Month: December 2014

Factor Analysis: The Fundamental Concept

Factor analysis is a commonly used term in research and its main application is found in 1) reducing the number of variables. 2) Detecting the structure of the relationship that exists between the variables. It can also be called as classification of variables. It is often also termed as a data reduction or structure detection … Continue reading “Factor Analysis: The Fundamental Concept”

Factor analysis is a commonly used term in research and its main application is found in 1) reducing the number of variables. 2) Detecting the structure of the relationship that exists between the variables. It can also be called as classification of variables. It is often also termed as a data reduction or structure detection method. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis allows the testing of specific hypotheses for a particular set of variables in one or many samples. The correspondence analysis is a detective or exploratory technique that has been designed to analyse two way and multiway tables that contain some measures of correspondence that exist between the rows and the columns. The result gives the information which has similar characteristics to those that have been produced by factor analysis and they explore the structure of the categorical variables that are included in the table.

When Factor Analysis is used as a data reduction technique it helps to identify relevant data from a large data set. It can be understood by a simple example. Suppose the researcher wants to measure the height of 100 persons in both inches and centimetres. In this case the height would be measured in two variables. A future research, that is to identify the effect of different food supplements on height, both the measures of calculating height would not be required as height is only a single characteristic off a person, irrespective of how it is measured. So we would eliminate one variable by using factor analysis. Another example of factor analysis that is more relevant would be let’s take a study on the measure of the satisfaction of people with their lives. A satisfaction questionnaire is the fundamental thing that is designed where the focus is on asking questions about various things such as how satisfied they are with their hobbies, how much time to they devote to recreation etc. and the analysis of the responses would show a strong correlation with each other. And a high correlation would actually show that they are quite redundant and the responses can be clubbed into a single scatter plot and eventually the two variables can be reduced to a single factor for the study on satisfaction level.

Thus, factor analysis helps and aids data reduction and arrive at conclusions in a much easier way and arrive at more relevant conclusions.

Typical Applications for Text Mining

The biggest hurdle that researchers face in data mining  is that of unstructured text as that is how majority of information available online is not structured and organised properly. Open Ended Questions: Another place where the information collected is in an unstructured form is the open ended survey responses that are pertaining to the topic … Continue reading “Typical Applications for Text Mining”

The biggest hurdle that researchers face in data mining  is that of unstructured text as that is how majority of information available online is not structured and organised properly.

Open Ended Questions: Another place where the information collected is in an unstructured form is the open ended survey responses that are pertaining to the topic which is under study. The purpose of open ended questions is to allow the respondents to bring out their opinion or views without getting constrained to a particular dimension or predefined format. These open ended questions do give an insight to the researcher to explore those areas and viewpoints of the respondent that may remain untouched in a more structured and closed ended questionnaire. Techniques to text mining do help in the segregation and classification of data that is collected from open ended sources

Automatic processing of messages and emails:  This is another useful application area of text mining.  It helps to automatically filter the mails and messages on the basis of predefined terms into desirable and undesirable messages.  It identified junk mail on the basis of certain terms or words and it makes it easy to discard such messages automatically without much effort. This automatic text mining technique also aids in routing of messages to the appropriate agency or department automatically on the basis of predefined system.

Analysis of warranty or insurance claims, interviews etc. : In a whole lot of businesses, a lot of information is collected in the form of open ended textual form. The warranty claims, medical information or history of patients, automobile owners information profile. All this information needs to be sorted and categorized for appropriate actions. For the best possible exploitation if this information,  clustering into relevant data sets in done by the aid of data mining.

Competitor investing by website crawling: Sometimes there is a need to find out the content on the site of the competitor. The most significant and important terms and features could be distinguished and identified by using the text mining techniques. It is easy to see how these capabilities are able to deliver in efficient manner valuable business intelligence about ye different activities of the competitors.

The Importance of Market Research in Business

In Business Market Research is a process of collecting data in order to determine if any kind of service or product would be able to satisfy the needs of the customers. When market research is implemented effectively, the company is able to get invaluable information about its potential customers, competitors, demographic profile of target market, … Continue reading “The Importance of Market Research in Business”

In Business Market Research is a process of collecting data in order to determine if any kind of service or product would be able to satisfy the needs of the customers. When market research is implemented effectively, the company is able to get invaluable information about its potential customers, competitors, demographic profile of target market, latest and evolving market trends and the spending traits of the customers.

Market research can be split into two types.   The first one being Primary Market Research and the second being Secondary Market Research. All businesses require doing some or the other kind of market research in order to be successful.

The primary research is used for monitoring the effectiveness of the sales and the understanding and analysis of the present business practices and the service quality.  IT also assesses the market competition by helping in the evaluation of the business plans of the competitors.

Secondary research, on the other hand, is a collection of data that is already published in order to create a database which would help and assist in situation analysis and decision making. Secondary research also helps in devising the strategies for benchmarking and helps in the identification of the most profitable market segments that should be targeted by the company.

Business market research cannot be ignored by any business. There are various reasons for this. They key ones being:

  • Market Research assures the success of the marketing campaigns and hence influences the sales in a great way: not only does market research help in the identification of business opportunities but also helps in the creation of business campaigns which directly target the interests of the potential customers.  It offers valuable information about a potential segment within a particular age group.
  • It helps to keep a watch on the competitors and plan your strategy and decisions accordingly. It is a very good tool for comparative studies and the company’s progress can be checked along with the growth of the competitors. Business strategies can be devised that would keep you ahead of your competitors.
  •  It helps in minimizing the losses in the business as before the launch of any business, effective market research would help to identify the potential problems and come out with the possible solutions. The loopholes can be identified   in the beginning only and plans can be made to counter those losses.

Snowball Sampling: A Non-Probability Sampling Technique

We can explain the snowball sampling technique as a technique that is used by the researchers to identify the potential subjects where the possibility of locating the subjects is difficult. Researchers mostly use this kind of a technique when the sample for study is not very common or is confined to a relatively smaller subgroup … Continue reading “Snowball Sampling: A Non-Probability Sampling Technique”

We can explain the snowball sampling technique as a technique that is used by the researchers to identify the potential subjects where the possibility of locating the subjects is difficult.

Researchers mostly use this kind of a technique when the sample for study is not very common or is confined to a relatively smaller subgroup of the population. It is more like a chain referral In this kind of sampling, after having finished his observation on one sample, he asks for assistance from the observed sample to  help in  identifying people who have similar interest. It is pretty much like asking the one subject to nominate the next subject. The process continues like a chain reaction until the target of the sufficient number of subjects is not achieved.

 When the subjects want to observe a rare disease, the snowball technique may be a good option by the researcher to identify the sample and get recommendations from the subjects already under study for the next set of referrals. Observing one sample may lead to the next set of samples.

  There are different types of snowball sampling. The different types are:

  • Linear Snowball Sampling
  •  Exponential Non-Discriminative Snowball Sampling
  • Exponential Discriminative Snowball Sampling

Snowball Sampling comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages are  that it allows the researcher to reach those populations that are difficult to sample when other sampling methods are being used. To add to it, it is a cheap and cost efficient method as  it does not require too much of prior planning and and workforce requirement as compared to other sampling techniques.

Snowball  sampling has its own set of disadvantages as well. There is very little or negligible control of the researcher over this kind of method as the new subjects of the study have the dependance on the previous subjects that have been observed. Secondly a generalised representation of the population cannot be assured in this case as the researcher cannot b e sure of the  correct distribution of the sample. Another disadvantage is that of the scope of sampling biasad when the existing subjects nominate new subjects thry go on the basis of familiarity and some preconceived thought process. It creates a great possiblity that  they would share similar traits and the researcher would only be able to obtain a very small group of the population.

The Structure of a Report

There are some general features of a report that are to be followed in order to make a well structured and meaningful report. Title Page It should be a brief page and should explicitly describe the purpose of the report. Other important details that should form a part of this page are the name, date … Continue reading “The Structure of a Report”

There are some general features of a report that are to be followed in order to make a well structured and meaningful report.

Title Page

It should be a brief page and should explicitly describe the purpose of the report. Other important details that should form a part of this page are the name, date and for whom the report has been created. The terms of reference should also be explained so as to give clarity on the department, degree and audience of the report. It could be in two lines or more depending upon the specific guidelines of the university or department.

 Abstract

It has to briefly describe the content of the report. The abstract should clearly throw light on the aim of the report in not more than half a page. It should be remembered that the summary/Abstract is the first thing that is read  and hence it is imperative that it should give a clear, helpful overview of the report content so that further reading interest is maintained and nurtured as well.

Index/Table of Contents

It should list the different chapters and include the subheadings along with the page numbers. The structure of this page should be such that the reader is able to quickly scan the heading lists and locate any detail with page specifications easily. In addition to giving page references, one could also provide chapter headings and sub headings. Make sure that there is consistency and clarity throughout.

Introduction

This chapter sets the foundation for the main content of the report hence the target of this chapter should be to explain the aims and objectives of the report in detail here. The problems and limitations of the report should be explained with also a brief inclusion of the description of the research methods, parameters and also the background history.

Methods

 The methods adopted for the research are crucial and they should give details of the equipment that has been used, procedures, and sources of information, references of sources and statistical tools and techniques adopted. The right explanation of this part in the report justifies the authenticity of the report.

Results

 The results chapter can be created as a very aesthetically appealing chapter as it offers scope for incorporating diagrams, graphs, tables and other applicable pictorial representations to explain the outcome of the results.

The last few chapters like the discussion, conclusion and references are an extension of the previous chapters and it should take forward the flow of the report and maintain continuity.