Survey Research (SoSe 2022)

Notice

Please note:

“Survey Research” 2022 will be held in accordance with the COVID guidelines of the dean’s office. As of now, we expect the course to take place in class at the Marketing Center Münster. Depending on the pandemic situation in June 2022, the course’s format might be adapted to the current situation. In this case, we will inform all participants via e-mail.

The course is given by Prof. Dr. Mark Houston.

The course takes place at the MCM, room 006 (1st floor) on June 8-11 2022.

Applications for this course are possible for all doctoral students of the faculty of business and economics and minor research students by sending an email to Tanja Geringhoff (tanja.geringhoff@wiwi.uni-muenster.de).

For didactic reasons, the number of participants is limited. The decision on participation of an applicant will based on the first-come, first-served principle. The application period is open until May 31, 2022.

Information for students of the Minor Research: If your application was successful, please register at the examination office for the early examination period. The examination consists of a 60-minute written exam and two group work assignments.  

Information for all PhD students: The course is handled as an A-certificate / research methods for the PhD program.

Description

Many important research questions are best answered with survey data. The goal of this course is to help prepare doctoral students in business and economics to conduct survey-based research that is publishable in the leading research journals. Students will acquire an understanding and practical knowledge of the process that is needed to design and execute scientific survey-based research. We will pay particular attention to issues that impact the integrity of survey research, such as construct definition and validity, correctly specifying a scale as formative or reflective, avoiding common source bias, assessing non-response bias, etc. This course is concerned with the total research process, and our focus on survey research will be embedded in discussions that range from philosophy of science and the generation of research ideas through the publication of the research manuscript.

Although this course will employ many examples from the field of marketing, it is designed in a way that will benefit doctoral students with an interest in conducting behavioral and organizational research in a wide variety of contexts. Its focus is on the research process. The class discussions will allow students to create links between the material and the topics in which they are most interested, and students will have the opportunity to apply ideas from the course to a substantive issue of their own choosing. No significant background in marketing theory and/or practice is assumed.

The goals of this course will be pursued through:

1)    Reading, synthesizing and discussing articles and book chapters on survey research techniques and topics from a variety of behavioral disciplines;

2)    Completing various assignments that give students the chance to apply and practice the principles being reviewed;

3)    Critiquing published empirical research studies; and

4)    Designing a scale development study, including construct conceptual development, multi-item scale development and testing, hypothesis development, and methodological planning. On the last day of the course, teams of students will make a short presentation of their work.

Lecturers

• Dorothea Nilusha Aliman (accompanying)