empirically-based consumer

Use the following information for questions 5-9:

In an attempt at an empirically-based consumer preference study, a convenience sample of students participated in a study to rate potato chips according to taste, appearance, and packaging. The purpose of the evaluation is for marketing at the local convenience store that has a high proportion of students as its patrons. Participants were blind to the brand of chips during taste-testing. Packaging was judged after the taste test, and bags were placed in random order. (Note: some details were tweaked for educational purposes.)

On a scale of 1(very poor) to 5 (excellent), results are as follows:
Brand 1 – Jays Blue Bag Brand 2 – Spartan Brand 3 – Ruffles Baked Brand 4 – Jays White Bag
Taste
Saltiness
Greasiness
Crunchiness
Freshness
Flavor
2.6
3.2
3.6
3.8
2.5
3.2
3.0
3.9
3.9
3.6
2.9
4.4
4.3
3.8
2.9
3.9
4.2
4.0
3.9
3.1
Appearance
Wholeness
Color
Strength
4.2
4.1
4.0
2.8
3.9
3.6
3.3
3.3
3.8
3.5
3.4
4.0
Packaging
Ingredients
Visual appeal
3.8
3.6
2.9
2.8
2.9
3.8
3.4
3.5
Cost $3.99 $2.50 $4.99 $5.19

5. If the bar for any of the taste variables is 3.0, are there any brands that are immediately removed from consideration? If the bar for cost is $5.00, but for about 30% of the remaining students, the bar is $4.00, what might you recommend to the store owner? (1 pt)

6. Just looking at the chart above, which brand of chip do you feel has the greatest “merit” as a chip? (Hint – don’t consider the cost here.) Explain your answer. (1 pt)

7. Which of the brands above do you feel is the best value for the money? Explain your answer. (1 pt)

8. If crunchiness, freshness, cost, and a good color of chips (less green/burned chips) were weighted at the highest importance (5), what would be your top recommended brand to the store owner? Why? (1 pt)

9. In the question above, if cost were weighted as a 1 with a bar of $6.00, and saltiness, wholeness, and ingredients were weighted at a 5, what two brands would you recommend to the store owner, and why? (1 pt)

Use the following excerpt to answer 10-12. Remember to think creatively and evaluatively! There is not necessarily any one right answer to how these questions are answered!

The Gate of Wellness is a nonprofit agency that provides transition housing for young mothers who are have substance abuse issues and whose children are in foster care. The Gate offers support to mothers who do not have the means to live independently while they are in recovery. Guiding principles for the Gate include:

Providing an emotionally safe living environment for women who have unhealthy family supports – building sense of community
Building positive attachment relationships between the mother and her children – frequent visitations in a home-like setting
Building resilience in mothers and children
Giving back to the local communities

There are two locations for transition housing – Benton Harbor and Muskegon Heights. At each location, there are two facilities, each with capacity to house 15 women. Women can stay at the Gate for up to six months, and may apply for an extension. They are required to maintain sobriety, attend therapy, and perform community service.

In 2007, the Gate’s census fell from capacity of 60 to a low of only 15 at one point: 12 in the Muskegon Heights homes, and only 3 in one Benton Harbor home. The other home was closed due to finances. The board appointed a new director, and these are the stats under this director:

Year Av. # in BH at one time Av. # in MH at one time Average stay BH Average stay MH % completed % FTE staff
2008 10 20 8 mo 6 mo 60% BH/30% MH 17 BH/17 MH
2009 20 29 8 mo 4 mo 65% BH/30% MH 16 BH/14 MH
2010 30 30 6 mo 2 mo 65% BH/28% MH 14 BH/12 MH
2011 20 20 6 mo 2 mo 50% BH/15% MH 14 BH/11 MH

The director points to her success in boosting the census up until 2011. She also notes that the 2011 numbers are much higher than when she came to the position, and explains that changes in DHS policy are to account for lower referral and retention rates. She also notes that she has been operating a balanced budget in years 2010 and 2011, and the Gate was deeply in debt when she took over. She would like to expand capacity and introduce a new parenting program to the Benton Harbor homes in order to lower the average stay and continue to increase profit. The director uses volunteer help to transport children to see their mothers in order to cut costs.

The Gate has only been in existence since 2001, and is the only transitional housing of its kind in West Michigan. There are some similar homes in Montana and California, and two in the Detroit area. It serves all of Southwest Michigan, but increasingly has been taking women from other mid and east Michigan counties.

The board is concerned about expanding capacity and wants to understand more about the care that the women and children receive, and whether it is meeting their values. They want to know
Are women healing and growing after staying at the Gate?
Does the Gate seem to help women reunite with their children?
If the answer is no to these questions, what can they do differently?

10. Before designing any type of evaluation, from just looking at the information above, what questions do you have? What else would you want to know? Who might you want to talk to even before deciding on an evaluation design? (4 pts)

11. State your evaluation questions. Reword the questions above to be more objective and more closely follow the PICO (population, intervention, control/comparison, outcomes) model of framing a question, unless they are fine the way they are. Also develop two additional questions of your own. (1 pt)

12. Choose one of the evaluation questions you wrote in above. For this question, describe how your evaluation would be designed to answer the question. Areas to cover include but are not limited to the following:
What source, or sources, of information would you use and how you would gather the information (standardized tool, interview, survey, record review, etc.); justify why this method/tool is appropriate
Timeframe for data collection, and how many data points (times you would collect that particular type of data)
What difficulties you anticipate in gathering the information to accurately answer the question (for example, accessibility of data, threats to internal validity, accuracy of responses, etc.).
(5 pts)