Question

You wish to analyze the pedestrian traffic that passes a given store in a major shopping center. You are interested in determining how many shoppers pass by this store, and you would like to classify these shoppers on various relevant dimensions. Any information you secure should be obtainable from observation alone. a. What other information might you find useful to observe? b. How would you decide what information to collect? c. Devise the operational definitions you would need. d. What would you say in your instructions to the observers you plan to use? e. How might you sample this shopper traffic?

Answer 1

a.

Data collection specifies details of the task and answers who, what, when, how and where (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). I would use the indirect approach in order to be able to take advantage of electronic devices such as cameras and recording options. The time frame in which the volume of pedestrian traffic increased should be observed. The sex of the pedestrians should be noted. If possible the ethnicity of the participant should be noted as well as an approximate age range of the pedestrian. The activities of surrounding areas in comparison to the amount of pedestrian traffic should be documented in order to help determine if traffic increased due to outside factors. Most importantly the ratio of pedestrians that passed the shopping center in comparison to those who actually entered the shopping center should be documented.

b. It is not clear what the management challenge or problem is. Identifying the dilemma that management faces is significant to the determination of what information to collect. Being that specific details were not provided, one must begin with who, what, when where, and how factors of data collection. More details such as why the pedestrian traffic is being observed is needed to better determine what information should be collected. It is not clear if certain stores are experiencing declining sales, or if parking is inadequate.

c. An operational definition is a definition stated in terms of specific criteria for testing or measurement (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). The definition specifies how they are to be observed. While the management dilemma was not specified, we can assume that there is some form of concern with the amount of pedestrian traffic. Whether traffic is exceeding or not meeting expectations remains to be determined. Therefore the operations definitions should be number of pedestrians, sex, ethnicity, age range, and time spent in the shopping center area.