AVCE Marketing Research - Dave Needham Heinemann Educational

Teaching Business & Economics, Autumn 2003 by Williams, Roger

AVCE MARKETING RESEARCH - Dave Needham Heinemann Educational - Price £52.50 ISBN 0435 456881

Content

This is a pack of photocopiable material for lecturers to help them with the delivery of the Marketing Research module on the AVCE Business unit, but it could be used by anyone who needs to deliver this topic on any Business course( I have used some of the material on the Foundation degree in Business course).

The file is used to cover 5 main areas which are:

1 Market Segmentation

2 The purpose of Market Research

3 Research Methods

4 Research and Evaluation

5 The limitations of Market Research

Also included at the end are some examples of test papers as this unit is externally assessed One problem here is with the format of the paper which could have been in the style of the actual papers used rather than the style they have adopted.

Format and style

This is very user friendly with good examples from the world of Business, for each chapter there was a mixture of information, tasks and activities. To best illustrate the contents we can look at a typical chapter. Chapter 4 is about research methods i.e. Sampling. It begins with a useful list of what topics you need to know (this would be good to use as a revision ticket list). We then progress to a good set of lecture notes on all of the sampling method with examples and case studies (however some of the cases are a bit obtuse such as building a casino for sampling methods). There is then a very good section on how to record sample results and the problems of scaling. The chapter finishes with a set of activities which I found very useful when it comes to revision sessions e.g. what are the limitations of dichotomous questions?

Course Coverage

The file covers all topics that both the students and lecturers will need in order to cover this unit so there is no need to worry that some topics will not be covered.

User friendliness

I found this resource friendly to use, the file is one of a series produced for the external test units and the format and style is exactly the same as used in the Heinemann Core text for AVCE business. This means that when the material is photocopied for the class it is in a style that will appeal to the majority of 16-18 year olds. Cartoons are used to illustrate points with a fairly good sense of humour without patronising the audience aimed at.

How it might be used

I would not suggest using the whole package from start to finish but this could be adopted as an approach if the teacher wanted to do it that way. Where I have used this resource I have tended to dip into it to supplement my main lecture notes; other chapters such as Sampling I have used in total. The chapter on evaluating research data was especially useful as it dealt with the difficult area of statistical analysis. The use of a good case study here helped to focus the difficult areas.

Value for money

Given that the file is photocopiable the price of just over £50 makes this a very affordable resource for any Marketing or Business Studies course.

Recommend

I would have no hesitation in recommending the purchase of this resource.

Roger Williams

Plymouth College of FE