Chapter 4

Data/Methodology
4.0 Methodology A research paradigm is a world view, a general perspective, a way of breaking down the complexity of the real world. It is an interpretative framework, which is guided by "a set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. There are three types of paradigms that are used in research. There paradigms are Positivism, Interpretivism and Pragmatism. Positivism is a formal, objective, systematic process in which numerical data are utilized to obtain information about the world. It is inclined to be deductive. In other words it tests/verify theory. Interpretivism is an informal, subjective research approach that usually emphasizes words rather than numbers in the collection and analysis of data and that is inductive in nature. In other words it generates theory. Pragmatism is one in which the researcher tends to base knowledge claims on realistic grounds (e.g., consequence-oriented, problem-centered, and pluralistic). It nor verify theory neither generates theory, it believe in problem solving. I am going to choose Positivism paradigm. There are different ways to collecting data in positivism paradigm which are Questionnaire, Structured Interview and Structured Observation. Questionnaire is pre-formulated written set of questions to which respondents record their answers. Structured Interview is the process of administering an interview schedule by an interviewer. The aim is for all interviewees to be given exactly the same context of questioning.

Structured Observation is a purposeful, systematic and selective way of watching and listening to an interaction or phenomenon as it takes place. I will work on Questionnaire because it has more reach than other types of research instruments. There are some pros and cons of questionnaire. Pros: Advantage of a questionnaire are that it can be piloted with members of the sample group which would highlight any design faults, less costly and speedier, standardization of questions, greater anonymity than personal interviews, secrecy of respondent is high and data accuracy chances increase. Cons: Questionnaires are at risk of response bias, easier to leave a mail questionnaire unanswered than to say no to an interviewer, no control over those who do respond. Population is the universe of units from which the sample is to be selected. For my research my population will be the users of footwear brands. I will select 150-200 respondents as my sample size. I will choose 150-200 respondents as my sample size because my observation will increase and I will get more authentic results. There are 2 types of analysis used in research: 1) Descriptive Analysis 2) Inferential Analysis. In descriptive analysis, it deals with collection of data, its presentation in various forms, such as tables, graphs and diagrams and findings averages and other measures which would describe the data. In inferential statistics, it deals with techniques used for analysis of data, making the estimates and drawing conclusions from limited information taken on sample basis and testing the reliability of the estimates. I will use both analysis and I will apply Descriptive Statistics, Histogram & Normality Curve, Scatter plot, Correlation and Regression for the analysis of my research data. 4.1 Data

Reliability Reliability analysis is an analysis in which the instrument developed for data collection is checked whether it is reliable or not. Reliability is the stability or consistency of the measurement. It is a test for a model or survey's internal consistency also called a 'scale reliability coefficient. Table1.1 Variable Price Place Promotion Brand Awareness Brand Image Brand Equity Cronbach Alpha Value .956 .845 .915 .731 .722 .762

After encoding all the data collected from respondents, reliability test named as Cronbach Alpha is applied to test the reliability of the data collection instrument. After applying reliability tests following results shown in Table 1.1 are given. All the Cronbach Alpha Values are greater than .70 which is typically considered as a rule of thumb to donate an acceptable level of internal reliability. Analysis After reliability analysis we will be going to apply further tests for the confirmation of our hypothesis. There are list of tests that can be applied for the confirmation of our result in the positivism paradigm. I will be going to make discussion on the following tests.

1. Descriptive Statistics 2. Histogram 3. Scatter Plot 4. Correlation 5. Regression Descriptive statistics is the test that is used for the description of data. Descriptive statistics will be used to see the four things that are minimum values, maximum values, standard deviation and mean of the variables. Maximum and minimum value show how much minimum and maximum respondent response in the questionnaires, means show the average response of the respondents and standard deviations show how much deviation between these variables. Histogram is basically graphical representation of the data and tells about the distribution of the data whether it is normally distributed or skewed. They look much like bar charts except in histograms; there is no space between the boxes, indicating that there is a continuous variable theoretically underlying the scores. Histograms can be used even if data, as measured, are not continuous, if the underlying is conceptualized as continuous. Scatter Plot predict about relationship between variables and check the assumptions of correlation. Scatter Plots will be used to check the overall picture of research to identify the strength and direction of relationship between variables. Scatter plots are similar to line graphs contains dots in that they use horizontal and vertical axes to plot data points. However, they have a very specific purpose. Scatter plots show how much one variable is affected by another. The relationship between two variables is called their Correlation. Scatter plots usually consist of a large body of data. The closer the data points come when plotted to make a straight line, the higher the correlation between the two variables, or the stronger the relationship. If the data

points make a straight line going from the origin out to high x- and y-values, then the variables are said to have a Positive Correlation. If the line goes from a high-value on the y-axis down to a high-value on the x-axis, the variables have a Negative correlation. Correlation is a statistical measurement of the relationship between variables. Possible correlations range from +1 to 1. A zero correlation indicates that there is no relationship between the variables. A correlation of 1 indicates a perfect negative correlation, meaning that as one variable goes up, the other goes down. A correlation of +1 indicates a perfect positive correlation, meaning that both variables move in the same direction together. Linear regression is a technique for estimating the value of dependent variable from a set of one or more independent variables. As the name linear regression implies, the dependent variable is assumed to have a linear relationship with independent variables. It finds out the effect size of independent variable on dependent variable that how much change occurred in dependent variable due to change in independent variable by using regression equation for analysis. It will verify the value of f-test to check the goodness of fit of the model and also focus on the value of T to check the significance level of relationship for the acceptance or rejection of alternative hypothesis and also focus on the value of R square to see the contribution level of variable mean how much independent variable contribute in changing the value of dependent variable. This will be our proposed regression line.

y = a + Bx1+Cx2+Dx3