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The topic of this semester's graduate marketing research project is e-commerce education. The project is divided into four parts, as detailed below. Each part is to be drafted for your instructor's perusal, and each part has a draft due date. The final paper, comprised of final drafts of each of the four parts, is due the last day of class. This project may be done individually (not recommended) or in groups of as many as four persons. Because of data collection concerns, three or four persons would probably be the optimal size. Please inform the instructor of the make-up of your group by the end of the second class period.
Each group should adopt one of these three perspectives (the group's choice, which should also be indicated when informing the instructor about the group's makeup):
1. You are a consulting group hired by the CSU Stanislaus College of Business Administration to survey prospective students for a specialty Master's degree program in e-commerce, or
2. You are a consulting group hired by the CSU Stanislaus College of Business Administration to survey prospective students for a non-degree certification program in e-commerce, or
3. You are a consulting group hired by the CSU Stanislaus University Extended Education Department to survey prospective students for a non-degree certification program in e-commerce, or
In any of the above cases, it is your group's mission to collect and interpret data and information helpful to the cause of marketing.
| Part One: Secondary Research |
Using sources, techniques, and approaches developed and discussed in class, the student should examine secondary sources for issues regarding designing e-commerce educational programs, behavioral issues regarding the consumption of e-commerce education, etc. For example, types of information that could be useful are profiles of institutions that already have e-commerce educational programs, design prerogatives in e-commerce programs, behavioral issues in e-commerce education, attitudes towards e-commerce, and the like. What do prospective students look for in such a program? Do men and women differ in what they want in such a program? Do people of different educational backgrounds or cureent occupations look for different things in such programs? Remember, the bottom line is the development of an understanding of what the prosective customer wants, so there should be an emphasis in secondary research on what is already known from a behavioral standpoint.
The student should access a variety of sources, both library-sourced and online. The written document for this exercise should contain: 1) an annotated bibliography of at least ten relevant sources, and 2) at least
three testable hypotheses based on replication of findings found in these sources or combination of issues found
across sources.
FIRST DRAFT DEADLINE: October 8 |
| Part Two: Survey Questionnaire |
The student creates a survey questionnaire examining the identified hypotheses of Part One, following the techniques identified and discussed in class. Each survey should include items on gender, age, household income, and undergraduate degree, in addition to those items intended to measure responses related to the hypotheses. Each survey should contain examples of nominal, interval, and ratio scales. The student should also suggest one scale from the Bearden and Netemayer book left on reserve that might assist the research (and qualify it's potential use), but this scale does not need to end up in the final questionnaire. The written document should include all of the items on the survey, and a written explanation/justification for their inclusion.
FIRST DRAFT DEADLINE: October 29 |
| Part Three: Analysis |
The student/group should collect at least 30 responses) to the survey. Using SPSS, the student should run complete frequencies for all survey items, run at least 4 interesting crosstabulations, and at least two higher-order tests (e.g. bivariate regression or ANOVA). The written document should contain an appendix with the result of these analyses and a written section which interprets the results in words.
Note: There should be a name and a contact number for each respondent, for the purpose of verification.
FIRST DRAFT DEADLINE: On or before November 26 |
| Part Four: Final Report and Presentation |
The written document should incorporate the previous three parts into a coherent report, with appendices for charts, graphs, tables. Appearance counts: must be typewritten, other considerations discussed in class.
Student should also plan for 15 minute presentation in class. Powerpoint and Elmo will be available for presentation.
DEADLINE: December 3 |
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