MARKETING RESEARCH WORKSHOPS

2 TAKE HOME LEARNING ASSESSMENT

ND

Please read the questions carefully and answer all the questions. Staple everything
together with the answers Begin each answer on a new page.
You have time to think, research, and discuss I am here to help you learn not to
test you
Be sure that when you are writing your answers be clear, explain your thought
process neatly, and have a readable handwriting
This assessment is over 200 pts (each question is 20 pts) There is a bonus question
at the end
So, now, lets start
(1)

What are the steps involved in hypothesis testing? How do you decide what the
null hypothesis is? When would you reject a null hypothesis? if you were unable to
reject the null hypothesis, what would be its implications?

(2)

The average work week for Americans is claimed to be 43 hours nationally. To

test this figure, a local leisure product marketer randomly selects 44 sales people and
asks them to keep a log book of hours worked. Suppose the sample average turns out
to be 40.5 hours with a standard deviation of 9 hours. Using the hypothesis testing
procedure (show all steps and use 95 % confidence) what can the marketer
infer/conclude?

(3)

In 2013, the average number of years passenger cars were being used was 6.5
years. In 2014, a sample of 100 passenger cars showed a sample mean of 7.8 years
and a sample standard deviation of 2.2 years.

(a)
(b)
(c)
(4)

Formulate the null and alternate hypotheses

Use a .01 level significance and test the hypotheses
What implication does this have for vehicle manufacturers
A car manufacturer introduces a new method of assembling a particular
component. The old method had a mean assembly time of 42 minutes. The
manufacturer would like the assembly time to be as short as possible, and so he
expect the new method to have a smaller mean. A random sample of assembly times
(minutes) taken after a new method had become established was
27 39 28 41 42 35 32 38

stating any necessary distributional assumptions, investigate the manufacturers

expectation.
(5)

A random sample of 15 workers from a vacuum flask assembly line was selected
from a large number of such workers. Ivor Stopwatch, a work study engineer, asked
each of these workers to assemble a one-litre vacuum flask at their normal working
speed. The times taken, in seconds, to complete these tasks are given below
109.2
91.1
112.8

146.2
109.8
130.7

127.9
114.9
141.7

92
115.3
122.6

108.5
99
119.9

Assuming that this sample came from an underlying normal population, investigate
the claim that the population mean assembly time is less than 2 minutes
(6) In processing grain in the brewing industry, the percentage extract recovered is
measured. A particular brewing introduces a new source of grain and the percentage
extracted on 11 separate days is as follows:
95.2 93.1 93.5 95.9 94 92 94.4 93.2 95.5 92.3 95.4
Test the hypothesis that the true mean percentage extract recovered is 95. What
assumptions have you made in carrying out your test?
(7)

Please interpret the SAS statistical output (you dont need to know SAS to
interpret the output, I am trying to see whether you can make sense of confidence
interval, mean, std deviation, standard error, degrees of freedom, P value, t value- do
you really know what they mean? This is what I am interested in)
N7

Mean 75.7143

Minimum 63.0000
95% CL

Mean

95% CL

Std Dev

DF 6

t 3.88

Std Dev 8.4007

Std Err

3.1752

Maximum 85.0000
67.9450 83.4836
5.4133 18.4989
Value Pr > |t| 0.0082

For the hypothesis test with p = 0.05 (95% confidence interval). How do you
interpret the results?
(8) A meat processing company in the Midwest produces and markets a package of
eight small sausage sandwiches. The product is nationally distributed, and the
company is interested in knowing the average retail price changed for this item in
stores across the country. The company can not justify a national census to generate

this information. The company information system produces a list of all retailers who
carry the product. A researcher for the company contacts 36 of these retailers and
ascertains the selling prices for the product. Use the following price data to determine
a point estimate for the retail price of the product. Construct a 90 % confidence
interval to estimate this price:
2.23
2.16
2.12
2.01
1.99
2.23
(9)

2.11
2.31
2.07
2.24
1.87
2.1

2.12
1.98
2.17
2.18
2.09
2.08

2.2
2.17
2.3
2.18
2.22
2.05

2.17
2.14
2.29
2.32
2.15
2.16

2.1
1.82
2.19
2.02
2.19
2.26

A university has 15,000 students. We have drawn a simple random sample of

size 400 from the population, and recorded how much money each student spend on
cellular telephone service during November, 2003. For this sample, the sample mean
is $36, and sample standard deviation is $20. At a 99% level of confidence, test the
null hypothesis that these 15,000 students, combined, did not spend more than
$500,000 on cellular telephone service during November, 2003.

(10)
Please identify the problems with each of the following survey questions. And ,
explain why you think that it is the problem what are the consequences of asking
these questions?
(a)

what do you think of the taste and texture of this Sara Lee coffee cake?

(b)

Dont you agree that Dell computers are the best by all measures
Yes
no
(c) We are conducting a study for Marriott Hotel: What do you think of the hotel?
d) How would you characterize your consumption of beer?
occasional regular .. frequent . None at all
Bonus question: You answered the question of what marketing research is and how
the workshops are helping you to understand how it is being done one month passed
and you learned more now, tell me again
What is marketing research?

And, what do you think about this statement? Building great brands is a mix of magic
and logic, a blend of art and science. Tell me whether the marketing research
workshops make you get that sense about marketing