MBAE 618: Research Methods EMBA

Announcements:

• Latest Breaking News: Please BRING YOUR LAPTOPS TO CLASS ALL THE TIME and download all tables at the bottom of this page and bring the tables to class. These are the t-table and Mann-Whitney table, F-table

All the documents will be password-protected. To download, click on the arrow (which is to the right of the file) pointing downwards. Students have been given the passwords.

ITEMS below to download (including lecture slides):

t-table more

RML1

RML2

RML3

RML4

RML5

Mann-Whitney Table U

F-ratio table ANOVA

RML6 ANOVA

RML7L8 Cor & Reg

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Shoprite supermarket sells 5000 packets of cereals which it now believes to be not as improved as the new brand they recently had in each of its stores. It has decided to test-market the new brand of cereal in some of its stores. After a month, the 15 stores have sold an average of 5200 packets each, with a standard deviation of 500 packets. Should all supermarkets switch to selling the new brand at the 1% level of significance?

The proposed research course has two separate but closely related components – qualitative research and quantitative research. By becoming familiar with the research process in practice, students should be competent in developing research proposals, designing research projects, collecting and analyzing research data and results in their specialist areas. The topics to be covered include the Meaning of Research, Research Process and Design, Components of Research Proposal, Literature Review, Research Strategies (Survey, Case Study, Action Research and Ethnography), Sampling Analysis, Questionnaire Design, Data Collection, Research Ethics, Qualitative and Quantitative Data Analysis and Report Writing. Others are: Measurement Scale, Parametric & Nonparametric Hypotheses, ANOVA, simple, multiple, dummy and binary dependent regressions. The student will engage in a mini-research project to obtain a first-hand experience in applying the methods taught in the course.

Aim & Content

The general objective of this course is to introduce students to methods of research. The specific objectives are:

(i) to ensure that students acquire practical research skills for business and academic research;

(ii) to help students understand principles of research; and quantitative methods they can use &

(iii) to enable students to link the research process with theories of their specialist areas.

Recommended Text

Paul Newbold, William Carlson, Betty Thorne 2013, Statistics for Business and Economics, 8th edition, Publisher: Prentice Hall

· Neuman, W.L. (2011) Basics of Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 2/E, Pearson Education – ISBN ISBN-10: 0205484379

· Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods (second edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

· Fisher, C. (2010) Researching and Writing a Dissertation, An Essential Guide For Business Students, Pearson Education Limited, Essex.

· Levin, J. Fox, J.A., and Forde, D.R. (2010) Elementary Statistics in Social Research, Pearson Education – 11/E, ISBN-10: 0205570690 | ISBN-13: 9780205570690

· Wisniewski M. (2006) Quantitative Methods for Decision Makers

· Thomas, R. (1997) Quantitative Methods for Business Studies, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

· Morris, C. (2002) Quantitative Approaches in Business Studies, sixth edition, Harlow, Essex: Financial Times Prentice Hall

Supplementary readings will be provided by the lecturers

• Breaking News: R (urgently download it. it's free) at http://cran.r-project.org/. Or at: http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/old/
• Latest News: Download R Studio at http://www.rstudio.com/ide/
• News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V52baivx26w
• News: The class rep should create a class group email.

1. State the hypotheses
2. How many degrees of freedom are there?
3. State the decision rule.
4. What is the value of the test statistic?
5. Determine the t critical
6. What is your decision regarding the null hypothesis?
7. Estimate the p-value.
8. Should all supermarkets switch to selling the new brand at the 1% level of significance? Is the difference due to chance? Explain briefly! (carries the highest mark)

In Ghana, mothers who live in poverty generally have babies with lower birth-weight than those who don’t live in poverty. While the average birth-weight of babies born in Ghana is about 3,300g, the average birth-weight of women living in poverty is at most 2,800g. Recently, Korle Bu introduced an innovative new pre-natal care programme to reduce the number of low birth-weight babies. In 2013, 25 mothers, all living in poverty participated in the programme. Data drawn from hospital records showed that the babies born to these women had the birth-weight of 3,075g with a standard deviation of 500g.

1. Formulate the null and alternative hypotheses
2. Is Z statistic to be used here? Why?
3. Compute the value of the test statistic?
4. What is the critical value of the test statistic
5. Estimate the p-value and use it to decide
6. Has the programme been effective at improving the birth-weight of babies born to poor women? Is the difference due to chance? Explain briefly!

A group of reputable housing firms in Ghana claim that the mean price of residential homes before the change of government does not exceeds the mean price after the new government in Ghana came to power. Tonaton.com in Ghana wishing to determine the authenticity of the claim, selected a sample of residential properties to appraise their prices before and after the change of government. The results, reported in GHc000, are:

At the 0.01 significance level:

1. State the null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis
2. What is the critical value of the test statistic?
3. What is the calculated value of the test statistic?
4. Make your decision using the critical value approach.
5. What is the p-value? Decide with it
6. Mention one assumption that needs to be made about the distribution of the differences?
7. Is the change of government associated with the higher prices of residential homes? Justify practically (carries highest mark).

A new approach to prenatal care is proposed for pregnant women living in a rural Ghana. It involves in-home visits during the course of pregnancy and the usual visits. A pilot randomized trial with 15 pregnant women is designed to evaluate whether there is any variation in the health of babies of women who participate in the new program and women receiving usual care. The outcome is the APGAR score measured 5 minutes after birth. The score ranges from 0 to 10 with 7-10 considered normal (healthy), 4-6 for low and 0-3 critically low. The data is below.

The goal is to find if a statistical evidence of a difference in APGAR scores of women receiving the new versus those receiving the usual prenatal care exist.

1. State the null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis.
2. What is the critical value of the test statistic?
3. What is the calculated value of the test statistic?
4. Decide using the critical value approach.
5. Mention 2 assumptions that need to be made about the distribution of the differences?
6. Do women who participated in the new program deliver healthier babies than women receiving the usual care? Is a difference due to chance? Justify practically. Would you recommend the new program?

Below are the salaries in thousands of Ghana cedis for three different MBA groups:

1. Formulate the null and alternative hypothesis
2. What is the decision rule
3. Compute the value of the test statistic
4. Calculate the critical value of the test statistic
5. Is there a statistically significant difference in the mean salaries between these MBA groups? If so, which group earns the least? Conclude practically.

A student of UGBS as part of her long essay, would like to determine if there is a significant difference, at the 5% significance level, between the salaries of four government workers in and around the University of Ghana – lecturers, nurses, administrators and police. The sample information below shows the salaries (in thousands).

1. Formulate the null and alternative hypothesis
2. What is the decision rule
3. Compute the value of the test statistic
4. Calculate the critical value of the test statistic
5. Is there a statistically significant difference in the mean salaries between these government workers? If so, which group of government workers earns the least? Conclude practically.