Motivation for Women for Attending Sports Events - Research Proposal Example

Motivation for women for attending sports events A Qualitative Research Proposal Table of Content 1. Executive summary 2. Background 2.1 Problem definition 2.2 Research questions 2.3 Research design rationale 2.4 Research design 2.5 Sample design 3. Appendices 3.1 Moderator’s focus-group discussion guide 3.2 Interview guide 4 Reference list Executive Summary Over the last five years, attendance at sports events at Australia has grown at a rate of 13%, with around 7 millions Australians attending a sport event in year 2004. This number includes 4 million males and 3 million females, which shows that numbers of males are more than females. There can be a number of ways for justifying this difference. It can be a result of demographic data, population data (ratio of male and female in Australia), men are more motivated for attending sports event, psychographics and social causes for the same etc. On the rationale that a rise in number of women attendance at any sport event will give a boost to the sport event and accessories business, I have conducted an exploratory research with aiming to find out the motivational factors for women to attend any sport event. This research will help me to understand that what attracts women to a sport ground. The results and conclusion will be valuable in developing a marketing plan and strategies to attract more women towards attending sports events. During the research, I have planned to have in-depth interviews of more than 150 women across age groups and 5 focus group discussions. These methods are suitable to get more qualitative data which will be helpful later. In depth interviews will be unstructured basis and this will give more space to go in depth of the answers given by respondents. A proper guideline is being prepared of the areas which I need to touch while interviewing any females. 1. Background of the study Playing and watching any sport game has been an intricate part of the life. Everybody wants to enjoy that and it does not matter which age group, gender group, social group does he\she belong. The sports events have given a boost to world economy also. If we take a case of India, where cricket is a religion, during the last Indian Premier League, the total spending were hundred millions of dollars. This is same with Australia too. Sports have a potential to boost the business and have a lot more opportunities in it. The participants are required from each and every age group, but we have seen a negative trend in Australian participants where the number of women attending any sport event is quite lesser than number of men. There it becomes imperative to understand the causes behind that. From the marketing perspective it is most important to understand that what motivates women to attend theses sport events. It is quite imperative to understand the central theme of consumer behavior for developing a successful marketing plan. This is same in case of sports marketing; there were many studies conducted which explains the critical aspects of consumer behavior. Considering an example of research conducted by Robertson and Pop on attendance of women in professional sports in Australia. It was examined that sports marketing at Division 1A universities in the United States - Analyzed attendance at basketball, baseball and football games - The study included both professional and Divison1A teams. For any organization, its main objective is to raise the awareness level and create a much more impactful image of the sports. Under the purview of keeping developing marketing strategies in mind, this research will be designed. There will be some secondary data and primary data both will be analyzed during the research. Regarding the secondary data – Demographic figures of Australia, male to female ratio of Australian population, no. of sports held in the country, no. of the attendants in these sports events during last three years, most famous sports for men and women both and their attendance in these events etc. For primary data 150 women will be interviews and 5 focus group discussions will be held during the research period. These interviews and discussion will mainly focus on finding out the motivation factor for women attending sports events. 1.1 Problem Definition The management decision problem is to understand the motivational factors behind women attending sports events. It is to find out that is it because of the social pressure, image of women in society, their life style or any other factor. To provide a possible solution to the problem, I am going to conduct a marketing research which requires presenting the information. The marketing research problem for this study is: “Understand motivational factors and perceptions of women regarding attending sports events.” As the data suggest that during the last years the attendance of women are decreasing in sport events in Australia. The main focus of this research study is to explore and evaluate the reasons behind that and then from marketing viewpoints the future strategies needs to be developed. This will be as results of the feedback given by women respondents throughout the data gathering process an assessment will be made possible to determine a solution. In case of focus group for example, if the planned focus groups and interviews show that the life style of the women are a main reason to that then a new strategy will be implemented to combat this. As is it mentioned that women attendance will surely increase the business opportunities and value to the Australian economy. It will bring more and more revenue to the businesses and this is why this can’t be ignored. 1.2 Research Questions Keeping in mind the above research objective and research aims, there are certain questions or areas are defined which will be touched upon while interviewing respondents. Although, I have choose a unstructured interviews which will help me to dig inside the information. The areas which will be touched upon are listed below. 1. What kinds of sports do you like? 2. Do you love to watch your favorite sport games on television or live at the ground? 3. What do you think that sports are a part of life and how does it add value to you? 4. How often do you watch live matches at ground? 5. Is there specific reason for not going there to enjoy your favorite game? (probe on social, gender, lifestyle and psychological aspects.) 6. How many times does your husband or brother go for live shows and why? 7. Who is your favorite sports star? And why? These above mentioned will be main areas where we need to focus upon. While taking the conclusions these all will be supported by secondary data. 1.3 Research Design The marketing research problem is to understand motivational factors and perceptions of women regarding attending sports events. The research design which I have chosen is a kind of exploratory research design. The major benefits of this design is that it provides valuable information when the researcher is attempting to provide insight and understanding on what is taking place and relies on the researcher constantly asking himself what lies beneath the surface of what he is learning and/or seeing (Wrenn et al. 2007, p.34). As our main aim is to find out the motivation factors and reasons for not attending sport event so a flexible, interpretive and more probing (in depth interviews) research design is more appropriate than an structured design, such as descriptive research. Before the process of implementing an exploratory research design begins, the researcher will be required to undertake a critical analysis of external secondary data. This will be more helpful in finding conclusion with supported by external data (Malhotra et al. 2006, p.138). Although there are not many literature reviews are available but we will try to get the help of whatever is available with us. Once the secondary data analysis has been conducted, the research will proceed to the primary research stage, consisting of two stages – 1. In depth interviews of 150 women respondents 2. 5 focus group discussions They are a core technique in qualitative research and are enormously popular as they elicit truthful, deep-seated emotions from customers (Richardson. 2008) and have been used in similar studies to gain insight on women sentiment (McCuddy et al. 2008). The size of the focus group will be ranging in 6-8 people who will be including the top people from the industry and the normal audience. This will help us to find out the reactions and answer of issues of normal citizens from industry experts. After this, based on the information received in the focus groups, a series of in-depth interviews will be conducted on a number of the focus group participants, approximately 150, with the aim of the in-depth interviews to achieve both breadth of coverage across key issues, and depth of coverage within each (Ritchie and Lewis. 2003, p.148). 2.4 The Sample Design The sampling design process consists of five sequential and interrelated steps (Malhotra et al. 2006, p.363), including: 1. Defining the target population; 2. Determining the sampling frame; 3. Selecting sampling technique(s); 4. Determining the sampling size; and 5. Executing the sampling process. The target population for this research includes the students from college up to house wives. The sampling frame will be ranging from the age group of 14 – 20 till 35 -50. Only women from the Australia are allowed to participate in the research. The sample people will not have any education bar because sports is for all (Sarndal et al. 2003, p.9). The third stage of the sampling design, selecting the sampling technique, is now considered. As this is for finding out the motivation factor so a non-probability sampling technique was chosen. Non-probability sampling is a valuable, cost-efficient technique when the research is aimed at making useful, exploratory inferences or interpretations (Schillewaert et al. 1998). As far as the focus group are concerned this will be from both industry experts and normal citizens. The industry experts are yet to be decided. Food and beverages will be offered to them who attend, just to attract them some small gifts will be given to them. The number of people will in a focus group is 6-8. (Malhotra et al. 2006,p.215). 3. Appendices 3.1 The Moderator’s Guide The moderator will be moderating the focus group discussions. There are some basic information and guidelines to him. These are – 1. He or she needs to explain the Background of the study/Introductions Moderator will: • Introduce him/her and thank participants for agreeing to participate. • Thank you for taking some time out of your day to participate in this focus group study. I am {NAME} – I work for {COMPANY NAME}. I’ll be moderating our discussion today. • Explain focus group guidelines and the structure of the session. • We have the discussion scheduled for one and a half hours. During the session we want to get your views and opinions on motivational factor for women to attend sports events • We will be audio taping today’s discussion for further analysis, however nobody’s name will be attached to the final report. Your confidentiality is completely assured. I Participant introduction: • As a means of breaking the ice, each participant will be asked to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. II. Discussion Topics Today we will be discussing the issues for decrease in attendance of women in sports events in Australia. The issues will be discussed from a lot of view points and frames and it can be anything as per your opinions. I will be moderating in between to inject more and more view points to the discussion. • General Questions: [Used to get participants accustomed to the focus group discussion before moving on to more in-depth, personal questions] 1. Do women love to watch their favorite sport games on television or live at the ground? 2. What do you think that sports are a part of life and how does it add value to you? 3. How often do you watch live matches at ground? 4. Is there specific reason for not going there to enjoy their favorite game? (Probe on social, gender, lifestyle and psychological aspects III. Closing • Offer participants the opportunity to make any final comments. • Thank you for your input today. We are almost at the end of our session, so are there any last comments that anyone would like to make? The information you have provided is valuable to us. 3.2 Interviewer’s Guide (The questions used in the in-depth interviews of women will depend to a large extent on the outcomes of the focus groups.) Interviewer name: Respondent name: Duration: The interview will have no time limit. Purpose: The purpose of this interview is to explore the reasons and motivational factors. Method: The interview will be carried out in specific places. The interviews will be tape recorded, with the respondent’s permission, for further analysis. Privacy and consent: Each respondent will be assured of their privacy and be asked to sign a form of consent to participate in the interview. Potential Questions General questions: [Demographic and basic questions will be asked before moving onto more in-depth Questions] 1. What is your age? 2. What kinds of sports do you like? 3. Do you love to watch your favorite sport games on television or live at the ground? 4. What do you think that sports are a part of life and how does it add value to you? 5. How often do you watch live matches at ground? 6. Is there specific reason for not going there to enjoy your favorite game? (probe on social, gender, lifestyle and psychological aspects.) 7. How many times does your husband or brother go for live shows and why? 8. Who is your favorite sports star? And why? 4. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2008. Education and Training. Eyitayo, O.T. 2005. Experimenting eLearning With A Large Class. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology. Vol1, No.3, pp.160-171. Malhotra, N., Hall, J., Shaw, M., and Oppenheim, P. 2006. Marketing Research, An Applied Orientation, 3rd Edition, Pearson Education Australia. Richardson, S. 2008. Qualitative Research Offers Markets Myriad Options To Get At Customer Truths. B to B. Vol.19, No.12, pp.9. Sarndal, C.E., Swesson, B., and Wretman, J.H. 2003. Model Assisted Survey Sampling, Springer. Schillewaert, N., Langerak, F., and Duhamel, T. 1998. Non-Probability Sampling for WWW Surveys: A Comparison of Methods. Journal of the Market Research Society. Vol.40, No.4, pp.307-322. Stewart, D.W., Shamdasani, P.N., and Rook, D.W. 2006. Focus Groups, Theory and Practice, Second Edition, Sage. Read More