Carlson School of Management

University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Final Exam Study Guide

40 multiple questions: 2 points each 80 points

3-4 Short answer essays 20 points

100 points

The test may include any of the chapters from the book, in-class discussion, all articles,
videos, cases, and guest lecturers. You are responsible for all content discussed in class.

The exam tests your ability to apply marketing research concepts, not just memorization.
The students who do best on the exams read the book, review all lecture slide notes and
notes taken in class, as well as study with another classmate.

Survey Methods

1. What is a Survey?
a. A survey gathers facts, opinions and attitudes with a large number of
respondents using a predesigned questionnaire.
i. Most popular method of market research
b. Advantages
i. – Standardization
ii. – Ease of administration
iii. – Suitability to tabulation and statistical analysis
iv. – Projectable to population as a whole
v. – Sensitivity to subgroup differences
c. Disadvantages
i. – Can have errors, which cause misleading results
1. Leading and loaded questions
ii. – Sometimes can’t get to underlying motivations

2. What survey methods are used?

a. Person Administered
i. Interviewer reads questions, either face-to-face or over the
telephone, to the respondent and records his or her answers.
1. – Mall intercept surveys
2. – Phone surveys
3. – In-office/executive interviews
4. – In-home interviews

b. Computer Assisted
i. Interviewer verbalizes the questions while relying on computer
technology to facilitate the interview work.

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

ii. The most advanced telephone interview companies have

computerized the central location telephone interviewing
process with systems called computer-assisted telephone
interviews (CATI).
1. – Phone interviews using CATI
2. – In-home using tablet

c. Computer Administered
i. The computer plays the integral role in posing the question and
recording respondents’ answers. Respondent answers questions
using an internet based questionnaire Ex: Online survey
1. – Online surveys

d. Self Administered
i. The respondent is in control
ii. Respondent completes the survey on their own without an
agent – computer or human – administering the interview.
1. – Mail survey
2. – Drop-off survey

e. Mixed Method
i. Combining different methods to create the best survey for ones
needs.

3. What are the pros and cons of each method?

a. Person Administered (EX: Mall Intercept)
i. Pro:
1. Able to create a rapport with respondent
2. Able to show product, probe, clarify instructions, adapt,
get feedback
3. High participation rate
ii. Con
1. Human error, interview bias
2. Mall intercept
a. A mall-intercept is a survey whereby
respondents are intercepted in shopping in
malls. The process involves stopping the
shoppers, screening them for appropriateness,
and either administering the survey on the spot
or inviting them to a research facility located in
the mall to complete the interview.
i. Not representative of the population in
general
ii. Sample may be skewed
iii. Only mall patrons are surveyed

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

iv. Respondent discomfort answering in a

mall
3. Expensive

b. Computer Administrated Survey

i. Pros
1. Respondent not seeking to please interviewer
2. Ease of creating and posting
3. Flexible design, customizable (e.g. skip logic patterns,
show video)
4. Fast turnaround, quick tabulation of results
5. Relatively inexpensive
ii. Cons
1. Respondents must have internet access
2. Survey fatigue – low cooperation rates
3. Lack of internal expertise
4. “Professional” panel members

c. Computer Assisted Survey

i. Respondent is contacted by phone interviewer is the “voice” of
the computer. EX: CATI phone interview
ii. Pros
1. Computer assisted
a. Reduces data errors
b. Customizable
c. Tabulations may be run during study
2. Telephone survey
a. Relatively inexpensive for geographic reach
b. Yields high quality sample
c. Quick turnaround
iii. Cons
1. Telephone survey
a. Unable to show product prototypes, ads,
packaging
b. Cannot observe body language, make eye
contact
c. Limited to quantity of information that can be
obtained
d. Ability to reach respondents (i.e. lack of
landlines, cell phones, screening)
d. Self Administered
i. Survey mailed to respondent who fills out and returns by mail
(mail survey)
ii. Pros

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

1. Respondent control – completed on their own

time/schedule
2. Confidentiality
a. Respondent ease with sensitive topics (no
interviewer apprehension)
3. Reduced cost for geographic reach
iii. Cons
1. High questionnaire requirements (no interviewer to
clarify)
2. Non-response rates are high
3. Time to return, tabulate
4. Self-selection bias

4. What are the trade-offs when selecting a survey method?

a. Time
i. You might want to do a certain type of survey, but due to time
have to choose a different one.
1. It might take longer to get results from a mail survey
than a person-administered (mall intercept)
b. Person administered are better for getting more details and
understanding answers further, however, there is more bias involved
c. Computer administrated removes interviewer bias and is fast to see
results, but it can alienate those with no way to use this
technology/those who are bad at technology and people can become
“professional survey takers”
d. Computer assisted have less bias, have a fast turnaround and are easy
to customize; however, it can be hard to reach people (calling)
e. Self-administered are low cost, gives respondent time to reply, and
there is a confidentiality associated with it; however, non responses are
high, time to return is iffy, and there is no one to help a person if they
have questions (no easy way)

5. How to choose best Survey Method

a. – Incidence rate: screen by online or telephone
b. – Time available for data collection
c. – Money available for data collection
d. – Type of respondent interaction required (such as sampling a product,
viewing an ad, etc.)
e. – Cultural/infrastructure considerations

6. What are the dangers of online surveys?

a. Non-response: Surveys not returned
b. Self –selection bias: Those who do not respond are probably different
from those who do

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Measurement and Scaling

1. What is measurement?

a.
b. Measurement: specific features or characteristics of an object that can
be used to distinguish it from another object

2. What is measurement reliability and validity?

a. Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and
consistent results
b. Validity refers to how well a test measures what it is purported to
measure.

3. What are the levels of measurement scales and how are they used in
questionnaire design?
a. Nominal
i. used to represent identity or classification purposes
1. – Gender, marital status
2. – To categorize/separate respondents

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

3. – Mutually exclusive (ex: can’t be married and divorced)

4. – Collectively exhaustive categories
5. – Stats: frequencies, mode
ii. The simplest type of scale
iii. Assign a value to an object for identification or classification
purposes
iv. Market researchers use nominal scales quite often
v. Examples:
1. 1. Which best describes where you live (geographic area):
__Urban __Rural __Suburban
2. 2. Are you planning on purchasing an automobile in the
next 6 months: __Yes __No
3. marital status, zip code, college id, ssn, state of residence

b. Ordinal
i. Means ‘order’
ii. Used to represent order and relative standing
iii. Ranking preferences, ratings
iv. Difference between is not known
v. Include ranking scales
vi. Stats: frequencies, median, mode
vii. Examples
1. High school class ranking: 1st, 9th, 87th…
2. Socioeconomic status: poor, middle class, rich
3. Level of Agreement: yes, maybe, no.
4. Time of Day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening,
night
5. Political Orientation: left, center, right

c. Interval
i. Have both nominal and ordinal properties
ii. Capture information about differences in quantities of a concept
iii. Intervals between numbers have meaning
iv. Equal intervals between points show relative amounts
v. Preferred measure of more complex concepts
vi. Stats: entire range may be used
vii. Types
1. Likert scale (respondents are asked to indicate their
degree of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric
agree– disagree scale for each of a series of statements.)
a. Lifestyle inventory
i. A special application of the Likert scale
question form
ii. Takes into account the values and
personality traits of people as reflected in

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

their unique activities, interests, and

opinions (AIOs) toward their work, leisure
time, and purchases.
2. Semantic differential scale
a. Used to measure the meaning of an object to a
person
b. Ranked it between dichotomous (opposite) pairs
of words or phrases
c. Quick means of examining the strengths and
weaknesses of a product or company image
d. Respondents indicate their impressions of each
property by indicating locations along its
continuum.

e.
i. switched every other to ensure people
were paying attention
3. Stapel scale (relies on positive and negative numbers,
typically ranging from +5 to –5.)

d. Ratio
i. Interval scale with meaningful zero point (shares all the
characteristics)
ii. Ability to say how many times greater or smaller one object is
from another.
iii. Distances, weights, age, income (not range)
iv. Does not include 0

4. What are examples of scales? (e.g. nominal, ordinal, Likert?)

a. Graphic Rating Scales
i. Aka choose a photo that shows feelings the most
ii. Present respondents with a graphic continuum
1. – Respondents are allowed to choose any point on the
continuum to indicate their attitude
iii. Ways to determine a respondent’s score
1. – record respondents’ marks accordingly
iv. Advantage

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

1. – Allows the researcher to choose any interval desired for

purposes of scoring
b. The rest are mentioned above

5. Net Promoter Score?

a. Historically used customer satisfaction
b. Reality – not always tied to performance
c. “Flavor of the month”
d. NPS is tied to growth
i. How likely are you to recommend this product to your friends?
e. Problem: miss out on a lot of information. Not great for finding all
issues; people who answered might have intense feelings creating a bias.
f. (Number of promoters – number of detractors) / (Number of
respondents) x 100

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 Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Questionnaire Design
1. What is the purpose of a questionnaire?
a. It is a critical link to the consumer. It allows you rto understand your
consumer and what they want
i. “ask a bad question and you get bad results”

2. What is are some of the pitfalls of poor questionnaire design?


a. “ask a bad question and you get bad results”
b. order bias: can result from an alternative answer's position in a set of
answers or from the sequencing of questions, tends to distort survey
results, asking specific questions before asking about broader issues is a
common cause

3. What some important considerations effective questionnaire design?

a.

4. Questionnaire design process and key steps?

a. Establish Questionnaire flow
b. Determine the question response format
c. Code the questionnaire
d. Pretest the questionnaire

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

5. What are criteria for a good questionnaire?

a. 1. Does it provide decision making information?
b. 2. Refer back to the research objective and management decision
i. if you don’t have plans to change/implement something, don’t add
it
c. 3. Will it supply the data needed to make the decision?
d. 4. Does it consider the respondent (person taking survey)
i. Poor design, length, confusing surveys have turned off thousands
of respondents
1. ▻ Design explicitly for the intended respondent – a human
being!
2. ▻ Do: be brief, use simple grammar, be clear and avoid
jargon and business terminology
e. 5. Considers analysis (editing and coding)
i. ▻ Branching and skip patterns
1. ▻ Skip pattern: sequence in which questions are asked,
based on respondent’s answer
2. ▻ Editing: to ensure that skip patterns were followed and
the questionnaire completed
ii. ▻ Coding: the process of grouping and assigning numeric codes to
responses (e.g., open ended questions)

6. Why is pre-testing important?

a. A pretest is a dry run of a questionnaire to find and repair difficulties that
respondents encounter while taking a survey. Skipping it can result in a
poor survey and then poor results.
b. Finds any problems with the questionnaires

7. What are the advantages and disadvantages of closed-ended and open-ended

questions?
a. Open ended: asks respondents to answer in own words
i. Advantages:
1. Keeps participant engaged and doesn’t put words in their
mouth, good for warm up or start of survey, helps

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

understand more, detailed information

ii. Disadvantages:
1. Take a long time to sift through, and can create interviewer
bias (people define different things)
b. Close ended: fixed alternative questions give respondents limited answers
and asks them to choose the one closest to their own viewpoint
i. Advantages
1. Requires less interviewer skill, takes less time, and are
easier for the respondent to answer. Answers to closed
questions are classified into standardized groupings.
Coding automatic. No interview bias
ii. Disadvantages:
1. Unanticipated alternatives emerge when respondents
believe that closed answers do not adequately reflect their
feelings

8. What kinds of questions should you avoid?

a. leading questions
b. Loaded questions
c. Ambiguity
i. Items on questionnaires are often ambiguous because they are too
general
ii. Indefinite words such as frequently, often, ready, etc., have many
different meanings
d. Double barreled items

9. What are leading, loaded, double-barreled questions?

a. Leading Questions: suggest or imply certain answers and can contain
hints, can be the cause of unnecessary additions to the question
b. Loaded Questions: suggest a socially desirable answer or are emotionally
charged
c. Double Barreled Questions: a question covering several items at once, the
results may be exceedingly difficult to interpret, it is impossible to tell
how the respondent is weighing the different elements involved
i. Ex: did you think this was fun and education?

10. What is CATI?

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

a. computer-assisted telephone interviews, the most advanced telephone

interview companies have computerized the central location telephone
interviewing process

11. What is a good questionnaire flow?

a. Funnel Approach
i. General to specific
b. Screening questions
i. If we care about classifications, do these at the top
c. Warm ups
d. General category questions
e. More complicated questions
f. Classification questions last
i. Age, sex, demographics
1. At end because it’s a “cool down” from deeper questions
and reduces some bias

12. Skip and logic display?

a. Skip logic: lets the questionnaire designer direct the online survey to ask
questions based on previous answers.
b. Display Logic: is similar to skip logic. The survey displays or asks
questions that are appropriate based on the respondent’s prior answers

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 Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Sampling Design

1. What are the basic concepts in sampling?

a. Sampling is the process of obtaining information from a subset (sample) of a
larger group (population)
b. Sample method determines a sample’s representativeness
c. Sample size determines a random sample’s accuracy

2. What is a sample?
a. The identified and selected subset for the survey
i. The number of people we need to talk to in order to represent the
population we’re studying
ii. Ideal sample size is 300

3. What is a population?
a. the total number of people in the group you are trying to reach with your
survey

4. Difference between sample and census?

a. A census is a population count and a sample is a subset of the population

5. Sampling error vs. non-sampling error?

a. Sampling error: involves sample selection and sample size
i. The larger a probability sample is, the more accurate it is (less sample
error)
b. Nonsampling error: pertains to all sources of error other than sample selection
method and sample size.

6. Steps in a sampling plan?

a. Identify the population of interest
b. Specify a sampling frame (size)
c. Specify a sampling method

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

i. Random or nonrandom
d. Determine sampling size

7. What is a sampling frame?

a. a list of individuals from whom the sample is drawn.
b. list of population elements or members from which units to be sampled are
selected

8. Differences between probability and non-probability sample?

a. Probability samples: simple random, systematic, stratified, cluster
i. Simple random sample:
1. a probability sample in which each element has an equal
chance of being selected
ii. systematic sample
1. a sample drawn by selecting individuals systematically;
obtained by selecting every kth individual from the population
iii. stratified sample
1. the population is divided into strata and a random sample is
taken from each stratum
iv. cluster sample
1. obtained by selecting all individuals within a randomly selected
collection or group of individuals
b. Non-probability: convenience, snowball, judgment, quota
i. Convenience sample
1. A sample selected by taking the members of the population that
are easiest to reach
ii. Snowball sample
1. Non-probability sample where existing subjects recruit future
subjects from their acquaintances
iii. Judgment sample
1. you get the opinions of pre-selected experts in the subject
matter.
2. the researcher uses their judgment to select population

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MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

members
iv. Quota sample
1. a sample constructed to reflect the major characteristics of a
given population

9. When should you use which kind of sample method?

a. See sample methods above

10. Considerations for sampling design

a. Time
b. Size of population you want to study
c. Cost
d. Availability of reach

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 Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Sample Size

1. What is it important to consider when determining sample size?

a. How accurate do you need to be? +/- 10%? 5%?
b. How homogeneous is the population?
c. What confidence level do you need?
d. What types of analysis will you do?
e. How many subgroups will you analyze? (age, income, geographical
region, customer size)

2. What is the rule of thumb for sample size?

a. 100 per subgroup
b. 300 is the ideal sample size
c. advertising = 200-300

3. What is the central limit theorem?

a. As sample size increases, the distribution of sample means of size N,
randomly selected, approaches a normal distribution
i. Since 95% of samples drawn from a population will fall within +
or – 1.96 × sample error (this logic is based upon our
understanding of the normal curve), we can make the following
statement . . .
1. If we conducted our study over and over, 1,000 times, we
would expect our result to fall within a known range. Based
upon this, we say that we are 95% confident that the true
population value falls within this range.

4. What goes into understanding sample size?

a. “Whatever be the aim, one can draw a precise and accurate conclusion
only with an appropriate sample size. A smaller sample will give a result
which may not be sufficiently powered to detect a difference between the
groups and the study may turn out to be falsely negative leading to a type
II error. A study on a small sample is quite tempting for obvious reasons,
but it is a waste of time and money as the result will be invariably
inconclusive. Very often, a small sample size is decided arbitrarily based
on the researchers’ convenience, available time, and resources, resulting in
a null trial due to insufficient number of subjects studied.”
b. “A too large sample size is also not recommended as it has its own
consequences. First, it is a waste of the limited available resources in
terms of time and money when an answer can be accurately found from a
smaller sample. Secondly, recruiting more subjects than required can also
be termed as unethical as the patients participate in a study with faith and
an altruistic motive which should not be misutilized.”

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

5. What is margin of error?

a. A percentage that describes how closely the answer your sample gave is to
the “true value” is in your population.
i. The smaller the margin of error is, the closer you are to having the
exact answer at a given confidence level.

6. What is confidence level?

a. A measure of how certain you are that your sample accurately reflects the
population, within its margin of error.
i. Common standards used by researchers are 90%, 95%, and 99%.

7. How do you calculate sample size?

a.

8. What does sample size determine vs what sample method/design determines?

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 Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Data Processing/collection/ analysis

1. What is data collection?

a. The phase of the marketing research process during which respondents
provide their answers or information to inquires posed to them by the
researcher

2. What are errors in data collection?

a. Fieldwork error
i. Errors committed by the persons who administer the questionnaires
1. Poor, misrepresented sample
2. Bad moderator
b. Respondent error
i. Errors committed on the part of the respondent
c. Errors may be either intentional or unintentional

3. Quality controls for error?

a. Use incentives
b. Validation checks
c. Third person techniques
i. Think of what your mom, dad, grandparent, etc. would think
d. Reversal of scale end points
i. Good……Bad
ii. Negative…….Positive
e. Prompters
i. “remember this is why we’re asking you this”

4. Kinds of errors?
a. Nonresponse error
i. Failure on the part of the prospective respondent to take part in a
survey or to answer specific questions on the survey
b. Refusals

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

i. Refusal
1. Occurs when a potential respondent declines to take part in
the survey
ii. Item omission
1. The phrase used to identify the percentage of the sample
that did not answer a particular question.

5. How to measure non-response error?

a. Response rate = (number of completed interviews) / (number of eligible
units in sample)

6. How do you calculate response rate?

a. divide the number that responded to your survey by the total you invited.
This is your sample response rate. For example, if 20 out of 100
responded you have a 20% sample response rate

7. What is data coding?

a. A dataset is an arrangement of numbers (mainly) in rows and columns.
b. The dataset is created by an operation called data coding
c. Closed ended: assign numbers to pre-determined categories
d. Open ended: determine categories and assign a number
i. Time consuming, subjective, can have a long list

8. What are important steps for coding qualitative questions?

a. Read through responses and highlight key words or phrases C
b. reate list of most frequently mentioned responses
c. Create categories
d. Create a code and assign a number
e. Enter and tabulate

9. Describe what descriptive statistics to use for nominal/ordinal questions and

which to use for interval/ratio
a. Typical descriptive statistics associated with nominal data are frequencies
and percentages.
b. As with nominal level variables, ordinal level variables are typically
described with frequencies and percentages
c. Interval and ratio level variables are typically described using means and
standard deviations.

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

10. What is a frequency table?

a. A frequency table is constructed by arranging collected data values in
ascending order of magnitude with their corresponding frequencies.
b. http://www.mathsteacher.com.au/year8/ch17_stat/03_freq/freq.htm

11. What are cross tabulations and when are they useful?
a. Cross tabs use statistical techniques to understand differences between and
among variables
b. Frequency distribution of subgroup is compared to frequency distribution
of total sample
c. Questions have to use nominal or ordinal scales

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Communicating the results

1. What are key elements of a report?
a. Title page
b. Table of contents
c. Executive summary
d. Background
e. Methodology and rationale
i. What did you pick and why? (why are IDI, focus groups good?)
f. Findings
g. Conclusions and recommendations
h. appendices

2. What is the most important part of the report? Hint-the only part that
sometimes get read?
a. The executive summary
i. Content summary + key conclusions and recommendations

3. What is the difference between a conclusion and recommendation?

a. Conclusion:
i. Generalizations that answer the questions raised by the research
results
ii. A statement or series of statements that simply communicate the
results of the study
iii. Merge information and paraphrase into a few descriptive
statements
iv. Doesn’t suggest a course of action
b. Recommendation:
i. Advice: what we do

4. What goes in the background section?

a. Management problem
b. What lead to the research being warranted?
c. Other past research studies
d. Add any color here to describe the situation
e. SWOT analysis can go here

5. What is important to remember about an oral presentation?

a. Everyone loves a good story!
b. Communicate the results in an interesting, engaging way.

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University of Minnesota
MKTG 3010 F17 LUTTER Marketing Research

Guest Speakers

1. Nielsen …
2. James Colbenson Mayo Clinic (on one note sheet on back)
3. Deb Fiorella, Frank and Fiorella …
4. Midway YMCA team (in notebook)

Case Studies: (see homework and notes on sheets)

Dove
TruEarth

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