Research

LetÐ'Ò's face it Ð'- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins werenÐ'Ò't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which arenÐ'Ò't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write bungers donÐ'Ò't fing, grocers donÐ'Ò't groce and hammers donÐ'Ò't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isnÐ'Ò't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

One index, 2 indices? DoesnÐ'Ò't it see crazy that you can make amends but no one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didnÐ'Ò't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS Ð'- Why doesnÐ'Ò't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

now letÐ'Ò's go to the paper:

What Is Quantitative Research

The term quantitative research covers a range of techniques that can be used to quantify - with some statistical confidence - categories, evaluations, opinions and attitudes that potential or current customers bring to any market.

Quantitative research usually involves administering a pre-scripted questionnaire to hundreds or thousands of people. The goal is to produce projectable information to guide marketers in decisions such as when to go to market, the appeal of a new product, or how to best communicate a brand identityBasic questions often take the form of:

Ð''Into which of these categories do you fit?'

From which you can derive percentages of people in each category

Ð''How many do you buy?'

From which you can generate mean scores or group people into volume bands

Ð''Give a score from 1-10 to indicate how satisfied you are'

Generate mean scores that can be related to other scores the respondent has given or be compared with other groups of respondents.

Because respondents often rate everything between a seven and eight out of ten in importance, more sophisticated quantitative techniques use trade-off questioning. In trade off questioning, a respondent has to sacrifice one benefit in order to secure another to which they attach greater importance.

Quantitative research is one of the two main branches of marketing research. Its counterpart, qualitative research, focuses on a relatively small number of people and uses loosely structured questioning directions. The goal of qualitative research is to answer the "why?" questions behind consumer activity.

Quantitative Research Overview

2. Quantitative Study Techniques

Data Collection Techniques

Quantitative data can be collected in essentially two ways Ð'- respondent self-completion and interviewer administered.

1. Respondent Self-completion

Mail surveys and questionnaires included with products or left in customer areas (e.g. hotel rooms) are examples of self-completion techniques. Recently, Web-based questionnaires have joined this category.

Questionnaire design needs to be simple for the traditional techniques in order to minimise the risk of making mistakes. Web-based questionnaires can be more complex because the Internet enables marketers to use more sophisticated questioning techniques while still keeping the survey structure simple and user friendly.

All self-completion techniques share fundamental characteristics. While they all represent low cost methods of data collection, response rates are inevitably low -- 15%-20% is considered good.

Because of the low response rates, researchers must deal with response bias. People who feel very positive or very negative about a subject are the ones motivated to respond to a survey. There is a significant risk, therefore, that self-completion studies represent the extremes of opinion rather than being truly representative of a market as a whole.

2. Interviewer Administered

Questionnaires can be administered by interviewers either face-to-face or over the telephone. The role of the interviewer goes beyond simply being a Ð''voice-over' of the questionnaire. A trained interviewer can use more complex questioning routines and can keep the respondent focused on the subject. By contrast, there is no guarantee that a respondent doing a self-completion questionnaire will pay full attention to the directions.

Face-to-face interviews can be carried out in a number of different places. A Central Location Test (CLT) is a means of setting up a dedicated research environment where product or advertising can be displayed. The CLT is generally set up in a location where it will be relatively easy to find and invite eligible respondents to participate in the research study. Typical locations include, shopping malls, hotels and retail outlets.

Face-to-face interviewing