Research Design

Research Design

Allgemein:

• "A research design is a framework or plan for conducting a marketing research project. It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to be structure or solve marketing research problems."

• Our task was to elaborate the essential topic of a research design. Herefore, i would like to invite you to read the displayed definition
• So, a research design is a strategic plan for a research project, which includes the methods of data collection and analysis to be employed. It is used to show how all of the major parts of the research project work together to try to address the central research question.

• The research design can be executed in different ways - either exploratory or conclusive. At this point, I want to hand to Vanessa over to get a deeper understanding of the differences.

Mein Part: 

• As it was described, the descriptive research used to describe something, usually market characteristics or functions. And within the descriptive research we can distinguish between cross-sectional and longitudinal.

Cross-sectional:

• We have a cross sectional approach when in a research study, information is collected at one point in time.
• Let us take an example. If a researcher is interested in the study of the acculturation of refugee children to the host country he can conduct a cross-sectional study. In this case, the researcher gains a clear idea of the present condition of the refugee children. This, however, is not followed by various phases.
• So, he takes a snapshot of a population at a certain time. Within a cross-sectional design it can be differentiated between single-cross-sectional and multiple cross sectional.
• In the single cross sectional design one sample is drawn from the population of interest, whereas in the multiple cross sectional design two or more samples are drawn from a population of interest.

Longitudinal:

• A longitudinal study is also a research study in which the research continues for a longer period of time and uses the same sample at each phase. In contrast to the cross-sectional design, which gives a snapshot at a single point in time, a longitudinal study provides a series of "pictures". These "pictures" give an in-depth view of the situation and the changes that take place over time. A typical case for a longitudinal design would be the question "How did American citizen change their view of Donald Trump's performance after he become president?" Whereas, the question "How did the american citizen rate the performance of Donald Trump at conference xy?" would be addressed using a cross-sectional design.

• Often the term "panel" is used in conjunction with the term "longitudinal design". Panel: A sample of participants who have agreed to provide information at specified intervals over an extend period.
• Access panel: A general "pool" of individuals or households who have agreed to be available for surveys of widely varying types and topics.
• Cohort analysis: Cohort Analysis enables you to easily compare how different groups, or cohorts, of customers behave over time. This gives you quick and clear insight into customer retention trends and the health of your business. See how your latest customers compare to those from several years ago, or compare users who joined over the holiday season with another group that joined in the summer and see if those holiday shoppers really stuck around.
• Cohort research is a method in which a specific population is studied repeatedly as well, but these studies center around how given groups with a common characteristic view social phenomena over time.  A common cohort design uses a class of students as its population.  For example, the freshman class of 2008 would be given a survey, and then the freshman class of 2009 at the same school would be given the same survey, and any differences in opinion would be noted.