Business Research Methods

Dr Teidorlang Lyngdoh
Associate Professor-Marketing
Session- 3
Today’s Outline
• Intro to SPSS
• Building Block of Quantitative Analysis
Measurements and Scaling
Measurements
• Measurement is the rules for assigning numbers to objects to represent qualities
of attributes
OBJECTS ATTRIBUTES

People Attitudes
Usage

Companies Sales
Profits

Products Image
Brand Equity

NOTE: We Measure the Attributes of the Objects Not the Objects themselves
Concept behind scaling
• Scales are developed based on three parameters:

• Order : Numbers (categories) are ordered

• Distance : Difference between numbers (categories) are ordered and
quantifiable. For our purposes and most of practical purposes
• Origin : The seres has a unique origin which is indicated by the number zero.
Four types of scales
• Nominal Scale – No order, distance and origin.
• Ordinal Scale – There is order, but no distance and origin
• Interval Scale – There are order and distance, but no origin
• Ratio Scale – There are order, distance and origin.
Measurement and Scaling
Types of Validity
• CONSTRUCT - Summary judgment of whether the questions measure
what you intended them to measure.
• CONTENT - Do the questions appear to represent what should be
measured (adequate or not)
• CONVERGENT - Do the questions relate to other questions that
measure the same construct
• DISCRIMINANT - Do the questions not relate to questions they should
not relate to
Measurement Error

Examples of Examples of Random

Systematic Error Error
Social Desirability Person’s Mood

Cross Cultural Differences Question Ambiguity

Personality Differences Fatigue

Seasonality
Data Preparation
Filled questionnaire checking
• Parts of the questionnaire may be unfilled
• Pattern of response – respondent may not understand the
instructions (e.g. skip pattern may not have been followed.)
• The response show little variance (e.g. respondent checked only 4s in
7 point scale).
• Physically incomplete – one or more pages are missing.
• Not your target audience.
Treatment of unsatisfactory response
• Returning to the field if applicable
• Assigning missing value. Possible when
• Number of unsatisfactory responses are small
• Assign mean value as missing value.
• Discarding unsatisfactory responses. Possible when
• Sample size is large
• Respondents with unsatisfactory responses are less than10% of total sample size
• Proportion of unsatisfactory responses are large compare to number of question in
the questionnaire.
• Responses of key variables are not missing
Coding
• Coding is assigning a code, usually a number to each possible
response to each question.
• E.g. sex of respondents may be coded as 1 for males and 2 for
females. Similarly marital status, household size, income level,
occupation, Industry etc.
SPSS- Missing Value

Click on Transform

Click on replace missing

value and use
Input one variable at a
time or multiple
variable

Use series mean to

replace missing value
Frequencies Distribution
Frequency Distribution
• In a frequency distribution, one variable is considered at a time.
• What percentage of the market is made of up of heavy users, medium users,
light users, non purchasers?
• How many customers are aware of new product offering
• How many customers can be classified as brand Loyal?
• Are the people who buy our products in the lower income bracket?
Frequency of Familiarity with the Internet

Missing values (9)- 1

Illegitimate responses (0 or 8)
Outliers
Frequency Histogram
SPSS- Frequency

Analyze>Descriptive
Statistics> Frequencies
Add one or multiple
variables Click on Statistics
Click on stats you want
to see
SPSS Output
Statistics associated with frequency distribution

• Measures of Location- describes a location within a data set

• Mean, Median, Mode
• Measures of Variability- indicates the distribution dispersion
• Range
• Variance
• Std Deviation
• Coefficient of Variation
• Measures of Shape- Indicate the shape the distribution shape
• Skewness
• Kurtosis
Cross- Tabulations
Cross-Tabulation
• While a frequency distribution describes one variable at a time, a cross-
tabulation describes two or more variables simultaneously.
• How many brand- loyal users are males ?
• Is product use (measured in terms of heavy users, medium users, light users and
nonusers) related to interest in outdoor activities (high, medium and low)?
• Is the producer ownership related to income (high, medium, low)

• Cross-tabulation is the merging of the frequency distribution of two or more

variables in a single table
• It helps to understand how one variable (internet usage) relates to another
variable (gender)
SPSS- Cross Tabs

Click on Cross Tab Add variables in the box Interpret the Outputs
 Gender and Internet Usage

blank Sex blank

Internet Usage Male Female
Light 33.3% 66.7%
Heavy 66.7% 33.3%
Column totals 100.0% 100.0%

Blank Sex Blank Blank

Internet Usage Male Female Row Totals

Light 33.3% 66.7% 100.0%

Heavy 66.7% 33.3% 100.0%

SPSS- Percentages in Cross Tabs

Click on Row/Column Interpret the Outputs

Click on Cells Tab Unclick on observed
SPSS- Percentages & Frequencies in Cross Tabs

Click on both the

observed and
Percentages options

Interpret Outputs

Tables will have both actual numbers and percentages

SPSS- Observed and Expected Counts

Click on both the

observed expected
SPSS- Output
Chi- Square test of Association
Statistic associated with Cross- Tabs
• To determine whether a systematic association exists, the chi-square
test is used to test the statistical significance
• It assist us in determining whether a systematic association exist
between the two variables
• An important characteristic of the chi-square statistic is the number
of degrees of freedom (df) associated with it
Cross Tab in Practice (1)
• To test if there is an association between the variables, use Chi-
square statistics
• To determine the strength of the association using appropriate
statistics (phi coefficient, contingency coefficient, Cramer’s V, Lambda
Coefficient or other statistics)
Cross Tab in Practice (1)
• If relationship is significant , interpret the pattern of the relationship
by computing the percentages in the direction of the independent
variable, across the dependent variable
• If the variables are treated as ordinal rather than nominal, use tau b,
tau c, or Gamma as the test statistic. If significant, then determine the
strength of the association using the magnitude, and the direction of
the relationship using the sign of the test statistic.
SPSS- Chi Square

Click on cross tab>

statsitics>Chi-Square
Interpret results
Chi Square
• Chi Square is not an indication of Causality
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