ADPR 3850 Lecture 6 Outline of Last Lecture I This is the FIRST lecture for exam 2 Outline of Current Lecture II Research defined III 3 Key types of research problems a exploratory descriptive casual IV Academic and Applied Research V Qualitative v Quantitative VI Interviews Participant observation Focus group Current Lecture Thursday January 30 Lecture 6 TODAY Introduction to Research 4 Essential steps of effective PR Research Planning Communication Measurement Understanding research These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute So what do we mean by the terms research and research methods and why do these terms matter o To know if what you ve done is effective or evidence to believe it probably won t work Research defined Research is defined as the o Systematic investigation o Of a problem o Involving gathering evidence o To make inferences Look at the 4 aspects more closely The systematic investigation We rely on predefined procedures and methods o Survey questionnaire They are aware of the order of the questions predefined to make it run smoothly order matters o Guidelines for focus groups o Codebook for content analysis o Etc Intersubjectivity o It must be possible for other researchers to replicate our study and come to the same results o you are striving to do research in a way so others can replicate your study and more importantly come to the same results Of a problem should be empirical i e Should be answered based on observable evidence 3 key types of problems o exploratory e g focus groups to understand voters reaction to new policies o descriptive e g audience research research of market shares etc o casual i e examining the influence of one variable on another exploratory research pretesting product names pretesting brand and product names in different cultures often up to 10 000 different variations tested Focus group and survey testing for o Cognitive associations o Different meanings o Pronunciation o Will people buy a product they can t pronounce o E g Ford Probe translates into Ford Trial in German An example of descriptive research Nielsen Web Ratings Based on Netview Internet Panel First table states percent growth in unique audience going to YouTube the percent growth in number of pages viewed and the time they spent there from January to June in 2006 YouTube took off So now you want to put content on it worth it because people are going to YouTube Second table is about who is going to YouTube June 2006 predominately male a large portion were ages 12 17 Trying to explain why people drive BMWs Some Explanatory research by Fallon Worldwide Sensible enthusiast 73 male age 53 income 138k Volvo Mercedes BMW Flashy fats trackers 56 male Age 43 Income 157k BMW Acura Lexus Thrill seekers 76 male Age 44 Income 170k BMW Corvette Porsche Value minded smoothies 58 male Age 55 Income 149k Lexus Infinity Acura PR to predict who will buy their automobile how to reach these people and who to target Involving Gathering Evidence search for social regularities o predictions about specific publics larger groups of voters or consumers o not predictions about individuals Always with some chance of error o Findings hold within some margin of error there s never absolute certainty o Important distinction probabilistic vs deterministic predictions Based on samples most market and PR research is still based on samples The goal is to make inferences to o A larger population o Other time periods o Other locations societies o This campaign will also work in because their life style is similar to those in o EX Voting when election time comes they do samples on thousands to determine who will win the popular vote A few other distinctions Academic and Applied Research Academic Research o Often called basic research A o Funded through universities or foundations in order to answer broader theoretical questions o Conducted by academics o Data remain property of the researcher but usually can be used by other researchers typically share it with groups colleegues Applied Research o Often called industry research Funded by corporate or political sponsors to answer a specific applied question Conducted by Academics Research departments of larger firms Market research or consulting companies Data remains property of the client few other distinctions Qualitative Research v Quantitative Research Qualitative o soft data o Open ended questions unstructured o Valid but not reliable o Uses nonrandom samples o Can t project to larger audeinces o EX focus groups one on one in depth interviews observation participation Quantitative o hard data o Close ended questions highly structured o Valid and reliable o Uses random samples o Can project to larger audiences o EX telephone polls mail surveys face to face interviews Quantitative Research Popular Quantitative Methodologies Surveys telephone mailed online o Sampling random area probability snowball convenience o Complexity length of questionnaire o Survey mode in person telephone email web o Analysis Experiments answers question about cause effect relationship i e manipulate variables and measure outcomes o Ex All articles have the same info but different titles Question wording matters attitudes toward the death penalty Depending on how you word it and what negative positive light you put it in completely changes the responses If you do poorly developed questions wording it won t be effective data Be careful of major events attitudes toward the death penalty do you believe in capital punishment death penalty or are you opposed to it o significant increase shortly after bombing of office building in Oklahoma Example of an experimental manipulation the case of framing Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky o perception of ambiguous stimuli is reference dependent B B or 13 A B C B 12 13 14 13 Qualitative Research when do we use qualitative methods o When you re in new territory and little is known Exploratory research o When customer perceptions or attitudes may be hidden from easy view o When the product category may represent unspoken meaning to buyers o To generate ideas for products advertising or brand positioning o To feed a formal idea generation process o To screen ideas and concepts Qualitative data provides insights into how and why people think and behave as they do Arguably the most popular methods are o Interviews o Participant observation o