Primary marketing research is generally used when all other options for gathering marketing research have been exhausted. It is very expensive, and sometimes the research itself is flawed in its design.
One of the areas of primary marketing research we are all familiar with is the customer satisfaction survey. Even this supposedly simple type of survey is difficult to design to elicit the most accurate responses from customers. Let's get a little experience in question design.
Go to www.surveymonkey.com. Click on "Examples" then "Customer Satisfaction," then on the Customer Satisfaction Survey Template, click "Preview," On the right side, click on "Surveys 101." (You should not have to sign up for an account to access this information.)
Scroll through the tutorial on survey design paying special attention to the section on "How to design a Survey." Then create one question you would ask UMUC students about this class for the purpose of improving the course, or measuring student satisfaction. The question type can be multiple choice, comment/essay, rating scale - your choice based on the objective of the question.
Give a few brief comments as to why you felt this question is an important measure of customer satisfaction.