Influence Of Social Media On Consumer Buying Behaviour: A Literature Review

Week 1

Discuss about the Influence of Social Medial on Consumer Buying Behaviour.

Prior to conduct assignment 1 and assignment 2, I have been through a 12 week learning course based on business research. The learning course was intended to help me in conducting literature review and research proposal on the topic of “the importance of social media on influencing the purchasing intension of the customers. The learning courses seem to provide me a great experience in my career life. Such experience can also be helpful in exploring in my career life through enhancing my work experience. In this reflective journal, I will discuss about my learning experience, which I have experienced during the learning course in a weekly manner.

In week 1, I learned about different nature, strategies and process of business research. Moreover, I learned the common business research practical that can be applied to any kind of business research. This week was associated with learning about the general principles of conducting business research. Most of the most important thing that I came to know in this week is the difference between academic research and business research. Such learning experience will definitely help me in perfectly conduct the business research as its specific format. Furthermore, from my opinion, such learning experience would also help in understanding different business factors in my future career.

Week 2 was associated with learning about research design and planning of several business researches. I came to know that research method is quite different from the research design in terms of conducting business research. Most importantly, I understood the concept of cross sectional, case study, experimental, longitudinal and comparative research that are highly important for successful completion of research. Such learning experience helped in a lot in selecting the best research method and research deign for gathering most valuable research information.

In week 3, I learned about reviewing business research and writing business research. I understood that I need to review the main ideas and research based on those ideas to my chosen area of interest. I came to know about different types of research reviewing and their importance on the research. It was clear to me that I need to very clear and concise in structuring the research for its successful completion. I was learned about the importance of social norms in conducting the research. Hence, such learning experience will help in understanding the social values of the people, which will help me understanding the values of people in my personal life.

Week 2

In this week, I learned about the importance of research ethics for successful completion of business research. I was provided with the learning of codes and guidelines of professional association, which can help me in guiding my business research program successfully. Such learning experience would be extremely important for my academic career and future professional career to maintain ethics and honestly in my work. The boundaries between the ethical and unethical practice was become clear to me in this week. Hence, such learning experience would facilitate me in differentiating between the ethical and unethical work in every aspect of my personal life as well as career life.

In this week, I learned about the details of qualitative research and preciously read the process of qualitative research. I observed that qualitative researchers mostly prefer visual materials for collecting data and see the things through the eyes of research participants. I understood that qualitative research is completely different from the quantitative research. Qualitative research mostly used open ended questions for gathering detailed information regarding the research topic. I focused more of the theoretical and conceptual outcome of the qualitative research, which entirely different from the research result of quantitative data.

In this week, I learned about the interviewing method to be adopted for collecting qualitative data. I understood that qualitative interview is quite flexible and need to employ random sampling for data collection. In this week, I also learned about the concept of focus group to be selected to collecting qualitative research. However, I observed that there are various issues associated with the focus group. Moreover, I saw that it was quite difficult to recruit the participants in the focus group research. Hence, I decided to avoid group interview like focus group in my research and undertake interview method for smooth collection of qualitative research for my business research.

In this week, I learned about the way of analyzing the qualitative data collected from the research participants. Mostly importantly, I got clear idea about the codified rules for governing the data analysis process of qualitative data. It has been discussed that secondary analysis is being increasingly prominent for analysis the qualitative data. I have learned the documentation process of storing the collected qualitative data. In this business research, I clearly discussed and reviewed the process of qualitative data analysis method. In this way, the business research has provided me the real experience in relation with the qualitative data analysis technique.

Week 3

In week 8, I came to know about the nature and sampling associated with the quantitative research. The measurement process linked with the quantitative research entails the search for indicators. I learned about different types of sampling process and their relevance with the research process. It was my perspective that probability sampling can be perfectly used for reducing the biases in the collected quantitative data from the selected samples. In my business research, especially in assignment 2, I choose accurate sample size and sampling technique for assessing the influence of social media on the purchasing intension of the customers. In this way, this particular business research was quite useful in providing me hands on experience, which I can use in conducting the final business research successfully.

In this week, I realized the significance of structured interview for standardizing the ways of asking interview questions to the chosen research participants. The response sets can damage the data retrieved from the structured interview. On the other hand, I also learned about the ways of designing self-completion questionnaires that is quite similar to those of structured interview. I have conducted assignment 1 for gathering the core information regarding the research topic. Moreover, the scope and opportunities of literature review in assignment 1 led me to design both interview questions as well as self-completion questionnaires for gathering primary research information.

In this week, I found the alternative of survey based measure that is structured observed method for assessing the collected data. Such method is actually comprised of explicit rules to record the behaviour of the research participants. Moreover, the learning in this week has been emphasized on the significance of reactive affects for analyzing the collected data effectively. On the other hand, I came to know regarding the content analysis associated with the tradition of qualitative research. In such analysis, the clarity of research questions to be asked to the research participants is extremely important. I conducted assignment 2 for settling on most appropriate research methods for collecting best research information that can result in accurate research outcome.

This week highlighted on the importance of secondary analysis in conducting research process successfully. This analysis can employ high quality data set based in reasonably and large representative samples. However, I also realized that some advantages associated with the secondary analysis. I understood that official statistics are much less prone to error. In this week, I also learned about quantitative data analysis process. I gave more emphasize on SPSS tools for conducting quantitative data analysis. The learning experience regarding both types of data analysis can be helpful for me in perfectly analyzing the collected data of my business research for completing the program successfully.

In this week, I realized the growing significance of mixed method research for leading most authentic research result. I also understood the objections associated with mixed methods like epistemological impediments and ontological impediments. The learning experience of conducting several types of quantitative and qualitative research can facilitated me a lot to conduct different types of business research in my future career life. Moreover, the knowledge gathered from this learning course help in identifying the issues associated with the business research. Such learning experience can also help me in resolving several challenges in my personal life as well as professional life.

Conclusion

While concluding the reflective journal, I must articulate that the 12 week learning course can be high beneficial for me in my personal life as well as professional life. The learning experience facilitated me in conducting assignment 1. In this assignment, I learned a lot regarding the influence of social media on the purchasing decision of the customers. The preparation of assignment 2 facilitated me in choosing suitable research method for gathering most authentic research information. The learning experience regarding the data analysis has tough me to solve several challenge on my own hand. Such experience would definitely be fruitful for me to resolve several real life challenges in personal and career life.

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