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As I reflect on this week I think of new beginnings. A fresh start and an opportunity to do better. Thus I ensured that I participated in the exercises for orientation week which included a Blackboard Collaborator (BbC) session.

I use this week as my planning week. I entered all assignment dates and times, BbC sessions and study times into my google calendar

I believe that in order to achieve any task in my you must first have a plan. Then the next step is to execute the plan as effectively and efficiently as possible.

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This week is an introduction to the course work. Business research was defined and types of business research were identified. There are three main types exploratory, descriptive, and causal. Each type of business research would require data analysis which can either be in the form of qualitative (descriptive data) or quantitative (numerical data). The researcher may also choose to use both depending on the issue at hand.

The nature of the research conducted by the business is categorized as epistemology (nature of knowledge), ontology (nature of the reality) or axiology (nature of value).

The part that really surprised me was the research issues. I never thought that  to ethics and technology were part of the issues. I always thought that technology simplified things and made it better; and that "honesty is the best policy", But this week, I learned differently and I am grateful for that experience.

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This week is the preparation week for me. The lesson provided me with details on the research process, defining the problem and writing a literature review.

The lesson reminded me of the planning that I did during orientation. This unit taught me that research requires active planning, analyzing and making recommendations. The research process is defined as a systematic approach to acquiring, analyzing, interpreting and disseminating data and information to decision makers (p 21).  These sums up the rest of the unit, a problem must be defined in order to start the research process and the literature review will have to be done based on the information that you gather for the research

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This week I learned about the research proposal, research report and the oral presentation. Their components and their role in the research process. I also learned about the significance of communication in the research process.
As I go through the unit, I begin to develop an appreciation for research material. I was not aware that all this preparation had to be done before the final product.
I look at the role of communication and realized that there must be an interconnection between all parties involve in the process if it is to provide good results to make conclusive decisions.

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In this unit the different approaches to the research design. The approaches (Qualitative Method – descriptive data, Quantitative Method – mostly numerical or statistical data or Mixed Method – use of both) can be used single handed or as a combination to conduct research.  The unit examined conceptualisation and measurement and their role in the design process. As I go through the unit I get a feel that the researcher is a very powerful person and to some extent, the most powerful person on the research team.

Then it introduces data sampling, the 2 types of sampling and their advantages and disadvantages in relation to the research design. The 2 types are Probability or random sampling and non-probability sampling. The research can decide which type of sampling best fits the research design based on the nature of the research. Like that of a painting. The artiste decides on everything from start to finish. The result is the contributing factors that made up the painting

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In this unit I learned about the significance of data collection. Data is collected for research can either be primary or secondary. Primary if the information collected is first-hand and secondary if the data collected is based on information from previous sources.

I also learned about the various ways of collecting data such as survey, interview or questionnaire. I this point in the course I am reflecting on my own role at my previous place of employment and realising how significant my daily duties were to my manager. I saw myself as the fieldworker communicating with the various stores to find the required information for my Manager in a timely manner.

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This week the emphasis was on communication in the design process. An in-depth analysis of the questionnaire was examined with reference to guidelines, purpose and layout. The 2 types of questionnaire errors – interviewer and respondent error, were also examined. Ways of minimising such errors were highlighted.

The weekly discussion was very interesting as it gave me an opportunity to create my own questionnaire and to use all I have learned in the unit. I reviewed the minimising error part several times because I wanted to avoid contaminating the results to the survey. What really suck to me was the use of simple language in the questionnaire and the fact that I should not make assumptions.

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As simple as a chart or a bar graph may look, I learned this week that there is quite a bit of background work to get to that point. There is editing and coding, and data entry, cleaning and modification before the actual data is ready for presentation. The preparation stage has many processes and guidelines to follow in order to input the data into the required system.

Different forms of data presentation and their uses were explained in the unit. Having data displayed in a visual form makes it easy to understand. That idea became more apparent when I looked at the discussion question. It took more time for me to interpret the data in its raw form than when I created my chart.

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This unit concentrated on analysis - qualitative and quantitative data analysis and their processes. I realised that this week is about interpretation of data and the different methods used to summarize the data collected before it is presented. Most of the processes I am familiar with from Mathematics and Statistics courses that I have completed in the past. Hypotheses testing and estimation statistics are now becoming closing to reality for me. I can see the effects of such processes on the business environment. I believe that this lesson equips me to better handle and interpret data on the whole.