research methods

 

Research Methods

Whilst creating my school magazine I needed to learn what would appeal to my chosen target audience and research into magazines that already exist on the market.

Research is split into two different categories; primary research and secondary research.

 

Primary research is research carried out by yourself, for example:

• interview
• questionnaire
• survey
• internet forum
• textual analysis
• email
• letter

I have personally already used a few of these research methods myself whilst creating my school magazine cover, for example I have performed a survey on which font types were preferred. This proved very successful as I then could see which font types were proven more preferred by the audience.

Secondary research is research found that someone else has already carried out.

• internet
• search engines
• industry and individuals websites
• books
• journals
• magazines, newspapers

I again have personally already used a few of these secondary research methods myself, whist doing background research into school magazines already on the market. I used the internet, search engines and many industry websites, this helped me to find out current selling rates and general background information on successful existing magazines.

 

These can then be split into further data groups; quantitative and qualitative.

 

Quantitative research helps identify any patterns or trends within the data. For example by using surveys and questionnaires, we can discover things such as that more men than women read 'Karrang'.

Qualitative research is looking at peoples opinions and feelings within their feedback. This would be retrieved from research methods such as interviews and focus groups, this type of data tends to use open-ended questions which means we can get as much details within the feedback as possible.