Hypothetical Quantitative Study - Essay Example

Quantitative Research Analysis The research topic is on children and their effect on their parents' spending consumption and spending habits. This effect can best be measured through the use of actual sales number data in combination with survey data from salespeople and from consumers (Simmons, Bickart, and Lynch, 1993). The research question specifically is: what effect do children have on the spending habits and spending consumption of their parents? The null hypothesis would then be "children have no effect on the spending habits of their parents", and the alternate hypothesis "children change the spending habits of their parents".

No indication is given as to whether this change will be a positive or negative one; the alternate hypothesis would be considered correct, or at least fail to be rejected, if parents spend more or less with children (Karp, 1993; Kimball, 2004). Spending consumption is best measured in actual dollars spent by a household. A proposed study would therefore focus on gathering and analyzing such numbers (Simmons, Bickart, and Lynch, 1993). One set of surveys would be sent to households with or without children, asking them to fill out a questionnaire on their spending habits.

These questions would ask for the number of children in the household, the average yearly income of the household, the percentage of that income spent on necessities, and the dollar amounts for various categories of luxury spending. An assumption is being made that the change in consumption habits will primarily be either from luxury to necessities or within luxury spending (Ambert, 2001). The second set of surveys would be for salespeople to judge the effect the physical presence of a child has on spending.

These surveys would be anonymous recordings at the registers of the dollar amount spent and if the consumer was shopping with children. While this would not answer how much children in general affect consumer habits, it would show how the child's presence in the shopping trip changes what is eventually purchased and which stores are visited. Ideally, these surveys would be at a number of different types of stores in different shopping situations (mall, strip mall, stand-alone store, and so on) (Simmons, Bickart, and Lynch, 1993).

The variables to be examined in the household survey are the number of children in the household, the luxury spending percentage of yearly income, and how those luxury dollars are spent. The final variable is qualitative and not relevant to this analysis. The number of children in the household will be analyzed as a single data point: presence or absence, which does unfortunately ignore the possibility of spending changes based on multiple children in the family (Ambert, 2001, p 40). The percentage of luxury spending will then be compared against this variable.

If there is a significant difference in luxury spending between households with children versus those without, we have failed to reject our alternate hypothesis, and can conclude that children do have an effect on the spending habits of their parents (Kimball, 2004; Karp, 1993). The salesperson survey variables would be the dollars spent per purchase, the presence or absence of children while shopping, and finally what stores were being shopped at. The variables would be analyzed with comparison of dollars spent to children, dollars spent to what stores, and children present to which stores.

The household survey analysis will be done using a mean, with a range based on standard deviation. The final results would then be just two main data points, average percentage of income with children and without. If the two points do not overlap with regard to standard deviation, the analysis has proven itself (Kimball, 2004). The sales survey data of which stores and how many shoppers with children does not require any analysis since it is simple count data (Karp, 1993). Conclusions could be drawn from the percentage of shoppers with children; for instance, the type of store will obviously have an effect on the number of children brought in.

The amount of money spend would need to be analyzed per store, since the amount spent at a discount goods store cannot be compared to a department store perfume counter purchase, for example (Simmons, Bickart, and Lynch, 1993). The per-store amounts will be averaged using a similar system to the household survey, to see if the "with children" numbers differ significantly from the "without children" numbers (Kimball, 2004). This statistical method is simple and clear, accessible to the audience for the study, and proves an easily visualized result.

References Ambert, A. (2001). The effect of children on parents (2nd ed.). Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press. Karp, P. D. (1993). Design Methods for Scientific Hypothesis Formation and Their Application to Molecular Biolog. Machine Learning, 12(1-3), 89-116. doi:10.1023/A:1022823517907 Kimball, J. W. (2004, June 1). What do the data tell us?. In Kimball's Biology Pages. Retrieved February 22, 2011 Simmons, C. J., Bickart, B. A., & Lynch, Jr, J. G. (1993, September). Capturing and creating public opinion in survey research.

The Journal of Consumer Research, 20(2), 316-329. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from JSTOR.