Section 1. Multiple Choice
1. A causal research design is typically concerned with
a. the frequency with which something occurs.
b. the discovery of ideas and insights.
c. how two variables vary together.
d. the determination of cause-and-effect relationships.
e. establishing priorities when studying competing explanations of phenomenon.
2. Marketing research
a. involves the use of information to make better marketing decisions.
b. has as one of its objectives to improve our understanding of management as a process.
c. aims to promote government regulation of research activities.
d. is only useful in companies with over $1 million in annual sales.
e. is not very useful to a provider of services, such as a bank.
3. Which of the following statements about panels is FALSE?
a. Panels typically allow the collection of more classification information than cross-sectional studies.
b. Panel data is more accurate than cross-sectional data because panel data tend to be free from errors associated with reporting past behavior.
c. Panels reduce interviewer-respondent bias because of a trust built up through repeated contacts between the two individuals.
d. Non-representativeness of panel members may be a major weakness of longitudinal designs.
e. None of the above.
4. Exploratory research begins with
a. vague topics of interest.
b. specific hypotheses.
c. tentative hypotheses.
d. cause-and-effect hypotheses.
e. b and d.
5. Research problems arise from
a. unanticipated change in the marketing environment in the form of competitor initiatives.
b. a firm's planned change of a marketing variable.
c. customer complaint letters.
d. a and c.
e. a, b and c.
6. Which of the following is FALSE?
a. In exploratory research the major concern is with the discovery of ideas and insights.
b. Exploratory research is often used to clarify concepts and to establish priorities for future research.
c. Exploratory research investigates hypotheses.
d. Exploratory research is used to develop hypotheses.
e. Exploratory studies do not lend themselves very well to the use of structured questionnaires.
7. A hypothesis
a. is a conjectural statement about the relationship between two variables that are measurable or potentially measurable.
b. is a broad, vague problem statement.
c. cannot be discovered during research.
d. does not have clear implications for testing the relationship between variables.
e. is only found in the causal type of research.
8. Which of the following is TRUE of experiments?
a. An experiment has greater ability to supply evidence of causality because it takes longer to complete than a descriptive study.
b. In marketing, experimental treatments are generally elements of the marketing mix whereas test units are the entities that serve as objects for a firm's marketing efforts.
c. An experimental design limits one to supplying evidence of concomitant variation.
d. An experimental design is a research design in which the investigator has direct control over at least one independent variable and manipulates at least one independent variable.
e. b and d are true.
9. Which of the following is FALSE?
a. Individuals who have previously participated in a focus group are particularly valuable to researchers because they will have a more relaxed attitude than first-time members.
b. Focus group moderators typically attempt to cover all the objectives of the research in a single meeting while ensuring that group interaction is promoted.
c. Product and service ideas can drop "out of the blue" in focus group sessions.
d. Ideas from one focus group member can stimulate responses and ideas from other group members.
e. They are all false.
10. Which descriptive study is the best known and most widely used?
a. the after-only with control group
b. the cross-sectional study
c. an omnibus panel
d. a longitudinal study
e. none of the above
11. Word association tests and story-telling are examples of the method of communication.
a. structured-undisguised
b. unstructured-undisguised
c. unstructured-disguised
d. structured-disguised
e. none of the above
12. The question, "Do you feel the government should be forced to stop picking our pockets with excessive taxes and return a portion of the taxes collected to taxpayers?"
a. is leading.
b. contains an implicit alternative
c. is double-barreled.
d. a and c only.
e. none of the above.
13. The type of study design that affords the researcher the most control is
a. a descriptive design.
b. an exploratory design.
c. a field experiment.
d. a sample survey.
e. a laboratory experiment.
14. A researcher wishes to estimate the average annual expenditures per household on gasoline. Given estimates and specifications that the population standard deviation is 250, total precision is 100 and the researcher wishes to be 95% confident (use z=2) in the result, the required sample size is
a. 10.
b. 50.
c. 100.
d. 500.
e. none of the above.
15. A market research manager wishes to verify that a set of nominal data follows an expected pattern. Which test is appropriate in this situation?
a. a t-test if there are less than 30 observations and a z-test if there are more than 30 observations
b. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
c. Chi-square goodness-of-fit test
d. F-test
e. None of the above is appropriate.
Use the following table to answer the next question.
TABLE Family Size and Ownership of a VCR by Household
(Figures in millions of households)
___________________________________________________________
Family OWN A VCR
Size Yes No TOTAL
___________________________________________________________
Less than 4 10 38 48
4 or more 24 28 52
____________________________________________________________
TOTAL 34 66 100
___________________________________________________________
16. What relationship can be inferred from the above table between family size and owning a VCR?
a. Nothing can be inferred.
b. The smaller the family the more likely they are to own a VCR.
c. A lower proportion of large families (4 or more) own VCR's than small families.
d. Owning a VCR causes the family size to increase.
e. Ownership of a VCR tends to increase as family size increases.
Use the following information for the next three questions.
A researcher is interested in comparing the usage of bank debit cards by consumers in rural (r) and urban (u) areas. Each year for the past five years, she has surveyed 500 individuals (one-half urban, one-half rural) randomly selected from across the United States. She is specifically interested in any differences that may exist between the two groups with regard to usage. The results of the current study indicate that people in urban areas use bank debit cards 12 times per month on average (xu), while those in rural areas use bank cards 10 times per month on average (xr).
17. Which of the following is the null hypothesis that the researcher should use in comparing the usage rates?
_ _
a. Ho : xu = xr
_ _
b. Ho : xu - xr = µu - µr
c. Ho : µu = µr
d. Ho : µu > µr
_ _
e. HA : xu ≠ xr
18. Assuming that the standard error of estimate for the difference in means is 1.5, calculate the value of the test statistic that would be used in the comparison of the two means.
a. 0.75
b. 1.33
c. 1.88
d. 1.96
e. none of the above
19. Following Q18, given that the critical value that the test statistic is to be compared with is equal to 1.645 at a 90% significance level, which of the following statements are true?
a. The researcher should reject the null hypothesis at the 90% significance level.
b. The researcher might be able to reject the null hypothesis at the 95% level of significance.
c. The researcher cannot reject the null hypothesis at 90% significance level.
d. The researcher has provided evidence that people in urban areas use bank debit cards more than people in rural areas.
e. More information is needed before a decision about the null hypothesis can be made.
20. The distinguishing feature of probability samples is that
a. they involve personal judgment somewhere in the selection of sample elements.
b. each population element has an equal chance of being included in the sample.
c. each population element has an equal chance of being included in the sample and every combination of n population elements is a sample possibility.
d. each population element has a known chance of being included in the sample.
e. they will always be more representative of the population than nonprobability samples.
21. If the correlation between two variables x and y is equal to -.90, which of the following is TRUE?
a. x and y are highly related, whereby a positive change in x is accompanied by a positive change in y
b. the two variables x and y are not related to one another
c. x and y are highly related, whereby a negative change in x is accompanied by a positive change in y
d. none of the above
e. cannot determine from the information given
^
22. In regression analysis, if sß=3.57, and the least s quares estimates of ß is 33.2.
^
Which of the following statistics is the right test statistic to determine if this value of ß could have been due to chance?
a. F = 17.57
b. t = 0.108
c. F = 9.30
d. t = 17.57
e. t = 9.30
Use the following information to answer the next three questions:
A marketing research team collected preferences from consumers in the MidWest who rated the likelihood that they would go on each of the 16 possible week-long spa packages created by combining the factors: San Diego, CA or Phoenix, AZ; $1499 or $2599; golf green fees included or not; and daily massages included or not. (The factors were scored: 0=San Diego, 1=Phoenix; 0=$1499, 1=$2599; 0=golf not included, 1= golf included; 0 = massage not included, 1= massage included. The likelihood scale ranged from 0 to 100, with 100 meaning greater preference.) With the regression analysis, they obtained the following beta-weights (after averaging across the sample):
likelihood = -.85 destination -. 15 price +.70 golf +.50 massage
23. What feature dominates the consumers' preferences?
a. destination
b. price
c. golf
d. massage
e. golf with price, or destination
24. Which location do the consumers tend to prefer?
a. San Diego
b. Phoenix
c. Tucson (it's in between)
d. Cancun would do better because it is closer to the MidWest
e. indeterminate, more analytical details are required to make that specification
25. What would it mean if β2 (coefficient on price) were not significant?
a. destination wouldn't matter
b. consumers are price insensitive
c. the respondents weren't golfers
d. the respondents don't care for spas
e. the golf course could be exchanged for a spa