Master in Research

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One of the local businesses in my city asked me the following question

“I am starting a business that has not been started yet, and I need to conduct some market research to answer some of the questions about the business. I was thinking about just going to the mall and giving people a questionnaire, but there has to be an easier way. Are there any websites that offer market research solutions for small businesses? I need to create a survey/questionnaire and have a few hundred people answer it. Does anyone know how I can do this. Thank you very much. Yes I am on a budget, but I can spend about $1,000. If I could spend less that would be great, but I do have a little money to spend.”

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Technorati Tags: budget, market research, market research solutions, questionnaire, research budget, sample, small business, survey, website

A friend of mine asked the following question:

“I am wanting to set up a small business selling stuff online although I want to make sure I get pricing/goods right. Does anyone know any really good methods of market research which doesnt involve asking on the street. Thanks”

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Technorati Tags: business research, market research, project, questionnaire, sample

Over the last weeks I have been working on my own research proposal which is central part to the first essays of this year. Although for this first year we do not have to perform the actual research, we do have to write up the proposal as well as setting up the questionnaire.

A research proposal consists in general of the following parts:

• Introduction: which explains why you are performing this research
• Questionnaire: outlining what kind of questions and subjects you want to ask during your survey. This is not the actual questionnaire, which will be a separate part
• Sampling: who is your target group, how many of those do you want to ask and where are they
• Methodology: what is the set up of the research, is this face to face interviews, postal / online questionnaires, focus groups, etc.
• Analysis: what are you going to measure, how do you measure it, what kind of statistical analysis are you performing to validate your data and use as foundation for your conclusions
• Ethical appendix: in this section you have to think about any problems that might occur when asking your questions, are there any possibilities that people might not want to participate.
• Literature review: what research has already been performed in your area, what does this mean to your proposal, are those studies useful or not and why
• Project Plan: outline of what you are going to do when
• Bibliography

For my research proposal I have chosen the following: What is the profile of successful Internet Entrepreneurs.

Why this subject?

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Technorati Tags: analysis, bibliography, ethical appendix, ethics, internet entrepreneur, introduction, literature review, methodology, project plan, questionnaire, sample, statistics

In the next series of blogs I will run you through the process of developing a research idea and writing a project plan to execute it. This is one of the central focus points of the first year of the Master in Research degree.

To set up a survey, you have to go through 4 basis building blocks.

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Technorati Tags: interview, measure, problem definition, research, research idea, respondent, sample, sample selection