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Orientation and overall perception of the  course

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Orientation and overall perception of the  course

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The week of Orientation flew by very quickly, as such not all activities were completed.  I posted in the forum a bit late and I updated my profile picture and proceeded to read up on the course.  It was comforting knowing that there would be no final exam, however the assignments were back to back and posed a challenge.

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Unit 1- Introduction to Business Research

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Unit 1- Introduction to Business Research

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We plunged into the course with an introduction to business research. We were exposed to definitions which surrounds the topic such as a definition for business research and the importance of it and the three major types which are Exploratory, Descriptive and Causal research. Business research allows for setting realistic target, understanding of customers, preparation for business expansion etc. We were then introduced to research philosophies, which includes; Epistemology (positivism, interpretivism and pragmatism), Ontology (objectivism and subjectivism) and Axiology.

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Unit 2 looked at the research process which was defined as a systematic approach to acquiring, analyzing, interpreting and disseminating data and information to decision makers. Usually the research process takes the form of a six stage process, as stated in the image below. We given our first graded discussion, which was focused on the literature review and communication with peers.

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Unit 3 - Communication in the Research Process

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Unit 3 - Communication in the Research Process

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The unit started with the research proposal, and the role of communication in research.

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Unit 6 spans from Oct 22nd - 28th and covers the Questionnaire Design. Session 6.1 basically describes what questionnaires are used for which is to communicate. There are two modes in administering questionnaires, namely: by interviewer administered, where the interviewer records responses and mainly conducted over the phone or face to face (personal). The self administered mode is where the respondents record their own responses and are mainly done by mail or by the internet. Session 6.2 gives further details on the importance of a well constructed questionnaires. It highlights what questions should be asked, how they should be asked, what sequence they should be in and the layout. By asking these questions the researcher may avoid errors which are covered in session 6.3. There are two main types of errors namely: interviewer error and respondent error. This session highlights the steps to take in order to reduce errors for example, Pretesting.

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Between Oct.29 and Nov.4th, unit 7 was the focus, which covered Data preparation and presentation.
Session 7.1 looks at Editing and Coding. Editing is the process of checking data for omissions, consistency and legibility in preparation for coding. Coding refers to the assignment of a numerical score or a classifying symbol to edited data into categories.
Session 7.2 looks at the Data Dictionary, which is a collection of descriptions of the data objects or items in a database, the database is an electronic representation of data collected during a research.  This session also looks at data cleaning, which is similar to editing.
Finally, session 7.3 introduces the means of displaying data, which may be through the use of any of the following:
-Frequency Tables,
-Graphs and charts such as Bar charts, Histograms, Pie charts, Line graphs, Scatter plots and Stem & leaf plots.

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From November 12-18, we covered unit 8 which covers Qualitative analysis, Quantitative analysis, Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Qualitative analysis is the non-numerical examination and interpretation of observations, for the purpose of discovery. The qualitative data analysis model, developed by John Seidel involves: Noticing things- identifying interest, Collecting things- Sorting into groups and thinking about things- examining what was collected. The qualitative data analysis process involves:Transcription, Coding, Familiarization, finding themes and organizing data.
Quantitative Analysis is the systematic analysis of numerical data.
There are two branches of Statistics, namely: Descriptive Statistics, which is used to describe, aggregate and present the features and characteristics. Inferential statistics, which is used to make inferences or draw conclusions about a population beyond the immediate data based on the sample.