You wish to analyze the pedestrian traffic that passes a giv

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 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?

Solution

a)Other parameters which might be useful can include :Age group, Sex of the traffic, time of the day and day of the week where more traffic is observed, and whether the shoppers are alone or accompanied by adults or kids or with a group,shopping activity done (any shopping bags being carried and the number) ,apparent income and social class weather.

b) The decision about what information to collect is dependent hugely upon the nature of the study to be conducted. For example, if the study to be done only for the traffic density, then we may collect only the number of pedestrians, the time of the day and day of the week. However, if customer profiling study is to be conducted, then we may also need to observe the age group, sex, race, apparent social class and income etc. Hence, depending upon the requirements of the study, we shall be able to decide which information to collect.

c) Assuming that management has a problem attracting pedestrian traffic to their shopping center, the operational definitions would be counting the number of shoppers, relative age, sex, and race of the individuals.And how long are they lingering in the area (going to a bus stop, window shopping, etc.)

d)The observer could sit in a comfortable, but unobtrusive place for their observation and be as detailed as possible, staying focused on the task, not to remain out of pedestrian way.Then demonstrate bywatching traffic with them and asking them to mimic to ensure we\'re on the same side. They probably also ought to know the relevant\'s of the information and how it will be used.

e)You could literally ask pedestrians ifthey noticed the observer and what their observation of them was. Additionally, onecould collect data for a specific period, in a different location but observing the samepedestrians, to see if the information was the same.