Business Research Methods OM202

K Ramakrishnan, Thomason Rajan and KG Satheesh Kumar

I keep six honest serving-men, They taught me all I know; Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who." Rudyard Kipling.

Topics	Hrs
Planning and Designing the Research
What to study? why study ? From Management concerns to Research Objectives to Research Questions; Choosing the right methodology; Effective use of a mix of secondary data and primary data. Time and cost estimates. Proposal writing.	4
Methodology Issues
Measurement and measurement scales; Questionnaire design: Avoiding ambiguity; double barreled questions; language barriers;	3
Sampling techniques: Simple Random, Stratified, Cluster and other types.	3
Managing the field Work for surveys; overcoming respondents' reluctance; Investigator bias; sticking to the structured questionnaire etc.	2
Qualitative research – observation studies; focus groups.	1
Total Hours	13

Topics	Hrs
Data Analysis Techniques:
Choosing the appropriate tool / technique; meaningful cross tabulations;	3
Distribution of Sample means -implications to Estimation, confidence intervals etc.	4
Hypothesis Testing, Association and goodness of fit tests;	5
Brief intro to Correlation and Regression ;	4
Analysis of variance (Awareness about the purpose and limitations; no mathematical formulae etc.	2
Utility of a few non-parametric tests for small samples	3
Reporting the research results
Inferences and Conclusions; Structure of the report; Presentation.	4
Course Project: Field Study, Report Preparation and Presentation:	7
Total Hours	32

12 Jan 08: Sridhar, Viju and Vanaja present: "Exploring, Displaying and Examining Data"

All Present except Chitra and Jayashankar

15 Jan 08: CLT, Type I and II errors

All Present

22 Jan 08 (16/45): All Present

Sampling Distribution, SE, CLT

13 Feb 08 (17/45): Session by Ramki

See 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 .

18 Feb 08 (18,19,20/45): Sessions by Ramki

See 1 2 3 .

27 Feb 08 (21&22/45): Properties of Normal Distribution - linear combinations of normal variates, finding mean and variance etc.

All Present except Anitha, Saritha, Priya

28 Feb 08 (23&24/45): Random sampling using excel, distribution of sample means, the three aspects of central limit theorem

All except Anitha, Saritha, Deepti J, Sudit, Manu

29 Feb 08 (25&26/45): Prof. Ramki's combined sessions: Estimation of mean - point estimate and interval estimate; confidence level

03 Mar 08 (27/45): Exercises in sampling distribution of means. Proportion.

All present

04 Mar 08 (28/45): Exercises in sampling distribution of proportion.

All except Anitha, Deepti J, Sudit, Manu, Vanaja

07 Mar 08 (29,30/45): Estimation. ppt. See. Qns.

1 2 3 4 5 6 Table of t-distribution .

Interval estimate =

point estimate +/- margin of error,

where margin of error = (z or t value) x (SE).

All except Asha Sukumaran and Gayatri

08 Mar 08 (31/45): Sample size determination

Spot Test for 5 points: Qn and Ans.

All except Sudit, Manu, Viju, Priya, Gayatri

17 Mar 08 (32/45): Sample size determination

Hypothesis Testing

All plus Ruby, Kartik, Jayadevan, Vinod, Vinita, Vinit & Arvind.

18 Mar 08 (33/45): Hypothesis Testing: p-value, alpha, beta, left/right/two-tailed tests

All but Chitra and Aparna, plus Vidya, Kartik, Jayadevan, Vinod, Vinit & Arvind.

19 Mar 08 (34/45): Hypothesis Testing

All but Chitra, Aparna, Sudit, Asha S, Asha V plus Vidya, Kartik, Jayadevan, Vinod, Vinit & Vinita.

25 Mar 08 (35&36/45): Hypothesis Testing examples

All but Chitra, Sarita, Vanaja & Sudit plus Vidya, Neeraj, Vinit & Vinita.

29 Mar 08 (37/45): Chi-square distribution, confidence interval for population variance.

Table of chi-squared or a better one here.

All but Viju

01 Apr 08 (38/45): Testing hypotheses about population variances. Calculation of beta value (prob of type II error)

All present

Here is a ppt on Hypothesis Testing, prepared for MHA students of CDC, Medical College, Trivandrum

Sessions by Thomason Rajan

02 Apr 08: BRM Test 2 Q&A.

All present

03 Apr 08: Report writing: See a sample Report (click)

All present except Jayashankar and Sudit

11Apr 08: Review on writing proposals. Students asked to submit a research proposal outlining the problem, objectives and methodology of the study that they have chosen.

All present except Asha V, Jayashankar and Sudit (Jayasankar had gone to meet his internship team of Sankar, Divya and IIMA grads)

12Apr 08: Review on writing proposals. Sample proposal discussed.

All present except Asha V, Vanaja, Srikanth, Deepthi J, Radha, Shalini

45 hours 4 credits Core course Scores.

The BRM course aims to equip learners with the methodology and techniques used in business research, an essential aid for managerial decision making.

Recommended Texts

1. Cooper and Schindler, Business Research Methods, Tata McGraw-Hill Click

2. Kothari, C.R, Research Methodology, 2/ed, New Age International (2004) Click

Evaluation (Percentage points)

Participation (1.5 x best 10) = 15

Assignments (5 x best 4) = 20

Class Tests (20 x best 2) = 40