Master Grind
The viability of launching a new App for DCU
Ruth Sheridan, Alicia Greene, Pamela Doyle & Pedro Fernandez de Santaella

Applied Market Research (MG208)
Lecturer: Fergal Brophy
DCU Global Business
March 22nd 2015
Applied Market Research (MG208)
Lecturer: Fergal Brophy
DCU Global Business
March 22nd 2015

Executive Summary 3
Description of hypothetical Product 4
Research Objectives 6
Research Methodology 7 Secondary Research 7 Quantitative Research 9 Questionnaire 9 Observation 10 Qualitative Research 11 Focus Group 11 One-to-One Interviews 12
Data Collection (Findings) 14 Quantitative Survey 14 Quantitative Observation 17 Focus Group 17 One-to-One Interview Personas 19
Analysis of Findings (Key Takeaways) 21 Quantitative survey 21 Observation 21 Focus Group 22 One-to-One Interviews 22
Conclusions and Recommendations 23
Limitations 24
References 25
Appendices 26 Appendix 1 26 Additional Information on One-to-One Interviews 26 Appendix 2 28 Additional Graphs. 28 Appendix 3 30 Master Grind Post-Graduate Survey 30 Master Grind Student Survey 32 Appendix 4 35 Focus Group theme sheet 35
Group reflection 37
Infographic 39
Executive Summary
In the first week of semester two of the Market Research module MG208 in DCU we were designated a task; to come up with a new and innovative business venture that would be of benefit to the students of DCU. We wanted to solve a problem that students who fail exams have in common: the problem of locating private tuition, which would assist them in studying for repeats and passing the repeat exam. This was the starting point for our product ‘Master Grind’.
Although we spent a significant amount of time doing third party research using a variety of resources including articles and journals from the Higher Education Authority, we acknowledged that there was a gap in our knowledge. The only way that we could bridge this gap was to speak with and actually understand our fellow students’ problem.
We carried out an extensive range of research activities: observation, quantitative surveys, focus groups and one-to-one interviews, in an attempt to delve deep into the minds of our target market. In our exploration we hoped to find information on the important requirements for our App, as well as knowledge on how students currently find extra tuition. We expected to find out whether Post-Graduate students would supply our service and also how much students would be willing to pay.
Results of the questionnaires indicated that 62% of the students surveyed found it difficult or very difficult to locate extra tuition within DCU. The covert observational research in the Math’s Learning Centre in DCU proved that there is a demand for such extra tuition. The focus groups identified that the most important factor for students seeking tuition is the tutor’s experience and knowledge base. Analysis of the one-to-one interviews illustrated that cost in terms of both providing and receiving extra tuition is a major factor.
Analysis of the body of evidence from the research outlined many useful finding and clearly illustrates that there would be sufficient demand for our app, which aims to bridge the gap between students and potential tutors. During the research we also gained some insights into design features, which would be required by the end-users. The inclusion of robust tutor profiles and a grading system will be required characteristics of the final product. In conclusion, we can deduce that students in DCU would use our App to search for extra tuition.

Description of hypothetical Product
In the first week of semester two of the Market Research module MG208 in DCU we were designated a task; to come up with a new and innovative business venture that would be of benefit to the students of DCU.
At our initial meeting we undertook a brain storming session trying to come up with an innovative, practical idea. We examined all facets of student needs and experiences while studying in DCU. Our innovative business idea came from the personal experience of a member of our team. She had failed a module in her first year in DCU, failed the repeat and had no option but to repeat the year once again in order to progress further in her studies. She explained that in university if you have difficulty understanding a particular topic; it is very difficult to get extra help or support. We discussed this problem and examined what options students have? In the case of our team member, she found it very difficult to locate private tuition, which would have assisted her in passing the repeat exam. As a team we recognised that some students from every faculty here in DCU would have experienced this same difficulty. We identified that there is certainly a market for students requiring extra tuition and also sufficient supply in terms of Post-Grad students to match this demand. Our aim is to bring these two groups together. To do this we plan to create an efficient, practical App. Our idea was born.
Our business venture is an app called Master Grind. This is an app that enables DCU Masters or Post Graduates who wish to offer tuition to advertise their services and students who require extra tuition to locate a tutor. The app would be accessed using your personal DCU login details and could be accessed through your mobile or any other smart device. Tutors will create a profile describing themselves, their faculty of study, the subject tuition they can provide, the price they wish to charge, their location etc. Students will be able to use the search tool to find the tutor best suited to them. Once a tutor has been chosen, an instant chat between the student and tutor will appear. This will enable the tutor and pupil to negotiate the parameters of the teaching arrangement. Upon reflection of the tuition received students will have the option to rate their tutor and the service that was provided. We believe that this is a vital component to the app as it allows for recognition of standard of tuition provided and also allows for the student to make an informed decision when choosing a tutor to employ. We hope that a by-product of offering this service would be to reduce the issue of increasing failure rates, which has been flourishing in recent years.

Research Objectives
Having decided on our hypothetical product idea, we agreed that specific research objectives would be essential in order to keep our research focused.
Overall objective: Is our product viable/ is there a market for this App?
Specific objectives: 1. Will students use our App to search for extra tuition? 2. How struggling students find extra tuition currently? 3. How much will students pay for extra tuition? 4. Will Post-Grads be willing to provide extra tuition? 5. What are the important requirements for our App design?

We chose these objectives because we needed to establish the current practice among students in relation to extra tuition. Furthermore we needed to discover the cost factors and establish the availability of service providers. Determining design implications for our App would be key to its success.
The answers to these questions shape our research. They will enable us to identify whether there is a market for this App and ultimately whether or not it would be a viable product.

Research Methodology
Secondary Research
As a starting point in our investigation, we decided that secondary research would be a necessary research tool in order to achieve the following objectives: 1. To investigate failure rates in DCU, thus analysing whether there would be a market for our product. 2. To identify potential pitfalls in carrying out market research.
Our first step was to get in contact with Patrick Mulcachy; the Registrar of our course and Siobhan McGovern; our Macroeconomics lecturer, in order to obtain information on failure rates here in DCU.
Siobhan kindly provided us with an email containing the breakdown of grades in relation to the Macroeconomics module, which we completed last semester. This module was taken by 300 students and the following information related to the results of all those who sat the semester one examination: 1.1 | 11% | 2.1 | 34% | 2.2 | 36% | 3 | 10% | F | 9% |

This high failure rate statistic encouraged us to pursue our research proposal. It was initial proof that there is a sufficient body of students in DCU who might avail of our product.

Our contact with the course registrar was unfortunately less productive. The information we required from him regarding the failure rates of the entire year was deemed to be confidential and could not be disclosed for the purpose of this research report.

Having reached an impasse, we decided to conduct external secondary research to support our market research. We opted for online external research as in recent years there has been ‘a shift in focus towards measurement and analysis of e-commerce internet business activity’. (Proctor, 2005) An article written in the Irish times entitled “Colleges in Crisis” gave us an insight into pressures placed on students today.

Academics say standards are slipping, students say pressures have never been as great, and administrators say they have delivered all the efficiencies they can. (Humphrey, 2014)

An article from the Higher Education Authority, who is actively tackling the need for Third Level performance transparency, stated that the failure of students to progress from 1st year to 2nd year in Ireland stands at 9%. Not only this but in 07/08 the percentage of Undergraduate dropouts in DCU stood at 11% (Higher Education Authority, 2010)
In considering the type of market research we would undertake, we examined various case studies, blogs and articles. Our aim was to identify potential problems to ensure that we could avoid common errors throughout our research. One applicable case study made an impression upon us and showed that even the worlds leading brands make mistakes when it comes to market research. In the mid-1980s, the Coca-Cola Company made a decision to introduce a new beverage product. A product dubbed “New Coke” was developed that was sweeter than the original-formula Coke. However in carrying out their market research taste tests, they made one fatal flaw; they assumed that taste was the deciding factor in consumer purchasing behaviour. As a result ‘New Coke’ was withdrawn from the market (Smith, 2013). In framing our Quantitative research we kept this example foremost in our thinking.

Quantitative Research
Questionnaire
Our product is an App, which enables students to easily locate extra tuition. In making our survey we needed to ensure that we did not make a similar mistake to Coke; that is to assume that the availability of our app would result in students taking grinds. We realised that other factors such as cost, time and tuition style would also affect the use of the product.
As we began designing our questionnaire we quickly realised that we would need to create two surveys; one for students and the other for Post-Graduates in order to examine both sets of our target market. We decided that a self-completion survey would be the most appropriate as it would be cheap and easy to administer. We made use of closed questions such as multiple-choice questions as we hoped this would lead to a higher response rate from our sample. In this way it would also be easier to process and analyse the data. We included scaling questions to measure the attitude of our audience.
Having designed both questionnaires we piloted them to ensure that our questions were clear and precise. We identified some minor errors and solved them immediately. We used Google docs to create our surveys as we had previous experience with it and other survey-makers such as ‘Survey Monkey’ restricted us to asking only 10 questions. We collected and analysed the data on an excel spreadsheet.
We chose convenience sampling as a method of analysing our sample of 100 Post-Grads and 100 students because of both time and budgetary constraints. However, we did try to survey people from various faculties across different year groups in DCU. Out of our sample, 80 students and 70 Post-Graduates responded which we believed was large enough to give us an accurate representation of our target market.
Our primary aim for our surveys was to create comparisons and analyse the relationship between Students and Post-Grads in terms of their attitudes towards receiving and providing extra tuition.

Observation

To add to our bank of knowledge on student use of grinds we undertook some covert observational research. Observation is defined by Malhotra as ‘The recording of behavioural patterns of people objects and events in a systematic manner to obtain information about the phenomenon’ (Malhotra, 1999)

With our ‘Master Grind’ app we propose to link students with “tutors” and to organise extra tuition, which assists them, pass their re-sit exams. The Maths learning centre is a service provided by the DCU library that offers extra tuition to students who need it. It is a specific room in the library where postgraduate students offer their knowledge and help to undergraduate students who are struggling to understand an aspect of Maths. Students enter the room, ask for help and one of the tutors explains whatever it is you don’t understand about the subject. The service is specifically for Maths students but the idea behind the service is similar to what we propose to offer through our App. We observed the activity of this room at peak hours during the week to discover how often it was used and by how many students.

Qualitative Research
Focus Group

Having carried out our quantitative research and observation we wanted to delve into the minds of our fellow students. We were interested to obtain a rich, in-depth insight into the type of tuition that students would find most useful. We hoped to gather opinions on the need for extra tuition in college in order to solve the thriving problem of failure and drop out rates here in DCU. We also hoped to capitalize on the snowball effect in order for new ideas to emerge. We wanted to focus on ‘the interaction within the group’ (Bryman & Bell, 2011) Throughout our research we concentrated on keeping the consumer in sight. The key tool for this was our focus group, which we used as a source of enlightenment in terms of our idea.

Our focus group comprised of 8 DCU students, which included both Irish and foreign-nationals. We wanted an extensive and comprehensive mix of DCU students who also had a shared characteristic.
We handpicked these 8 students based on the following;

1. A shared characteristic – They were all part of our target audience; DCU students. 2. Strangers v’s natural groups – We choose students who were not close friends in order to stimulate a more comprehensive discussion. 3. Systematic variation – We chose students of different gender and nationality in order to allow for contrasting opinions.

We carried out our focus group in a study room in the DCU library as it created a friendly, informal environment in a quiet setting. We prepared a theme sheet with some guidline questions to keep the group focused. Ruth acted as the moderator. She took notes on both the conversation as well as the body movements and reactions of the students. We voice recorded the focus group so that we could analyse the conversation however we felt that a video recording might have made the participants feel uncomfortable and therefore hinder the discussion. One-to-One Interviews

“Face to face interviews can obtain high response rates, since engagement with the respondents are maximised, thereby collecting rich information (visual expressions etc). Face to face interviews can support long surveys. It is also the best type of data collection for open-ended responses”. (Mooi & Sarstedt, 2011)
We chose to do one to one interviews because expert opinions were needed in order to determine if there would be demand for our app, Master Grind. Through these interviews we gathered detailed information from our target market – undergraduate students in DCU. We wanted to seek understanding and interpretation through asking open ended questions such as “what methods have you used to pass your repeats” and “would you think grinds would have prevented you from failing your module?” We created themes which provided a semi- structured format for the interviews. Some themes included: questions about price, approaches that would be taken to find extra tuition and factors that influence ones choice of tutor. By listening attentively and paraphrasing, we were able to obtain an in-depth insight into the opinions of our interviewees. We audio recorded the interviews which enabled us to listen back, analyse, and report our findings. We benefited from one-to-one interviews as we felt that the interviewees were more comfortable talking in this setting in comparison to the focus group that we also held. We also found it easier to ask follow-up questions in the one-to-one interviews.
These interviews, together with the observation, focus groups and quantitative surveys that we carried out, aided us in creating three personas. These personas provide us with a clear picture of who our product is targeted towards and they are heavily influenced by the interviewees responses and experiences.

Data Collection (Findings)
Quantitative Survey

In the following section we will examine the findings from the various research instuments; namely questionnaires, observation, focus groups and one-to-one interviews.
We sent out 100 questionnaires across all faculties in DCU. Our response rate was 80%. We began by asking students had they ever availed of extra tuition in DCU. We discovered that 19% of respondants had availed of extra tuition and 81% of students did not.

In the questionnaire we asked respondants who reported that they had received extra tuition, to identify what method they had used to enquire. Respondants indicated that they had used a variety of approaches such as; Advice from DCU support services, word of mouth and internet resources. There was no one approach which students clearly used over another.

We asked respondants to indicate how difficult it was to locate extra tuition in DCU on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most difficult. The responses are shown in the graph below and it is easy to see that the majority of respondants indicated in the difficult to very difficult range.

One of our most interesting findings was the results in terms of the cost students were will to outlay in contrast to the amount that tutors agreed they would be willing to charge. Students were happy to pay between €10 and €20 in the main. However, tutors were expecting to charge €15 and €30.

In the questionnaire to Post-Graduate students, respondants were asked to indicate both whether they had provided and would be willing to provide extra tuition in DCU. Of the 70 respondants, only 4 had ever given extra tuition previously, however 40 indicated that they would be willing in the future.

As part of both questionnaires, we asked respondants to indicate their availability in terms of giving and receiving extra tuition. It is clear from the graphs below that there is a wide common ground between students and Post-Graduates. (Appendix 2 for more information on survey)

Quantitative Observation

We observed how many people entered and left the centre for two hours during the Thursday 5th of March from 12-2pm. At the beginning there were four female students with only one tutor attending. These were the figures of the students entering and leaving the centre during the two-hour observational period:

IN | OUT | MALE | FEMALE | MALE | FEMALE | 10 (1 tutor) | 8 (1 tutor) | 6 | 6 |

Focus Group

* During the focus group we asked students who had failed an exam, what they did to obtain help. Their responses were as follows; 1. Speak to their lecturer and get a recommendation. 2. Contact the students union for contacts in terms of extra tuition. 3. Ask someone in the year above who had failed an exam what they had done.

* Out of the 8 students in our focus group, 2 had availed of extra tuition in the past year. Of these two, one had obtained a contact number from the students union while the other had seen an advertisement on a noticeboard in DCU.

* Of these two students, one was not happy with the service she received. She felt that the tutor did not have a sufficient level of Spanish to be providing extra tuition and she also felt it was a problem that the tutor was younger than her.

* I was delighted to see that having explained our app idea, all 8 of the students present said they would download it and would recommend it to friends.

* It was interesting to see that there was a clear pattern in the group in terms of extra tuition preference. The students would use cost and tutor experience as a method of choosing a tutor.

* There was no clear winner in terms of the type of tuition students would prefer. Some students were certain that one-to-one tutoring would be the only way to go. Others disputed that group tuition would be more beneficial as they felt they could learn from their peers as well as a tutor. Cost was again a recurring factor as many agreed that one-to-one tutoring is often too expensive.

* As expected, the students were collectively against paying anything over €25 for an hour of extra tuition

* There was a strong consensus among the group that lecturers are often very unhelpful if you are struggling with an aspect of a particular module. Several of the participants gave Spanish as an example. They explained that even though it is a small class size, the lecturer is not approachable and very often doesn’t explain where you have gone wrong. Other participants used finance as an example and explained that in a class of 300 people it is very difficult to ask for help.

* I was surprised to find out that one of our participants had used the Maths Learning Centre here in DCU. This student found it very useful and thought it would be beneficial to have such centres for other subjects.

* In terms of our App, the students’ only worry was whether they had to pay for it and also whether or not the tutors would be rated.

One-to-One Interview Personas
Miguel
* 2nd year Global Business Spanish * Originally from Madrid * Prefers Group tutoring with his Spanish friends as his English is not very strong. * He failed Macroeconomics last semester and has to repeat in August. * Lives on campus and is very independent so cost is an important factor. * Would not pay more than €15 for an hour of extra tuition.

Miguel * 2nd year Global Business Spanish * Originally from Madrid * Prefers Group tutoring with his Spanish friends as his English is not very strong. * He failed Macroeconomics last semester and has to repeat in August. * Lives on campus and is very independent so cost is an important factor. * Would not pay more than €15 for an hour of extra tuition.

Rob * 2nd year Global Business German * He is shy and finds his lecturers unapproachable. * Prefers One-to-One tutoring * Lives on the south side of Dublin so the location of the extra tuition is most important. * He failed Accounting last year and got help from his friends for his repeat exam. * Would pay between €15-€20 for an hour of extra tuition

Rob * 2nd year Global Business German * He is shy and finds his lecturers unapproachable. * Prefers One-to-One tutoring * Lives on the south side of Dublin so the location of the extra tuition is most important. * He failed Accounting last year and got help from his friends for his repeat exam. * Would pay between €15-€20 for an hour of extra tuition

Anna * 3rd year Actuarial Maths * She has a very hectic lifestyle. * She commutes from Kildare and works at the weekends so availability of the tutor is the most important factor. * She failed one module in 1st year and received 5 sets of grinds over the Summer. * Admits she has a low attention span in large groups so One-to-One extra tuition would suit best. * She would be happy to provide extra tuition in the future. * She would pay €15 max for extra tuition.
Anna
* 3rd year Actuarial Maths * She has a very hectic lifestyle. * She commutes from Kildare and works at the weekends so availability of the tutor is the most important factor. * She failed one module in 1st year and received 5 sets of grinds over the Summer. * Admits she has a low attention span in large groups so One-to-One extra tuition would suit best. * She would be happy to provide extra tuition in the future. * She would pay €15 max for extra tuition.

* Out of the three interviews, all say that price plays and important role and they would be willing to pay between twelve and twenty euro per hour. However it was interesting to note that they all agreed if they were to provide grinds, they would prefer to be paid more. * Other important factors are location, rating system and the availability of the tutor. * All students would not travel more than an hour for grinds– Our tutors need to be widely spread across the region of Dublin in order to be convenient for those who do not live on campus. * All believed that our app would be most popular in the summer months before the repeat exams. * Two out of our three students would consider providing grinds when they are postgrad/master students. * Ultimately, all students believe that they would have used Master Grind and believe it is a feasible business idea for DCU students.

(The expanded persona profiles are available in Appendix 1)

Analysis of Findings (Key Takeaways)
Quantitative survey

Analysis of the questionnaire data indicates four major takeaways.
62% of students indicated that they found it difficult or very difficult to locate extra tuition within DCU. This finding clearly illustrates that there would be sufficient demand for our app, which aims to bridge the gap between students, and potential tutors. Interestingly 58% of Post-Graduate students indicated that they would be willing to provide extra tuition while only 8% have ever provided such a service. Yet again, the requirement for service that links tutors and students is evident. Within the questionnaire findings there are large areas of common ground between the students and Post-Grads. Most notably, both groups were in agreement with a cost base of €20. Similarly, both sets indicated that they would be most available in the evening between Monday and Friday, with students being less available at weekends.

Observation

The covert observational research in the Maths Learning Centre in DCU provided us with some useful information. During the two-hour period we observed 18 students entering this grind centre to avail of extra tuition in Maths. Considering our observation occurred during the month of March, when no exams are taking place, we were surprised that such a large number of students were availing of the service.
We concluded that the attendance in this learning centre, though it was not exam period where these figures should be much higher, did indeed prove that there is a demand for such extra tuition. The advantage that the Learning centre has is that students are aware of it and can easily access extra tuition, the precise aims of our App.

Focus Group

Analysis of the focus group responses highlighted three main conclusions. Firstly, the most important factor for students seeking tuition is the tutor’s experience and knowledge base. During the focus group there was a long discussion regarding the importance of high quality tuition. This highlighted to us the need for detailed tutor profiles on our App. Without question the next most important factor was the cost, both in terms of the App itself and the tuition. It is obvious that students have a limited budget and this should be kept in focus when costing the App and the tuition. Finally, it was clear from our discussions that no one type of tuition would suit all of our potential customers. We would need to ensure a range of options for tuition categories on our App.

One-to-One Interviews

Analysis of the one-to-one interviews illustrated once again that cost in terms of both providing and receiving extra tuition is a major factor. Interestingly, although students agreed that they would not pay more than €20, all concurred that they would expect more than €20 if they were to provide extra tuition. Similarly to the focus group findings, the quality of the tutor and the need for a rating system featured high in the participant’s preference. The location and convenience of tutors also ranked highly and this demonstrated the need for a geographical spread of tutors on our App.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This project set out to investigate the viability of an App to link students in DCU with Post-Graduates seeking to avail of extra tuition. Specifically we focused on: 1. Determining if students would use our App to search for extra tuition. 2. Analysing how struggling students find extra tuition. 3. Establishing how much students would pay for extra tuition. 4. Verifying whether Post-Grads would be willing to provide the service. 5. Identifying important requirements in the App design.

In conclusion, we can deduce that students in DCU would use our App to search for extra tuition. From our observation in the Maths Learning Centre, it is clear that students are actively seeking extra help and tuition on a regular basis. Unfortunately, DCU do not provide a similar service across all faculties. In the focus groups, one-to-one interviews and questionnaires students indicated overwhelmingly that if this App were available to them previously, they would have had occasion to use it.
The research data enables us to conclude that currently students can only find extra tuition via word of mouth, the students union or the Internet. However, the issue of matching the students’ specific needs to the precise knowledge of the tutor is very evident. The research clearly recommends the need for very detailed tutor profiles indicating their particular knowledge and skill base.
The research regarding the establishment of a cost base was somewhat predictable. Students were always going to choose the lowest cost option. However, both groups converge at a €20 per hour cost base. This would be the cost point we would recommend to tutors signing up to the App. Obviously we would expect tutors with high levels of expert knowledge and skill to charge a higher rate for their services.
We can conclude from the research that Post-Graduate students would be more than willing to provide a tutoring service. It is clear that currently Post-Grads have no way of accessing students looking for extra tuition. Our App will provide a broad student base for tutors and a link between the two groups.
The research has enabled us to draw conclusions and make recommendations with regard to the design of our App. Students highlighted the need for robust tutor profiles enabling them to make an informed choice in terms of their tutor. Secondly, the need for a rating system was also emphasised. This option could be offered in a similar way to the ‘Trip Advisor’’ ratings enabling students to give feedback in terms of their experience. It would also ensure that good tutors would be rewarded.

Limitations

Throughout the course of the task we faced several limitations.
Firstly, the two month deadline on the task was a definite drawback. Given more time we could have carried out more one-to-one interviews and focus groups to obtain a more comprehensive view of the opinions of our market.
As a group of four students money was also an obvious restraint. If this were not the case we could have paid various students to partake in our focus group. This would solve the issue of bias in terms of choosing friends to take part.
Availability of both undergraduate students and Post-Graduate students somewhat restricted our research. Unsurprisingly, we were unable to find a Post-Graduate with sufficient time to carry out an in-depth one-to-one interview. Also, given the workload f our entire course, it was also difficult to organise a suitable time for the focus group to take place.
We faced obstacles in terms of secondary research, as we were unable to get our hands on information, which was deemed ‘confidential’.
Finally, the time of year also presented itself as a drawback. Given our product is an App for extra tuition, demand would most likely be at its highest during exam period. Our observation of the Maths Learning Centre would also have been quite different if it were exam period.
References

* Bryman, A. and Bell, E. 2011. Business Research Methods. 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press, England.

* Higher Education Authority 2010. A Study of Progression in Irish Higher Education. P76. (Online) Available from: http://www.hea.ie/sites/default/files/study_of_progression_in_irish_higher_education_2010.pdf * Humphrey, J 2014. The Irish Times: Colleges in crisis.(Online) Available from: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/colleges-in-crisis-1.1692000 * Malhotra, N.K. 1999. Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation. 3rd Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. * McGivern, Y. 2013. The Practice of Market Research. 4th Edition. Essex: Prentice Hall Financial Times. * Mooi, E & M. Sarstedt. 2011. A Concise Guide to Market Research: The Process, Data, and Methods Using IBM SPSS Statistics. New York: Springer * Proctor, T 2005. Essentials of Marketing Research. 5th ed. P93. England: Pearson. * Smith, S 2013. Coca-Cola Market Research. (Online), 21 January. Available from: http://www.qualtrics.com/blog/coca-cola-market-research/

Appendices
Appendix 1
Additional Information on One-to-One Interviews

Rob (Male)
Rob is in his 2nd year in DCU studying Global Business Spanish. He failed Accounting in his first year of studies and had to repeat this exam. He also failed Finance last semester and has to repeat this coming August. When asked about how he prepared for his repeat last summer, he stressed that he could not have passed without the help of his friends. He admitted that if those friends weren’t available to help him, he would have been forced to opt for grinds.
“I found it really difficult studying on my own.’’
Upon informing him of our App ‘Master Grind’, he believed he definitely would have “checked it out” and said he would be happy to pay fifteen to twenty euro an hour for extra tuition. Rob lives on the south side of Dublin and so the location of the tutor would be the most important factor to him in terms of choosing a tutor. He also agreed that cost would be very important. When asked if he would rather pay ten euro for someone with a one star rating or twenty-five euro for someone with a five star rating, he thinks it would be worthwhile in choosing the more highly rated tutor in order to prevent spending more money in the long run. Rob admits that there is a high failure rate in his course and when asked about the approachability of lecturers to obtain extra tuition, he doesn’t think that
“The lecturers are in a position to give the same quality of help as someone who is providing extra tuition’’.
He would prefer to get grinds on a one-to-one basis in order to obtain the full attention of the tutor: “the tutor can explain things in a way that they know you’ll understand.”
Rob concluded that if an App such as ‘Master Grind’ had been available to him last year he would have used it because he;
“Needed that extra help and didn’t really know where or who to get it from.”
Miguel (Male)
Miguel is also in 2nd year in DCU studying Global Business Spanish. However he is originally from Madrid. Miguel failed Business Mathematics in first year but was able to compensate. He has one repeat this summer – Macroeconomics.
Jack’s main factor in choosing grinds would be cost as he is an independent student living away from home. He also believes that he would benefit more from group tuition, perhaps with his Spanish peers, as he is not very confident with his level of English.
With his Macroeconomics exam Miguel believed he would have benefited greatly from extra tuition and he would have gone
“… For one lesson to see how I should be going about forming answers’’.
Miguel believes that extra tuition should be offered at a
‘‘Fair price for a student.”
When asked about the rating system, Miguel would opt for the lower rated tutor at a cheaper price in order to “keep costs down”.

Anna (Female)
Anna is in 3rd year n DCU and studies Actuarial Maths. She commutes to college from Kildare and works at the weekend so the availability of the tutor would be the main factor for her in terms of obtaining extra tuition.
Anna failed one module in first year and had five grinds priced at twelve euro during the summer in order to pass her repeat. Her tutor was in the year above her and she managed to get in contact with him through friends.
Anna confessed that she has quite a low attention span and said that in a
“Big lecture you listen to what is being said but there’s no interaction.”
As a result, she believes that one-to-one grinds are the most beneficial and she would be willing to pay twelve to fifteen euros for them. Price of grinds plays an important role for Anna as well as she lives on a student budget.
Regards the Math’s Learning Centre, Anna would be satisfied with their help during the semester for small problems but if she was “feeling anxious” she would prefer to obtain grinds. She says there was a high dropout rate in her first year mainly because she thinks that:
“Reading books won’t help when you don’t understand, but having someone explain it to you might help’’.
Finally as Anna is approaching the end of her studies, she explained that she would like to do a masters and would be optimistic about providing grinds in the future as she is achieving good grades in her modules. However, she said she would prefer a fee higher than twelve euro if she were to provide grinds, as, due to her good grades, she “would be ranked highly”.

Appendix 2
Additional Graphs.

The various faculties in DCU, from which students completed our survey.

The percentage of male and female students who completed our survey.

The percentage of male and female Post-Graduate students who completed our survey.

Appendix 3
Master Grind Post-Graduate Survey

Master Grind Student Survey

Appendix 4
Focus Group theme sheet
Pre-determined Focus Group Introduction
Good evening and welcome. Thanks everyone for coming. My name is Ruth and assisting me here is Pedro. So we are doing this focus group for our applied market research module basically to find out whether our product is viable or not within DCU. You were invited because; well you all agreed to come and were available! You also all represent our target audience. There are no wrong answers only differing points of view. Please feel free to share your point of view even if it differs from what others have said. Keep in mind that we're just as interested in negative comments as positive ones. You've probably noticed the phone recording you in the middle of the table here. We're recording the session because we don't want to miss any of your comments. People often say very helpful things in these discussions and we can't write fast enough to get them all down. We will be on a first name basis today, and we won't use any names in our reports. You may be assured of complete confidentiality. Well, let's begin. Let’s just quickly find out a bit about each other. Tell us your name and where you live.
Pre determined questions 1. Ask everyone to introduce themselves.

2. Vignette Question – You failed exam in 3rd year, first time you failed an exam in DCU, you’re looking for help, what do you do?

3. Has anyone looked for extra tuition? If so how did they go about it?

Explain App idea. 4. Would they download it? The rating service on our App?

5. Preference in terms of extra tuition; Cost, convenience, experience of tutor.

6. What type of tuition is preferred among the group?

7. Fair pricing in terms of an hour of extra tuition?

8. How do they react to advertising on the App

9. Us of the Maths Learning Centre?

10. Criticisms?

Group reflection

On completing our assigned task we began to reflect on our experience over the past two months. On a personal level we all feel we worked quite well together as a group. We all felt that this project was very much valuable in terms of improving our skill set for the future. We enjoyed the practicality, ‘hands-on’ aspect of the task such as carrying out the focus group and one-to-one interviews. The project was a welcomed contrast to our written ‘essay-type’ assignments in most of our other modules. We all agree that this module was a great learning opportunity for us and has improved our skills of data collection, observation, data analysis, presentation, report preparation and teamwork.
We believe that our questionnaires, which we carried out for our quantitative research, were the most successful aspect of our project. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of respondents we received for both of our surveys.
On reflection of our observation we realize that if we were to do the project again we would certainly make some changes. Although we benefited from our non-participating observation, we could have made use of covert full participation. We could have actually gone into the Maths learning Centre and taken part in the tutoring to obtain first hand information on the standard of the service.
We were delighted with our one-to-one interviews in terms of the interviewee’s response and openness to our questions. However in this case we used convenience to choose our interviewees and perhaps the conversation may not have flowed quite so easily and comfortably if they were strangers. Pamela (who carried out the one-to-ones) learned an extensive skill set from carrying out these interviews and she believes it will be of great benefit to her in the future.
The focus group was also a serious learning curve for our group. Ruth (who carried out the focus group) learned a great deal about controlling group discussions, observing non-verbal messages and understanding group dynamics. Although last minute cancellation was an obstacle, we were well prepared and had plenty of participants lined up as substitutes. If we were to do our project again we would have preferred if there were a greater variety in terms of faculties among the participants in our group. If time was not a limitation we would have also like to carry out a focus group with masters students in order to obtain a more comprehensive analysis of our market.
A skill that we all agree we learned from undertaking this project was time management. Given such a short time period to carry out so many types of research was certainly challenging. However, the timeline we set at the beginning of the project truly aided us in remaining organized and focused and ultimately ensured that we completed the task within the deadline.
In conclusion, although this project was challenging in many ways, we feel that the knowledge and skills we have obtained throughout this process will undoubtedly benefit us in the future.

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