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Thompson Rivers University
Thompson Rivers University

MKTG 3481: Marketing Research

Students gain an understanding of marketing research and its value in analyzing consumers, markets, and the environment. Topics include an overview of market research and research design, exploratory research; descriptive research; scaling; sampling; and data analysis and reporting.

Learning outcomes

  • Write a management decision problem and a marketing research problem, and discuss the differences between them.
  • Clearly articulate the value in conducting exploratory research to define the research problem.
  • Collect secondary data to refine a marketing research problem.
  • Plan, conduct, and interpret a focus group.
  • Create a strategy for increasing survey response rates.
  • Differentiate between situations that call for surveys and situations that call for observational research.
  • Create and conduct a small survey, applying a wide range of survey, scale, and questionnaire techniques.
  • Recommend the best sampling technique for different situations and defend that recommendation.
  • Create a frequency distribution and a cross-tabulation, conduct basic statistical analysis on the data, and summarize the results in clear language.
  • Write a marketing research report in APA style.

Course topics

Module 1: Introduction to Marketing Research and Research Design

Module 2: Exploratory Research

Module 3: Descriptive Research

Module 4: Scaling

Module 5: Sampling

Module 6: Data Analysis and Reporting

Required text and materials

Students will need to source the following on their own:
  1. Malhotra, N. (2012) Basic Marketing Research: Integration of Social Media. (4th ed.). Pearson Education Ltd.
    Type: Textbook: ISBN: 9780132544481 / 9780133469547

Assessments

Please be aware that should your course have a final exam, you are responsible for the fee to the online proctoring service, ProctorU, or to the in-person approved Testing Centre. Please contact exams@tru.ca with any questions about this.

To successfully complete this course, students must achieve a passing grade of 50% or higher on the overall course, and 50% or higher on the mandatory final exam.

Assignment 1: Writing a Research Proposal in APA Style 5%
Assignment 2: Secondary Research 10%
Assignment 3: Focus Group Researc 10%
Assignment 4: Survey Research 10%
Assignment 5: Research Report 10%
Assignment 6 (Reflective Summary 10% and Discussion 5%) 15%
Mandatory Final Exam 40%
Total 100%

Open Learning Faculty Member Information

An Open Learning Faculty Member is available to assist students. Students will receive the necessary contact information at the start of the course.

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