COMSATS University Islamabad

Department of Management Sciences

Terminal Exam – Spring 2021

Research Tools and Techniques

Program: BBA 5C Total Marks: 100

Date: July 9, 2021. Time Allowed: 3 hrs.

Name: LAIBA KHAN

Reg No: FA18-BBA-057

Time: 9-12 hrs. Name of Instructor: Dr. Tamania Khan

Question 1. Discuss, with reasons, whether they fall into the category of applied or basic
research.   (10)
1. A university professor wanted to analyze in depth the reasons for absenteeism of
employees in organizations.  Fortunately, a company within 20 miles of the campus
employed her as a consultant to study that very issue.

Answer 1: It is a basic research as the research would be done by the university professor
himself but it has taken the form of applied research because they would apply the findings
of her research to solve the problems in the organization., The professor would still continue
with the research in a in different organizations to keep on finding the reasons for the
absenteeism of employees.
 
2. A university professor may be interested in investigating the factors that contribute
to absenteeism as a matter of mere academic interest. After gathering information
on this topic from several institutions and analyzing the data, the professor may
identify factors such as inflexible work hours, inadequate training of employees, and
low morale as primarily influencing absenteeism. Later, a manager who encounters
absenteeism of employees in his organization may use this information to determine
if these factors are relevant to that work setting.
Answer 2: An Applied Research as it will be done by university the professor which is
later used by the manager to know the factors that contribute to absenteeism as for
relevant work settings.
Question 2. A store manager observes that the morale of employees in her supermarket is low.
She thinks that if their working conditions are improved, pay scales raised, and the vacation
benefits made more attractive, the morale will be boosted. She doubts, however, if an increase in
pay scales would raise the morale of all employees. Her conjecture is that those who have
supplemental incomes will just not be “turned on” by higher pay, and only those without side
incomes will be happy with increased pay, with a resultant boost in morale. List and label the
variables in this situation diagrammatically. Explain the relationships among the variables and
illustrate them by means of diagrams. What might be the problem statement or problem
definition for the situation?

Problem statement:
Research objective:
To understand the impact of low morale of employee.
Research Question:
What is the impact of low morale of employee?

Vacation benefits

Working conditions Moral of employees

Increased
happiness
Increase in pay scale

Supplement income

HYPOTHESIS:

1. Improved Working conditions will increase the employee morale.

2. Attractive Work Benefits will increase the employee Morale.

3. Increase in pay Scale will increase the employee morale.

4. Supplement Income can moderate increase in pay scale, and this will boost morale up for
the employees.

Question 3. You want to investigate the effects of hope and anger on customers’ behavioral
responses to failed service encounters in Telecom sector. Discuss the following design
decisions that you as a researcher will make to investigate this issue, giving logical reasons
for your choices.
(10)

a. Type of research question (exploratory, descriptive, or causal).

Ans: Causal. It is causal as it is investigating the effects of hope and anger on customers
and behavioral responses relationship.
b. The extent of researcher interference.
Ans: It would be maximum as the researcher interferes with independent variables like emotions
(anger hope)
The emotions are manipulated. we have manipulated some emotions to investigate customers
behavior responses to failed service encounters in Telecom sector.
c. The study setting.
Ans: It would be field experiments as study is conducted in the natural setting (industries) and
subjects under study (customers behavioral response) normally function.
d. The research strategy.
Ans: Experiments. As we have to investigate the effects emotions like anger etc on customers
responses.
e. The time horizon for the study.
Ans: Cross sectional. This is a one-shot investigation.
f. The unit of analysis.
Ans: individuals as we will collect data from different individual customers to investigate the
issue.

Question 4. As researchers we often make the “trade‐off between internal validity and external
validity.” Please explain.
Trade-off between internal and external validity
There is a trade‐off between internal validity and external validity. If we want high internal
validity, we should be willing to settle for lower external validity and vice versa. To ensure both
types of validity, researchers usually try first to test the causal relationships in a tightly controlled
artificial or lab setting, and once the relationship has been established, they try to test the causal
relationship in a field experiment. Lab experimental designs in the management area have thus
far been done to assess, among other things, gender differences in leadership styles and
managerial aptitudes. However, gender differences and other factors found in the lab settings are
frequently not found in field studies. These problems of external validity usually limit the use of
lab experiments in the management area. A solution to this trade-off is to conduct the research
first in a controlled environment for making a causal relationshipthen do a a field experiment to
analyze if the results that happens in the actual world.
(10)
Question 5. Name the type of measuring instrument you would use to tap the following: (10)
a. Which brands of beverages are consumed by how many individuals?
Ans: Nominal scale will be used.
In the questionnaire the researcher would ask the name of brands of the beverages
consumed by each individual for example Coca cola, Sprite and when the researcher would
get the responses from the research participants, he/she would make categories of different
brands
b. Among the three types of exams – multiple choice, essay type, and a mix of both – which
is the one preferred most by students?
Ans: ordinal scale will be used for this.
c. To what extent do individuals agree with your favorite clothing brand?
Ans: Ordinal scale will be used.
d. How much people like virtual mode of learning?
Ans: Interval Scale would be used.
e. The age of your family members.
Ans: Ratio scale would be used.
f. The number quizzes marked zero in your RTT course.
Ans: Ratio scale would be used.
Question 6. A consultant had administered a questionnaire to some 207 employees using a
simple random sampling procedure. As she looked at the responses, she suspected that two
questions might not have been clear to the respondents. She would like to know if her suspicion
is well‐founded. What analysis technique might help her in this case?
A double sampling design will be used in this case. A sampling plan in which a decision about
the acceptance or rejection of a lot is based on two samples that have been checked is known as a
double sampling plan. Double sampling plan is used when a clear decision about acceptance or
rejection can not be taken based on a single sample. In double sampling plan, generally, the
decision of acceptance or rejection is taken based on two samples. If the first sample is wrong or
not relevant, then that maybe rejected on the first sample then a second sample should not be
made. If the first sample is good and correct and is accepted on the first sample, then a second
sample is not needed. But if the first sample is neither correct nor wrong or neither good nor bad
and there is a doubt and confusion about its results, we must take a second sample, and the
decision of acceptance or rejection will be taken based on the evidence that we have gotten from
both the first and the second samples. In this case to a sub sample of the original sample can be
taken to know whether they have understood the two questions or not. (10)
Question 7. Interpret the following correlation table. (10)
We will do correlation test for checking the validity of our hypothesis.

Interpretation: Correlation Coefficient between SAT and college GPA = 0.650

Significance = 0.01

Level of Significance = 0.01

“The correlation coefficient between SAT and college GPA is 0.650 which is significant at 0.01
level of significant.”

“The correlation coefficient between Social support and college GPA is 0408 which is
significant at 0.05 level of significant.”

Question 8. Interpret the following regression tables. (10)

R equal 42.6% that means that the linear regression tells 42.6% of the variance in the data.

The test is highly significant so we can assume that there is a strong linear regression between
the variables in our models.

In the table of Co-efficient the beta value for the coefficients indicates whether these
relationships are statistically significant.

The predictor Autonomy is statistically significant because significance value is not greater than
0.05. Whereas the predictors Relatedness and Competence are not significant as their
significance level is greater than 0.05.

Every incremental increase in Autonomy will tend to decrease in Concealing with 2.385% and
is significant as it is not above 0.05 level.

Every incremental increase in Related will tend to decrease in Concealing with 98.0% and is not
significant as it is above 0.05 level.

Every incremental increase in competence will tend to increase in Concealing with 45.1% and is
not significant as it is above 0.05 level.

Question 9. Nonprobability sampling designs ought to be preferred to probability sampling

designs in some cases. Explain with an example. (10)
Answer 9: Non-probability sampling techniques are a more conducive and practical method for
researchers deploying surveys in the real world. Although statisticians prefer probability sampling
because it gathers data in the form of numbers, however, if done correctly, it can produce similar if
not the same quality of results. Getting responses using non-probability sampling is faster and more
cost-effective than probability sampling because the sample is known to the researcher. The
respondents respond quickly as compared to people randomly selected as they have a high
motivation level to participate. Sample selection based on the subjective judgment of the researcher.
Finding respondents is easy.

An example of convenience sampling would be using employee volunteers that the researcher
knows. Researchers can send the survey to the employees belonging to a particular organization for
example Pakistan Tobacco company, and act as a sample.
In a collage, for studying the career goals of 500 students, the sample selected should have
proportionate numbers of males and females. Which means there should be 250 males and 250
females. But this may not be possible so the researcher selects the groups using quota sampling.
Researchers also use this type of sampling to conduct research involving a particular illness in
patients or a rare disease. Researchers can seek help from subjects to refer to other subjects
suffering from the same ailment to form a subjective sample to carry out the study.

Question 10. Explain how the selection of participants may affect both the internal and
external validity of your experiments. (10)

Answer 10: Selection bias effects

Another threat to both the internal and external validity of our findings is the selection of
participants. First, we will discuss how selection may affect the external validity of our findings. Then,
we will discuss how selection may affect the internal validity.

In a lab setting, the types of participants selected for the experiment may be very different from the
types of employees recruited by organizations. For example, students in a university might be
allotted a task that is manipulated to study the effects on their performance. The findings from this
experiment cannot be generalized, however, to the real world of work, where the employees and
the nature of the jobs are both quite different. Thus, subject selection poses a threat to external
validity.

The threat to internal validity comes from improper or unmatched selection of subjects for the
experimental and control groups. For example, if a lab experiment is set up to assess the impact of
the working environment on employees’ attitudes toward work, and if one of the experimental
conditions is to have a group of subjects work for about two hours in a room with a mildly
unpleasant smell, an ethical researcher might disclose this condition to prospective subjects, who
may decline to participate in the study. However, some volunteers might be lured through incentives
(say, a payment of $50 for the two hours of participation in the study). The volunteers so selected
may be quite different from the others.

and their responses to the treatment might be quite different. Such bias in the selection of the
subjects might corrupt the cause‐and‐effect relationships and pose a threat to internal validity as
well. Hence, volunteers, and others who cannot be matched with the control groups pose a threat to
internal validity in certain types of experiment. For this reason, randomization or matching groups is
highly recommended.

Best of Luck!