of students. I request you to take part in the study by filling out this questionnaire appropriately. All information provided will not be accessible to the third party as it will only be used for purposes of this study. To guarantee the confidentiality of information, I ask you to avoid writing your name anywhere in the questionnaire.

Yours Sincerely

Xxxxx

Section 1: Participant profile

1. Are you aware of important student personality traits?

Yes       £               No.  £

2. Are you familiar with different types of learning resources?

Yes       £               No.  £

3. Kindly indicate your occupation

Student                                               £

Teacher                                                £

Others, please specify ………………..

4. Gender

Male                            £

Female                         £

5. How would rate your academic performance

Exemplary                               £

Average                                   £

Below average                        £

Section 2: Conscientiousness

1. A student who demonstrates industriousness tend to attain high academic scores
2. Students demonstrating a high level of reliability achieve good academic grades
3. Orderly and organized students tend to achieve high academic performance
4. Students demonstrating reasonable impulse control achieve academic excellence
5. Conventionality in students is essential for attaining excellent academic performance

Section 3: Availability of learning resources

1. Students with access to equipped library tend to achieve high academic scores
2. Students who use educational software achieve good academic grades
3. Students with access to videos materials during teaching achieve academic excellence
4. A well-equipped lab is essential for attaining good academic performance
5. Students in schools with adequate and well-trained teaching staff tend to achieve high academic excellence
6. Measurement Scales

A Likert scale will be used to rate the level of agreement with items measuring the ordinal variables. The Likert scale limits participants on the given values leading to uniformity. On the contrary, a semantic differential scale allows participants to rate the item by filling in a number, thus creating consistency. Unlike the semantic differential scale, the Likert scale provides a universal approach of collecting data rather than letting participants be select rating numbers on their own.

• A five-point Likert scale will be used instead of a 6 and 7 points Likert scale in rating variable items. Items measuring both the learning resources and conscientiousness will be rated on a five-point scale where 1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, and 5= strongly agree. Even though having a more scale point such as 6 and 7 is better, they are time-consuming. Also, a lesser point scale reduces the level of frustration on participants, thus increasing the quality ad rate of response.

1. All five items for conscientiousness will be rated and measured using a categorical/ordinal scale. Similarly, all items of learning resource availability will also be measured using a categorical scale. The ordinal categorical scale will allow the participant to rank or rate the influence of each of the items on the academic performance of the student.
2. The overall design of the questionnaire

Overall, the designed questionnaire instrument is valid in terms of content. Accordingly, all items scale for conscientiousness derived from previous studies on crucial indicators of conscientiousness. These indicators include industriousness, orderliness/organization, reliability, conventionality, and impulse control (Roberts et al., 2005; Jackson et al., 2010). The items for measuring the availability of learning resources are well-known resources used to facilitate learning in schools. Clarity is evident in concise and straightforward statements/questions for measuring the two variables. Further to that, the items are designed to address all variables in the hypothesis.

Market Research Part C

1. Testing the difference in mean between male and female gender

Leven’s equality of variance test has a p-value of less than 0.05 (considering that the fifth digit of my student ID less than 5) for equal variances. According to Field (2018), this means that male and female student groups have unequal variance. Therefore, we focus on equal variance not assumed, and this has p = 0.051 >0.051, implying that differences in the mean of X values (conscientiousness) of male and female students are not significant.

1. The test has shown that differences in mean X between male and female gender are not significant. Hence the null hypothesis is accepted: Differences in motivation to learn between male and female students are not significant. Therefore, student motivation to learn is attributed to other variables other than X or conscientiousness. Since X is not a motivating factor, Dr. Tian should adopt different ways to motivate the male and female students to learn, and this includes other variables in questionnaires to motivate students. Other personality traits to consider as motivating variables may consist of student openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

References

Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

Jackson, J. J., Wood, D., Bogg, T., Walton, K. E., Harms, P. D., & Roberts, B. W. (2010). What do conscientious people do? Development and validation of the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness (BIC). Journal of Research in Personality, 44(4), 501-511.

Roberts, B. W., Chernyshenko, O. S., Stark, S., & Goldberg, L. R. (2005). The structure of conscientiousness: An empirical investigation based on seven major personality questionnaires. Personnel Psychology, 58(1), 103-139.