Quantitative Assignment Brief and Marking Rubric
Students are required to read a short case study provided in this brief and answer 5 questions,

selecting the appropriate statistical test to answer each business problem.

You can download the datafile for this assignment from Myuni.

This is an individual assignment. So, make sure you conduct data analysis and prepare a summary

report individually. The written report represents a summary of key insight from your data

analysis, demonstrating an ability to choose an appropriate statistical technique to provide

answers to specific business research objectives, as well as an ability to correctly interpret

results and develop preliminary conclusions and recommendations.

The title for this report should also include the words Assignment 1_quant_student ID. Please

submit this assignment as a Microsoft Word file. The assignment should not exceed 1,500 words

(excluding the Appendix). Please use only the key tables or charts in the main body of your report

with all support tables attached in the Appendix.

Learning Objectives
This assignment focuses on student’s ability to:
• Develop skills in statistical analysis
• Understand the need to relate research and management objectives to analysis and findings
• Demonstrate an understanding of quantitative research and required analytical skills
• Develop knowledge in the choice and application of inferential and descriptive statistical

tests
• Understand how quantitative research fits into the broader management and business planning

process
• Apply an advanced understanding of quantitative analysis methods to a specific research

problem

In addition, the aim of this assignment is to develop advanced knowledge in relation to the

fundamental quantitative business and marketing research processes, such as:
• Data preparation and re-coding
• Descriptive data analysis and charting in SPSS and Excel, use of filters
• Significant difference testing using ANOVA or an Independent-samples T-test
• Factor analysis
• Correlations and regressions
• Provision of a short summary of key findings and recommendations

Your report will be assessed on the following criteria.

The Back Yard BBQ story – the journey begins

Back Yard BBQ (BYBBQ), a fast-food restaurant chain, prides itself in serving quality food to its

customers. To move away from typical fast-food stereotypes and maintain a local theme to its

offering, it specialises in selling Aussie-style burgers, fish and barbecue chicken meals with

typical salad and chips on the side.

Their supplies are sources only from reputable local suppliers e.g. Steggles and Ingham for their

chicken, to ensure food quality is always maintained and served. Since establishment in Sydney, its

management is looking for opportunities to expand its business. After conducting some preliminary

secondary research internally, the few concerns that gained the attention of management include the

trend towards healthy food consumption and the saturated nature of the fast-food market in

Australia.

Despite these concerns, BYBBQ management thinks that convenience still holds an edge in consumer

lifestyles.

Furthermore, a recent report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicated that the average

household expenditure on fast foods and meals out is quite high compared to other food consumption

categories (Exhibit 14.2), and that the Australian fast-food market has a potential worth of A&8.8

billion (Euromonitor International). The management reckons that they have competitive advantage

over their competitors in terms of their quality offerings. Before they can proceed further with

their business expansion plan, they decided to engage a research firm to help them better ascertain

the attitudes and opinions of consumers towards fast-food restaurants.

Your research agency, Endmark Pty Ltd, has been approached by the BYBBQ management to gather data

about consumers’ fast-food consumption attitudes. The management hope that the information gathered

will assist them in their future strategic directions. A questionnaire was developed by a group of

casual researchers hired by your agency. The survey was conducted in the Sydney CBD area.

Respondents were randomly selected over a 7-day period by intercepting them at shopping malls and

outside fast-food restaurants. The data gathered from consumers consist of 30 observations on 40

separate variables.

The full data Back Yard BBQ exists as two files in the “Datasets” section of MyUni:

• BYBBQ_build.qsf
• BYBBQ_build-ExampleResponseImport.csv
Go to :
https://adelaide.qualtrics.com/ControlPanel/

Username: [email protected]
Password: 1Qwertyu

File name: BYBBQ_build.qsf

And a quick idea of the data structure:
• Variables q1 to q10 relate to respondents’ fast food selection and consumption patterns.

Variables q11 to q19 indicate their attitudes towards and preferences for fast-food restaurants.
• Variables q20 to q33 record their general opinions on lifestyle issues.
• Finally, respondents’ demographic data are collected and indicated in variables q34 to q40.

Source: Hair, J.F., Lukas, B.A., Miller, K.D., Bush, R.P., and Ortinau, D.J. (2012). Marketing

Research. Sydney, McGraw-Hill 4th edition, pp. 418-419.

Specific Requirements
Management requires you to address the following as you analyse the dataset:

1. Consumer Behaviour
a) Which fast food restaurants are generally visited by the respondents and whether there are

any gender differences in the type of the fast food restaurant visited (Q3)?
b) How much money patrons generally spend when going to fast food restaurants (Q2) and whether

there any differences in spending depending on the type of the restaurant visited.
Perform descriptive statistics and create corresponding charts for Q1A and Q1b, describe key

insights. Use Excel for at least one chart.

2. Consumer Profiling
The management of Back Yard BBQ also wants to understand the profile of their patrons better and

want to find out whether families or single people mostly visit their outlet compared to other FF

restaurants. They want to you perform analysis and compare results for individuals with no

children, individuals who have 1 to 2 children and those who have 3 or more children.
What can you infer from the results?

3. Attitudes and Preferences
Describe general trends in consumer attitudes and preferences – which aspects are more important to

them and which are least important (Q11-Q19)?
Also management wants to find out whether there are any gender differences in attitudes towards

and, preferences for, fast food restaurants (Q11-Q19).

4. Data Reduction in Attitude Items
Perform exploratory factor analysis on the preference and attitudes items to identify whether items

can be reduced to specific and meaningful factors (Q11-Q19). Name extracted factors and save them

as factor scores.

5. Associations between variables
Please test first whether there are any statistically significant associations between Q4_1 to Q4_7

(fast food selection and consumption patterns) and likelihood of future visitation (Q32). Please

comment on the result of the correlation analysis and whether it gives you any preliminary insights

about the regression analysis.
Then, perform a regression analysis using the extracted four factors (Q11-Q19) and Q4_1 to Q4_7

(fast food selection and consumption patterns) using those as independent variables and the

likelihood of future visitation (Q32) as the dependent variable. Comment on the results of the

regression analysis.

For questions 1-4, please briefly explain which statistical test you used and why.
For question 4 and 5, your understanding of statistical inference and analytical skills will be

tested.

Suggested Structure of the Report

Title page: Provide a short title for this report
Prepared for …..
Prepared by …Student Name (ID)
Date

Body of the report:

1. Background
Use relevant information provided in the case study

2. Objectives
Please summarise key points from the five questions as your research objectives

3. Results

3.1. Fast food restaurant visitation and spending
Your answers to the questions 1 and 2
3.2. Attitudes and preferences for fast food restaurants
Your answers to the questions 3, 4 and 5

4. Conclusions and recommendations
Your key conclusions and recommendations from the data analysis

Appendix:
Detailed SPSS data analysis output (formatted, that is no double space in tables)