BUS642 Business Research Methods & Tools

Business Research Methods and Tools

Week 3: Survey research and secondary data analysis research

Surveys

Surveys can be an effective way to gather opinions and reactions from stakeholders such as your

customers. Surveys work best when you want small amounts of information from relatively large

numbers of people. People don’t finish long surveys very frequently; they might give you 5

minutes of their time, but maybe not 15 minutes. Some researchers like to use open-ended

questions in a survey such as “Do you like Pepsi or Coke better?” but these questions can be

difficult for people to answer without prompts or assistance from another person. It might be

easier for them to answer a question such as, “On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning you hate it

and 5 meaning you love it, what do you think about Pepsi?”

Surveys require caution precisely because they (typically) involve people sharing their thoughts,

ideas, beliefs, behaviors, and so on. People are not always honest when they talk about

themselves, and they present bias in their own presentations for many reasons. For example, the

survey is about opinions involving Pepsi and Coke, people may not want to admit that they really

like either one, because they know they should be more health-conscious, and therefore might

feel guilty about liking either one of them too much.

Surveys can be conducted in many ways: in person, through the mail, over the phone, or online.

The popularity of online surveys has expanded significantly in recent years. Often, when you buy

something at a store or a restaurant, the receipt provides a website address for an online survey to

fill out. The invitation will typically include an incentive, such as a chance to win a $1000 gift

card at the store, if you complete the survey. Incentives can be useful, but they can also damage

your results, because people might fill out the survey without providing thoughtful answers just

so they can receive the incentive.

Secondary data analysis

Secondary data analysis can be a very effective method of research. Secondary data is data that

somebody else has already collected. In secondary analysis, you look at that previously collected

data and do your own analysis on it. For example, let us imagine that you want to open a pizza

chain franchise, and you are trying to decide where to put it. In this case, surveying potential

customers might not be the most efficient option. You might consider analyzing secondary data

instead, such as customers’ addresses from other franchises in the chain or census data that

would tell you where recent population increases have taken place. Other people have already

collected and analyzed this data, and you are not collecting it again, but you are analyzing it to

answer your own research questions.

When performing secondary data analysis, it is important to make sure that the data you are

using is appropriate for your question. You would not want to examine state-level census data

when thinking about your new pizza restaurant; you would want more specific data, such as city-

level or even neighborhood-level data. It’s also important to get permission to use data if

necessary. United States Census data is freely available to use because it’s government

information. However, market research data that’s been collected by a company or a third party

might not be available for use without a fee or permission from company officia ls. If you worked

for Pepsico, it wouldn’t be ethical to analyze market research data about Coke sales without

permission, because it likely belongs to your competitor.

For viewing:

Stevens, D. (2012, February 18). Survey research design [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-WOQNsggWY

Bonfim, R. (2011, February 11). Using secondary data [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKxR