Cambridge Technicals Level 3 in Business

Lesson Element

Unit 5: Marketing and market research

Understanding the methods and forms of market research

Instructions and answers for tutors

These instructions cover the learner activity section which can be found on page7. This Lesson Element supports Cambridge Technicals Level 3 in Business.

When distributing the activity section to the learners either as a printed copy or as a Word file you will need to remove the tutor instructions section.

The activity

In this Lesson Element learners will consider why business use of sample of the population when undertaking market research and the different sampling techniques which can be used. Learners should be encourage to achieve this via their own research as well as discussing their ideas and opinions as to which methods are the most appropriate in a range of given scenarios.

Suggested timings

Activity 1

40 minutes

Activity 2

1 hour 15 minutes

Activity 3

50 minutes

Activity 1

Task 1

The following extract is taken from William G Cochran’s book ‘Sampling Techniques’ which was published in 1953. He was a Professor of Statistics at Harvard University and this was one of the first textbooks about sampling.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

‘Our knowledge, our attitudes, and our actions are based to a very large extent upon samples. This is equally true in everyday life and in scientific research. A person's opinion of an institution that conducts thousands of transactions every day is often determined by the one or two encounters which he has had with the institution in the course of several years.

The traveller who spends 10 days in a foreign country and then proceeds to write a book telling the inhabitants how to revive their industries, reform their political system, balance their budget, and improve the food in their hotels is a familiar figure of fun. But in a real sense he differs from the political scientist who devotes 20 years to living and studying in the country only in that he bases his conclusions on a much smaller sample of experience and is less likely to be aware of the extent of his ignorance. In every branch of science we lack the resources to study more than a fragment of the phenomena that might advance our knowledge.’

A copy of this extract is included on the learner worksheet for this Lesson Element.

The aim of Task 1 is to encourage your learners to use any prior learning or knowledge which they may have relating to sampling, as well as the information in the extract, to begin to develop ideas on what a sample is and why it is used.

Divide your class into small groups and ask learners to choose a scribe for their group.
Each learner should read the extract and then each group should agree a definition of the term ‘sample’.
You could then bring the class together to decide on a whole class definition of ‘sample’.

Global Market Insite Inc (GMI)

This resource provides a definition of ‘sample’ as well as other terms relevant to market research.

Task 2

You could bring into the classroom a range of products and items/pictures to represent services.
Ask each group to select a product or picture.
Learners should discuss the following questions imagining that they were going to carry out a survey as part of market research into their chosen product or service. They also need to be able to justify their answers.

oHow many people would they survey?

oWhere would they carry out the survey?

oHow would they choose who they surveyed?

Learners could feedback to the remainder of the class (the feedback being given by learners other than the scribe) who could be encouraged to give their opinions on the methods chosen. Can they foresee any problems with the suggestions?

Activity 2

Task 1

In Activity 1, learners considered their own views on samples and sampling techniques. Activity 2 introduces them to the theory within the teaching content for 3.4.

Divide the class into groups/pairs.
Ask each group to research one of the methods of sampling listed in 3.4 of the teaching content.
Once researched ask each group to describe that method in 3 key points e.g. what is it, why it is useful, plus one additional key point.
Ask groups to then summarise what they have written as a Tweet (140 characters or less) which can be shared with the rest of the class. Alternatively, if you prefer your learners to summarise this in more detail then a blog or a vlog could be used.

The following resources provide summaries of the different sampling techniques. You could either share these with your learners before they undertake the task or recommend that they watch them after the lesson to consolidate their understanding of the methods.

Sampling: Simple Random, Convenience, systematic, cluster, stratified - Statistics Help

Types of sampling survey techniques

Task 2

Ask learners to reflect on the methods of choosing a sample which they suggested in Activity 1, Task 2. Can they now relate their suggestions to one of the methods listed in 3.4?

Task 3

Using mini-whiteboards, ask your learners to draw a grid to represent each of the probability sampling techniques.

Possible layouts include:

Random sampling

Stratified random sampling

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5

Cluster sampling

Systematic sampling

Task 4

Political campaigners can often be heard complaining that opinion polls do not reflect what they hear on the doorstep. Arguing that they have spoken to many more people than the 1,000 or so typically interviewed for a poll, they claim the polls must be biased or just plain wrong.

Source:

As a class, ask your learners to consider this quote as well as what they have now learnt about sampling. Why might the results of surveys and polls be biased? Why might this be a problem for the business carrying out the market research?

Activity 3

Task 1

Divide your class into groups/pairs.
You could provide each group with a scenario from the cards on pages 7 to 13.
Ask your learners to decide, for their scenario, which sampling technique they would recommend, why are they recommending it and why it is a better option than alternative methods.
Bring the class back together and a ‘volunteer’ from each group could ‘hot seat’ in turn to answer questions from the rest of the class as to why they have chosen this method, why it is more suitable than an alternative etc.
You could use the prompt questions on page 10 to aid their peers if necessary.

Task 2

To consolidate the knowledge that your learners have gained, you could divide them into pairs and provide one learner from each pair with a small whiteboard.
You should choose a topic from 3.4 of the teaching content e.g. probability sampling techniques. Give your learners one minute – the learner with the whiteboard has to write down as many facts as they can about the topic, the second learner should spend the time thinking about the topic.
Once the minute is complete, ask the learner without the whiteboard to try to ‘hit’ as many of the facts written on the whiteboard as possible in one minute. How many do they score? What facts didn’t they ‘hit’? Do they agree that the facts are correct/relevant?
This can then be repeated with another topic so that both learners have the opportunity to write and guess.

Card 1

You are the marketing manager at a major breakfast cereal company. You need to carry out a survey into whether consumers would be interested in a new chocolate and coconut granola breakfast cereal.

a)Which sampling technique would you use?