UNIT 3- RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

By Brandon Boyd

INTRODUCTION:Primary Research- This type of research is when you create surveys and questionnaires in order

to gather information for a particular subject matter.Secondary Research- This type of research is when you look on the internet or in books in order

to find information which has already been found out, and can be used to help with your product or service.

Quantitative Research- This type of research focuses on gathering results from a sample of the population, measuring the independent views and opinions in a chosen sample. Quantity being the main factor.

Qualitative Research- This type of research gains an understanding of generating ideas and uncovering new trends in thoughts and opinions. Quality being more in depth with the research you are gathering.

Audience Research- This type of research is aimed at a particular audience or segment of the population to understand the attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences and behaviours with any issues, or products.. The purpose of it is to get a better insight into the target audience and something that is worth putting money into.

Market Research- This type of research gathers information about consumers needs and preferences, such as “completing market research on a new type of organic toothpaste”.

Production Research- This type of research is needed when designing a new product. It helps the companies gather information about the characteristics of their products and how the product has been made.

WHAT IS A SURVEY?A survey can be used and located online or on paper. They can often help

to gather people’s personal opinions and views on a particular project or item. Surveys are very important when putting together information, and it can often help to getting better results for ideas of products and services. To create a survey, you can either do it electronically or use a pen and paper and get your results by a tally chart.

An example of a survey could include the title “How many people watch television each day and for how long”. This survey would benefit somebody who was finding out the amount of time people watch programmes for, and could therefore make a pie chart showing this information and decide what sorts of programmes to broadcast on a particular channel.

Survey

This is a survey which asks questions about what types of social media people use. As you can see, there are a mix of open and

closed questions. The survey is about social media and can give the owner of the survey answers they need as part of their Primary

research.

SURVEY- PROS & CONSPros- Some advantages of using surveys is that it is easy to

collect data, and the service is free. Another advantage of surveys is that you can access them from anywhere as long as you have a Wifi connection.

Surveys are easy to put together with simple questions and can involve answers of closed and open options. A closed question only needs a yes or a no answer, to gain feedback straightaway.

Cons- Surveys can sometimes lead to bias results, and often leave important facts out due to a short time frame preventing you from getting all of the information that you need.

WHAT IS A FOCUS GROUP?A focus group is a group of people who are gathered to give their

feedback and personal opinions on a particular product or service. Focus groups generally have a minimum of 5 people so that you can ask several questions. It’s normally a discussion which the leader sets up, and then just sits back and makes notes.

An example of a focus group could involve a group of teenagers talking about the latest product, and their thoughts about it, before Adidas decide to start selling it.

You would expect them to all be sitting in the same room and having a full on conversation about the product, and giving their personal views and opinions, as well as asking questions to ensure that they know everything about the product.

Focus Group

A focus group is a discussion about a topic. This is a primary discussion as they are doing it themselves. They are discussing about programmes that people would like to have on television in the future.

The advantages of a focus group are that because there are lots of people, you get more detailed and useful answers. You can also obtain a lot of information from a variety of age groups. The disadvantages are that they may take a lot of time to set up.

FOCUS GROUP- PROS & CONSPros- Some advantages of using a focus group is that you get an

understanding of people’s preferences, and how they feel about your product or service. You also know how to edit your design in order to appeal to your customers. Focus groups often give you results straightaway and often lead you to ways of editing your product or software for future use and evaluation.

Cons- A disadvantage of using focus groups is that it is quite time consuming to arrange and put together. Another disadvantage of focus groups is that the leader of the group could cause people to choose a particular view of the product by asking questions such as if people like the product, style or whether they would use it, as it would lead this to a discussion and therefore having more individual opinions.

WHAT IS OBSERVATION?An observation is the action or process of closely monitoring somebody

or something. An observation is also a fundamental way of finding out about the world around us and pick up detailed information. It is based on looking or listening rather than the other senses.

Observing could come in the form of a business or schooling. Teachers would observe in a lesson to make sure the teacher is teaching to a good ability, but also businessmen and woman could observe their staff when they work, to make sure that they are doing all the required tasks to the best of their ability.

An example of an observation could include “a patient who has been taken into hospital for an observation”. Full observations are often used to ensure that patients get into the hospital safely and securely.

Observation

This is a TV program called ‘Gogglebox’ on Channel 4. Families of different ages and nationalities watch programmes and talk about the programmes that they like and dislike, giving their views in real life. It isn’t only entertainment, but the creators of the programmes can decide what needs to be changed and what the good and bad things are about their programmes.

OBSERVATION- PROS & CONSPros- Advantages of observing could include providing direction access to

information. Observation can take many forms, such as informal and unstructured talks, to slightly organised and normal procedures. Observing can also identify both Qualitative and Quantitative types of data to have on a permanent record.

Cons- Some disadvantages of observing could include practicability, as this process would be quite time consuming and often need a desirable strategy to explore certain research questions. Another weakness of observations is the fact that the presence of an observer in some way influences the behaviour of those being observed. 

WHAT IS TESTING?Testing ensures that you can take measures and see how reliable it is.

Testing different groups of people makes it easy to determine who your product or service should be designed for.

The process of testing is quite important in the media industry, because if you are creating a new Drama film, and you don’t know who the audience should be for, you could easily set up the film in 3 of 4 different rooms with different groups of people, you can see by their emotions and physical actions whether they like the storyline or script of the film, or not.

An example of testing could be film screening is used to see emotional and physical responses from members of the public. The production team can then get a feel as to whether the film they are about to produce will be successful. This is also very important because you can make your edits and changes before releasing the film and being unsure as to why people do not like the overall style or look of the film.

Testing

This is a testing example that gives information of a new programme. Some of the titles include “Test Title”, “Test Case ID” and “Mobile Name”, which are some of the ways that the companies can test whether

programmes on the public.

TESTING- PROS & CONSPros- When testing, you get feedback straightaway whether it be verbal

or handwritten. You are also told about the issues associated with your product or service and the problems are often highlighted. Another advantage of testing is that the service could be quite time consuming, but the process is easy to do, and you obviously get your feedback straightaway.

Cons- Disadvantages of testing, is that is does not represent the whole world, and only focuses on a few people who might their own unique opinions and emotions towards the product. As testing is Qualitative, it does not provide large samples of information compared to a survey. Testing could sometimes be very stressful to do as you would need to use the same or similar groups of people, and they might be unavailable at different times which would make it difficult to see their personal opinions.

WHAT IS AN EXPERIMENT?An experiment is you are guided by several hypotheses stating

the estimated relationships between two or more different variables. It focuses mainly on the relationships between known variables. This type of research often provides strong casual interpretations.

An example of an experiment is the following; “A fitness instructor wants to test the effectiveness of a

performance-enhancing herbal supplement on students in her exercise class. To create experimental groups that are similar at the beginning of the study, the students are assigned into two groups at random (they can not choose which group they are in). Students in both groups are given a pill to take every day, but they do not know whether the pill is a placebo (sugar pill) or the herbal supplement.

The instructor gives Group A the herbal supplement and Group B receives the placebo (sugar pill).  The students' fitness level is compared before and after six weeks of consuming the supplement or the sugar pill.  No differences in performance ability were found between the two groups suggesting that the herbal supplement was not effective”.

Experiment

This experiment shows and tests how effective the herbal supplements were. All of the research was done through media, and the experiment was tested in different circumstances. The students

were to take a pill, and it was going to either be a placebo, which is a fake pill, or a herbal supplement.

Both of the groups of people were able to perform and exercise in the same way, which shows that this herbal supplement was no effective.

Media was very effective in this case as it made use of different formulas and tools in order to gain results, such as surveys,

questionnaires and online forums.

“A fitness instructor wants to test the effectiveness of a performance-enhancing herbal supplement on students in her exercise class. To create experimental groups that are similar at the beginning of the study, the students are assigned into two groups at random (they can not choose which group they are in). Students in both groups are given a pill to take every day, but they do not know whether the pill is a placebo (sugar pill) or the herbal supplement. The instructor gives Group A the herbal supplement and Group B receives the placebo (sugar pill).  The students' fitness level is compared before and after six weeks of consuming the supplement or the sugar pill.  No differences in performance ability were found between the two groups suggesting that the herbal supplement was not effective”.

EXPERIMENTS- PROS & CONSPros- The advantages of experimental research is that you can remove

unwanted information and have total control over the irrelevant variables. It is also a better method of getting more accurate results that can be repeated and checked up on once in a while. Experimenting is also a good thing to do because it allows you to control the variables and experiments can therefore be replicated.

Cons- They can often create errors that will affect the efficiency of the results. They can also create artificial situations that controls irrelevant variables and means that creating situations can become artificial. Another bad thing about experimenting is that responses given by humans can be difficult to measure.

WHAT IS A CASE STUDY?A case study is the process or record of research into the development of

a particular person or group of people. Case studies are secondary research and you read them as they have been written by somebody else.

An example of a case study could be a scenario for media where you have been given a task to complete, such as having to create a website for children. Case studies usually focus on a particular programme or channel.

Case Study

This is an example of a case study for the film “Avatar”. Case studies are often written by professionals or people that watch many films, in order to inspire other people to either help people find out more information about the film as brief notes, or for people that may want to watch the film.

CASE STUDY- PROS & CONSPros- Advantages of a case study are that you can gather a lot of detail

that would not necessarily be obtained from other research designs. Another significant advantage could be that you can adapt ideas and produce your own hypotheses that can be used for later testing.

Cons- Some negatives about using case studies is that you cannot generalise the dater on the behalf of the whole population, and leads the data being collected over longitudinal case studies, to sometimes be irrelevant.

WHAT IS A DOCUMENT?A document is a piece of written, printed or electronic data that provides

information or evidence. Documents are quite important in film industries as it is easier to send information to crew members or other workers in a rush. Biographies, official records, diaries and letters are examples of documents, and often present important or popular stories.

An example of a document could be a screenplay, which would make it easy for characters to know their lines on the script. Documents usually create a lot of detail.

Document

This is a document. As you can see, the document is quite informative and has a lot of

information on Science and Technological processes. Documents are often in a lot of

detail and written in a professional structure, so it very in depth and contains all the information

you need.

DOCUMENT- PROS & CONSPros- Some advantages of using documents is that the service is free or

charge, and there is no limit into the information that you decide to include. Another advantage is that you can easily send important information to people.

Cons- Some disadvantages of creating documents are that it is quite time consuming. Some of the information could be quite sensitive and personal and therefore should not be seen by members of the public or used without permission.

WHAT IS SAMPLING?There are many types of sampling, including “Simple random”,

“Systematic”, “Stratified” and “Clustered”. Sampling enables you to focus on a particular group or person. They are used to gather information about a population by taking a representative portion of the population and using them as pieces of research, such as data collections, surveys and questionnaires.

An example could include “Random” which is simply the matter of putting random numbers together to make a phone number. This is why we get all of these telephone surveys, because they have guessed our number correctly.

Sampling

Sampling is a term for selecting fewer people, but to gain the largest results. Sampling can often be done to gain information about films and television programmes. This type of research can be primary or secondary.

SAMPLING- PROS & CONSPros- Advantages of sampling is that you can get a group of people

together and get a general idea of how a certain group of people would think or do things. They can be more accurate than an entire population as they allow researchers to control the sampled people.

Cons- Some disadvantages of the process is that it is quite time consuming and tedious and sometimes the information can be questioned as to how reliable they are. Another disadvantage is that the information could be bias and the researcher may pick subjects that are more likely to react in a certain way and give certain results.

The process is quite time consuming and often needs a large sample in order for the information used to be classed as accurate.

Author Book/Paper/Website

Article Title Publish Date

Description

Marley Long http://www.slideshare.net/marleylong/audience-27055236

Audience, Market & Production Research

October 10th 2013 There is a short presentation on research.

Snap Surveys Company

http://www.snapsurveys.com/qualitative-quantitative-research/

Qualitative vs Quantitative Research

2010-2014 There is a blog with the information on the different types of research.

U.C Davis http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/sommerb/sommerdemo/sampling/types.htm

Types of samples Not stated There is a page of information about the various sampling types.

Not stated http://compass.port.ac.uk/UoP/file/ef9dd79a-2a94-4795-be23-f75eb40c8a11/1/Documentary%20and%20Content%20Analysis_IMSLRN.zip/page_04.htm

Advantages & Disadvantages of Analysing Written Documents for the Purposes of Research

2012 There is a page of information about the Advantages and Disadvantages of research.

Kendra Cherry http://psychology.about.com/od/researchmethods/f/survey.htm

What is a Survey? Not stated There is a page of information as to what a survey is, and the pros & cons.

Author Book/Paper/Website

Article Title Publish Date

Description

User fit tools http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lecturenotes/UFTdirectobservation.pdf

Direct Observation February 2001 There is a page of information about observations.

Computer & Graphics

http://wwwhome.ewi.utwente.nl/~anijholt/artikelen/compgraph2004.pdf

Where computers disappear, virtual humans appear.

October 2004 There is a page of information about computer and graphics.

Case studies for Experimental studies

http://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/sdsu/eg_exp.htm

Experimental Studies

August 2011 There is a page of information about experiments, in an in depth study.

Kim Goldspink http://www.slideshare.net/FrEEncHiiE15/case-study-avatar

Case Study- Avatar January 2010 This is a brief summary of the Avatar film giving general information about the cast, crew and storyline.