CPU Business and information Technology College

MBA program
Final exam for business research methods

Date:-Feb. 21, 2021

Time allowed 2:30hrs
Total weight: 50%

Instructor:
Name:
_______________________________ Abebayehu
ID. No: (Asst.professor)
_____________________________ Dr. Ashenafi
Dr. Habtamu
Section: _____________________________
Dr. Simachew
Dr. Tofic
GENERAL DIRECTIONS:-

 Make sure that the exam paper contains 10 questions

 Read the instructions carefully for each question the exam and attempt accordingly.

 Use of pencils and Red pens are not allowed

 Mobile phone should be switched off.

 Any action taken by exam invigilator during exam time will not be compromised

 Put aside any materials not allowed on the instructor’s desk.

 Put tick mark  on the space against your instructor’s name

 Please write your name on both question paper and answer sheet.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. – John Dewey
 Answer each of the following questions accordingly and write the answer on the
separate answer sheet provided
1. Briefly discuss exploratory, descriptive and explanatory research designs? (5 points)

2. Why critical literature reviews are is important in research studies? (5 points)

3. Let’s say, you are doing research on: “Training and Employees productivity: in the case of
company XYZ”. By having this information, identify the dependent and independent variables of
this topic with justification (4%)
4. State the measurement level of the following variables as ratio scale, interval scale, nominal
scale, or ordinal scale. (6 points)
NO. Variables Definitions Measurement
Level
1 Income Income group of the respondents (low, medium and high
income groups).
2 Ethnicity Ethnic background of the respondents (Oromo, Amhara,
Gurage, Tigre, others).
3 Exam Score of this class students on the final examination of
advanced research methods course.
4 Grade Letter grade of this class students on advanced research
methods measured as A, B, C, D, & E
5 Status Status of this class students on the advanced research course
measured as pass or fail
6 Temp. Atmospheric air condition measured by Fahrenheit
thermometer.

5. Although a number of micro and small enterprise (MSEs) are established each year in Arada sub-
city, on an average, nearly about 25 percent of them remain in a business after a year while the rest
liquidate within the same year of establishment. Assume that you are interested to examine factors
affecting the development of MSEs in Arada sub-city. Accordingly, assume that you have gathered
the following data showing MSEs established during 2012. E.C. (10 PTs)
 Types of MSEs Status after one year of organization
Existing Liquidated Total Percent
Construction 25 75 100 15.6
Manufacturing 25 105 130 20.3
Agriculture 5 16 21 3.3
Trade 55 129 184 28.8
Services 50 155 205 32.0
Total 160 480 640 100.0

Assume that you have decided to select 20 percent of the MSEs established during the year as
sufficient sample size for your study. However, as the types of MSEs are heterogeneous and hence
most likely to be influenced differently even under the same business environment, you have decided
to use stratified sampling technique with probability proportionate to size. Accordingly, answer the
following questions.
i. State your study population. (1%)
ii. State your unit of analysis. (1%)
iii. State your sampling frame. (1%)
iv. What would be your exact sample size (in number)? (2%)
v. How much percent of your sample size would be drawn from the liquidated MSEs? (1%)
vi. How much percent of your sample size would be drawn from the existing MSEs? (1%)
vii. From your calculations above, fill in the following table: (3%)

Types of SMEs Sample size chosen from

Existing Liquated Total Per
cen
t
Construction 25/160*32=5 75/480*96=15 20 15
.6
Manufacturing 25/160*32=5 105/480*96=21 2 20.
6 3
Agriculture 5/160*32=1 16/480*96=3 4 3.
1
Trade 55/160+32= 129/480*96=26 37 28
11 .9
Services 50/160*32=10 155/480*96=31 41 32
Total 32= (25%) 96= (75%) 12 100
8
6. A researcher argued that time and resource spent on proposal development is a waste. As we are
doing all these parts in the final research it is futile (useless) exercise. So, we need not exert all
these resources and effort for the purpose of developing the research proposal. Rather appropriate
care must be taken to address all the parts during the actual research. Do you accept this argument?
Why, or why not? Explain with example. (5 points)
7. You have, finally and after painstaking effort, gathered all the data that you need for your research.
The next step prior to compiling your research report for your subsequent written and oral
presentation is to analyse the data using statistical tools and techniques. Describe the data
preparation process and explain activities in data process in detail. Why is the process needed?
Further, briefly discuss some of the “simpler” statistical tools and techniques. (5 points)
8. Briefly discuss on the types of data, sources of data and also the criteria to be considered to
evaluate secondary data. (5 points)
9. Current global economic crisis seems to be especially hard for large companies. Therefore, SMEs
are facing strong expectations for their role to be key player when economies will be recovering
from the present global recession. Previous research has also widely investigated the firms’
characteristics creating profitability. However, the results obtained are inconclusive or even
contradictory. (5 points)
Required: identify the research gap based on the above paragraph

Optional
Students interested to answer this question must skip one of the questions with 5 points given
above
10. You hear that college students' affiliation with politics is different from the general
population, and you want to use hypothesis testing to see if this is true and, if so, how big the
difference is. You know that the average political affiliation in the nation is μ = 4.00 on a scale of
1.00 to 7.00, so you gather data from 150 college students across the nation to see if there is a
difference. You find that the average score is 3.76 with a standard deviation of 1.52.

Required: (5points)

A. State the null and alternative hypothesis

B. Test the hypothesis using 5% level of significance (hint: compare Z calculated with Z
criticala)