Quantitative

King’s Business School, King’s College LondonThis paper is part of an examination and counts towards the award of a degree.
Examinations are governed by the College Regulations under the authority of the
Academic Board. Students must not share or distribute this examination paper.
Examination 2022/23
Module Code and Title: 5QQMN245/6SSMI304: Introduction to Organisational
Research Methods
Examination Period: Exam Period 1, December 2022
Time allowed: Students are recommended to spend no longer than 3 hours on
this paper. The paper will be available for 24-hours from 10:00 on 12th
December 2022. Students will need to submit their answers by 10:00 on 13th
December 2022
Word count: Students should not exceed more than 1500 words for this paper
in total. Maximum word limits for specific questions are noted below.
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES:
1. The exam will consist of two sections: Section A & B.
2. Section A – answer 15 Multiple Choice Questions within the online exam
which is available on the KEATS page.
3. Section B – Read the scenario provided below carefully, then answer ALL 3
questions. Submit your answers as a written exam via Turnitin.
4. For Section B you will need to use Excel to carry out the relevant
statistical tests to answer the question. The Excel file is available on
KEATS.
ONLINE SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
1. You will need to record your answers for Section A within the online exam
which is available on the KEATS page.
2. Section B – you should submit your work via the Turnitin submission link on
the module KEATS page. You will need to record your answers to Section B
in a Word document and use the template cover sheet which has been
provided on the KEATS page. You should complete and type your answers
below or attach to the front of your submission. Make sure you clearly
indicate the questions you are answering (e.g. Section B, Question 1).
3. Ensure your document is submitted as CANDIDATE ID – MODULE CODE- e.g.
AD12345-5QQMN245
4. Once submitted please check you are satisfied with the uploaded
document via the submission link.
5. If you experience technical difficulties and are unable to upload your
assessment by the deadline, please collate evidence of the technical issue
and submit a mitigating circumstances form (MCF). Remember that the
evidence must clearly show timestamps and proof that you attempted to
upload your assessment before the deadline.
5QQMN245
Section A
Answer the questions 1-15 within Section A of the KEATS quiz in the
Assessment area on KEATS. Full instructions are available within the quiz.
[40 marks in total]
Section B
Below is a research scenario. You should read the research scenario
carefully, then use the data file to carry out the relevant statistical
analyses. Once you have done this, answer the questions below in a word
document, which you should submit to Turnitin. The final data file is
labelled ‘5QQMN245 – 6SSMI304 2022 Exam.xlsx’ and can be found on KEATS
under the Assessment section
[60 marks in total]
Question 1
Fully report the findings from your statistical tests, in order to answer
Arjun’s research question.
[20 marks]
Question 2
The CompareTheWeb.Com leadership team ask Arjun for a brief summary of
the research project, to inform a discussion in their next meeting about
whether to proceed with the ‘Best Buy’ initiative.
Write a short, non-technical summary of the findings for this purpose, in no
more than 300 words.
[20 marks]
Question 3
Arjun talks to his KBS academic dissertation supervisor about the project.
His supervisor is concerned that the findings produced by this research
project are not credible or trustworthy, due to limitations in how the
research was designed and carried out.
To what extent do you agree with this concern? You should explain your
points clearly and in detail.
[20 marks]
See next page
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5QQMN245
Research Scenario: CompareTheWeb.Com
Arjun is a UG Business student at KBS, completing a summer internship at a
price comparison website. This website, CompareTheWeb.Com, allows
customers to compare a range of financial products, including insurance,
mortgages, energy and broadband packages, and other loans. The company
partners with many different organisations (called ‘providers’) and makes a
commission when the website customer selects that provider’s product.
Normally, CompareTheWeb.Com lists available deals without making any
recommendation to their website customers. However, in late 2019 the
company introduced a ‘Best Buy’ accreditation, where they recommended a
small number of providers within each product category. They selected
those providers based on previous reputation.
The CompareTheWeb.Com research team wanted to understand more about
how being ‘Best Buy’ accredited impacts a provider’s revenue streams, to
determine whether this initiative is worth continuing. They created the
following research question:
RQ: Is receiving a ‘Best Buy’ status associated with higher provider
revenue two years later, or are there other factors that have a
greater association with revenue?
The research team administered a survey to CompareTheWeb.Com’s full list
of 692 providers. The survey asked provider representatives to fill in data on
the following variables:
1. LOC: Location, whereabouts in the UK the company is headquartered
(1 = London & Home Counties, 2 = South East & South West, 3 = East &
West, 4 = North & Midlands, 5 = Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland).
2. REV19: Revenue 2019 – annual company revenue in £millions for
2019, reported by the provider representative.
3. REV21: Revenue 2021 – annual company revenue in £millions for
2021, reported by the provider representative.
4. EE21: Employee engagement 2021 – a composite variable from three
items designed by the research team. Example item: “Our employees
are excited to come to work and proud to be a member of our
organisation.” Items were rated by the provider representative on a
scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with higher scores
representing more engaged employees.
5. GEN: Gender of provider representative who answered the survey (1
= female, 2 = male).
See next page
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5QQMN245
The research team included three additional variables in the data file:
6. BBS: Best Buy status (0 = no, 1 = yes) – whether the provider has at
least one product accredited as a ‘Best Buy’ by ComparetheWeb.Com.
7. ACR: Average Customer Rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, based on data
recorded from the TrustPilot1 website at the end of 2021.
8. PID: Provider ID – this is an anonymous identification number for each
provider.
Knowing that Arjun possessed excellent quantitative skills from his research
methods training, the head of the research team asked him to analyse the
data from this project.
Originally, CompareTheWeb.Com received 221 responses to their survey.
However, quite a few questions had not been answered – in particular, the
Revenue variable was poorly answered, and some responses contained nonnumerical data. Arjun deleted all responses where there were any missing or
non-numerical data, leaving a final sample of 152 providers.
The final data file is labelled ‘5QQMN245 – 6SSMI304 2022 Exam.xlsx’ and
can be found on KEATS under the Assessment section.
End of Exam Paper
1
TrustPilot is an international review website where anybody can sign up and post a review of a
company. It is independent from CompareTheWeb.Com.
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