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Personal Reflection

Introduction

In the whole group project, our team has completed topic nomination, film treatment, research film

and team presentation. I’m so proud of being one of the Lab group. I have learned a lot from both

lectures and my teammates in the past few weeks. When we five were conducting our project, the

challenges of how to narrow down our topic from broad to specific, how to relate our topic to

consumer behaviors theories, how to organize our presentation and make it successful were always

our top concerns.

The difficulties we have met

The first challenge we faced was deciding our research topic. This problem occurred at the

beginning of our project. After investigating in many related academic articles, we chose Food

Culture & Consumption as our topic. However, the feedback of film treatment illustrated that our it

was too broad and need to be specific since we attempted to cover too many theories.

The second issue faced by our group was lack of critical analysis during research. This problem

occurred during the preparation of presentation. In order to make the best use of limited preparing

time, we divided our work into parts and assigned them to different team members which caused

our team to work independently. Since less research was done for every individual’s part, we did

not comment on other member’s works actively. Apart from this, it is suggested that less criticism

would help to avoid conflict with others in teamwork (Robbins & Finley,2000). Every group

members tend to be polite to avoid conflict. There is lack of critical thinking involved on any of the

questions.

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The biggest challenge we faced was how to present our video in an appropriate way. To be more

specific, decisions of what to include or exclude is quite hard for our group. We deliver our

videography based on the four sets of judgmental criteria (Belk,2007). Considering them during

research, filming and editing give directions for an effective and reasonable research (Pitkänen &

Salminen, 2012).

The Topicality criterion focuses on whether the topic is interesting and directly related to the topics

and of the consumer research. The theoretical criterion is considered as the most difficult one for

the videographer since it requires us to deliver out theory-driven research videography in an

acceptable way. The theatricality and technical criterions depend on the material consumers have

filmed and the way we shoot the video.

In practice, we chose food consumption as our topic which is topical relevance in today's society. In

our video, we have examined consumers’ mainly from a theoretical perspective (e.g., behavioural

economics) and micro-view perspective (e.g., rational &emotional decision-making). Since the data

collection process depends on consumers’ interaction with the researcher (Pitkänen & Salminen,

2012), we conducted a face-to-face interview among 25 people. Face-to-face interview provided

both advantages and disadvantage over other data collection methods. Small sample size is one of

our method limitations of our research.

What have I learned?

Firstly, Through the whole learning process, I have had a better understanding of valuable

knowledge from this assignment. Our overall theme was how the supermarket customer experience

takes us from making a rational decision to making an irrational decision. From theoretical

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perspective, we have examined consumers from behavioral economics and how it relates. Then we

explored the low involvement decision-making process and discussed about motivation for choice

from a utility point of view. After that, we focused on how the supermarkets use sensory and

attitudinal theories to shift our decision making.

Secondly, I found out my perspectives in my buying behavior and in decision making has been

affected and changed. This project taught me how consumers are motivated in buying preferences.

They may influence by many factors, such as marketing campaigns, economic conditions, group

preferences, brand familiarity etc. As a result, this impact will surely bring about certain changes in

behaviors based on positive or negative aspects of learning, which more explicitly, positive or

negative experiences in a situation that I will encounter in the marketplace. Moreover, changing

consumers’ mind may bring some sort of uncertainty in the conclusions drawn from the research

activity. It also requires theoretical part should be continually updated with changing consumer

behavior.

This research is applicable in life. The study of consumer behavior plays an important role to us.

These experiences and skills will help my future study in marketing field more easily and

comfortably. Indeed, this assessment taught me that how to better understand the world and types of

consumer behaviors. They are vital factors to develop marketing strategies.

What can we improve?

If I could do this project again differently, I would do more reading and discussion. Reading more

can help me have a better understanding of the terms, and more discussion with teammates can help

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us exchange our ideas and thoughts to develop critical thinking. Furthermore, we may use both

face-to-face interview and an online survey to overcome the disadvantage of single approach and to

ensure a more representative and persuasive result. Moreover, for the future group project, we

should work more corporately than independently because it emphasizes more on group work rather

than individual work. Apart from this, I would pay more attention to improve my presentation skill.

Lex &Repanshek (2013) suggest that body language would help get the audience involved in a

presentation.

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References

Belk, R. W. (Ed.). (2007). Handbook of qualitative research methods in marketing. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Lex, J., & Repanshek, Z. (2013). Effective presentation skills. Practical Teaching in Emergency Medicine, 295.

Pitkänen, L., & Salminen, J. (2012). Crowdsourcing research to mobile consumers? Emerging themes on videographic
data collection. In Planetary Scientific Research Centre Conference, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Robbins, H., & Finley, M. (2000). The new why teams don't work: What goes wrong and how to make it right. Berrett-
Koehler Publishers.

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