Gainful Employment

Introduction The Art Institutes (Ai) is a for profit educational institutions for career preparation in Culinary Arts, Culinary Management, Game Art & Design, Graphic Design, Web Design & Interactive Media, Interior Design, Media Arts & Animation, Fashion & Retail Management, and Fashion Design the tuition and fees for these programs are approximately between fifty six to hundred thousand dollars. The Art Institutes awards, bachelor's degrees and associate's degrees. Art Institute is headquartered in Pittsburgh, and is a division of Education Management Corporation (EDMC).
Product Description Career Services Department at the Ai helps students to get a strong start toward their career by providing them with personal services—everything from résumé writing to connecting them with employers who are looking for someone with their skills and talent. Career Services Departments contribute to graduate employment. This includes helping students get part-time jobs while in school, internships later in the educational process, and industry positions upon graduation. Besides helping students get connected with appropriate jobs at great companies, the Career Services Department invites employers to come speak to groups of students, hosts many professional organizations on campus, and visits employers to discuss how our students' and graduates' skills can best be used by their organizations.
Objectives
The objective is to assist students in securing gainful employment, ideally within 6 months of graduation. Finding gainful employment for graduates is critical to Ai’s marketing and essential to its success. With the unemployment rate at 12.6%, according to Bureau of Labor statistics, it has been challenging to meet the quota. My objective is to challenge the statistic and exceed the rate of employment for graduate students by providing the tools, such as leads, workshops, and one on one career consultations to encourage them to be more proactive and enthusiastic about job search strategies. Overall, conduct marketing research to assure what we do is done accurately and productively.
Behavior
As a result of our current economy, graduate students are discouraged and often skeptical. Graduate students need to be encouraged to take the extra steps to polish up their soft skills, network , tailor their resume and overall be more proactive. They have invested 56-98 thousand dollars on education in pursue of gainful employment, yet still unemployed.
Predicament
Career Services Department is currently being affected by not meeting the quota; it is lacking the marketing strategies. It does not have the ability to paint a picture of success to the bodies that requires it. Career Services hosts over thirteen workshops during the quarter, it is unknown how effective these workshops are. The department is deficient in conducting surveys to identify how effective the workshops are. I feel that if conduct a research identify the students needs and their motivation, this will allow us to share the success, the pride and the opportunity desired in finding the employment for our students.

Conducting the Research Workshops are widely used to upgrade and renew the skills of our students and it prepares them professionally for today's market. Marketing research will helps us to recognized what works for our students, in other words it will identify our students needs and motivation level. Organizing and conducting a marketing research will enhance the departments' product and services in addition to meeting our quota. To conduct the marketing research it is essential to gather surveys. Evaluating the surveys will helps to recognize the weakness and strength of the workshops. Evaluation is an important component in any business. A well planned and well-conducted evaluation can provide useful information to our department.
Research Question The first step in conducting research is to examine the reasons why research is being undertaken. Marketing research serves as the foundation of marketing since it is used to support all marketing decisions. Marketers use research to support decisions in five important ways: explanation, prediction, monitoring, discovery and hypothesis testing. Explanation - to explain why something is occurring, identifying and explaining a problem facing the marketing organization. For example, marketers may seek to know why sales in a certain geographic region are declining when it was forecasted to rise. Prediction - what may happen in the future. Critical in many marketing decisions such as forecasting demand for a new product. It is also used to predict what may happen if something is changed such as a key marketing variable decision (e.g., effect on sales if price is changed). Monitoring - to insure that goals are being attained. A sales manager, for instance, will look to monitoring research in order to track the performance of the sales force in meeting sales targets. Discovery - to improve their marketing efforts. New product options, ways to increase sales or decrease costs, promotional approaches that improve the company’s image and many more. Finding new opportunities is sometimes the result of luck but more often the marketer engages in research to locate these. Hypothesis Testing - Finally, marketers use research to help test theories or “gut feelings” about some issues. For instance, a marketer may suspect there is a difference between the purchasing habits of one type of customer as compared to another type. Hypothesis testing, which is at the heart of scientific research, relies on statistical analysis to help evaluate a hypothesis. For example, a marketer looking to explain why sales are declining in a certain region may have a “gut feeling” for why this is occurring and thus can combine explanation with hypothesis testing.
Management Problem The decision problem faced by management must be translated into market research problem in the form of questions that define the information that is required to make the decision and how this information can be obtained. Thus, the decision problem is translated in to a research problem. For example, a decision problem may be whether to launch a new product. The corresponding research problem might be to assess whether the market would accept the new product. However, Ai (Art Institute) Career Services faced with different management problem it is gainful employment. Marketing Research Problem Marketing Research Problem is a situation where a company intends to sell a product or service that fills a specific gap, or intended use. To ensure there will be a market for the product, the company hires a special team of experts to perform demographic analysis, opportunity-cost assessment for production, distribution and marketing - and locates special focus groups to test the use of the product under very specific conditions - as a product of its design. At the Ai, Career Services has a big shoe to fill, in order to convince the general public and The US Department of Education, it is essential to fulfill their requirements by placing the graduate student into place that meets the regulations of the Gainful Employment. Once the research found that the product and the services fulfill the requirements it will benefit the admissions department with sales. Once the need for marketing research has been established, there are seven major steps involved in the marketing research process to identify the problems. Each step is equally important in conducting quality marketing research. The steps are: Identifying opportunities for the research with problems, if any, creating a research design, selecting a method for research, choosing a sampling procedure, collecting data, performing data analysis and reporting and presenting research results (Argosy, 2010). Identifying Opportunities for Research - to understand the feasibility of a proposed project, or the problems that the project might face. For example, to conduct marketing research for opening a pizzeria in a particular locality, a researcher would consider the following: Is the demand for pizzas in the locality sufficient to support the new pizzeria? Is the proposed pizzeria likely to face any competition from other fast food joints in the locality? (Argosy, 2010). Creating a Research Design - to determine which data analysis to use and to incorporate knowledge from secondary information analysis. For opening a pizzeria, a researcher might want to do a quantitative study to determine how many people might give the new pizzeria a try. The success of the proposed research will largely depend on the outcome of this study (Argosy, 2010). Selecting a Method for Research- includes surveys, observations and experiments. In the pizzeria-example, a researcher may decide to carry out a market survey to gather relevant information from large groups of respondents. Surveys can be conducted by adopting different methods such as door-to-door interviewing, telephone interviewing, and internet surveys (Argosy, 2010). Choosing a Sampling Procedure - For example, a researcher will have to determine who and how many will constitute the sample market for the proposed pizzeria to complete the survey. The sample reflects the target market of the people the pizzeria will cater to and their total number (Argosy, 2010). Collecting Data- the researcher uses the finalized questionnaire (survey instrument) to gather information from the chosen sample segments. For example, while choosing the target market for conducting a survey before opening a pizzeria, a researcher might overlook an important segment of the local population. This might result in inadequate data collection and eventually affect the research results (Argosy, 2010). Performing Data Analysis - depends on the research design and the method of research adopted. In quantitative research, the type of questions asked in the survey is very important. In the pizza example, the researcher will need to consider the following questions to perform an analysis of the data collected: How many people said they would try the pizza? What information do I have about these people? What do I know about those who said they would not try the pizza? (Argosy, 2010). Reporting and Presenting Research Results- The researcher needs to communicate the research results through a written (and sometimes oral) report. In the pizza example, the researcher may come across potential partners whom he or she needs to convince to invest in the pizzeria (Argosy, 2010).
Hypotheses
A key concept in scientific research, including marketing research, that is designed to test theory or “gut feelings” about some issues usually with the use of statistical analysis. A hypothesis is similar to a problem statement in that it helps the researcher to develop "A statement about a population parameter... for the purpose of testing. Hypothesis testing is a five-step procedure using sample evidence and probability theory to determine whether the hypothesis is a reasonable statement. The five steps used are: "State null and alternative hypothesis," "Select a level of significance," "Identify the test statistic," "Formulate a decision rule," and "Take a sample, arrive at a decision" Many items are factored into the hypothesis testing such as the null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, Type I error, Type II error, test statistics, critical value, and more. Understanding the method for testing hypothesis is essential for success (McDaniel & Gates, 2010).
Method of Research The focus of descriptive research is to provide an accurate description for something that is occurring. For example, what age group is buying a particular brand, a product’s market share within a certain industry, how many competitors a company faces, etc. This type of research is by far the most popular form of market research. It is used extensively when the research purpose is to explain, monitor and test hypotheses, and can also be used to a lesser extent to help make predictions and for discovery.
Qualitative Research - Evaluating Secondary Data Evaluating the qualitative research from the secondary resources, clarified that both Department of Education and for profit institutes are favoring students success with and end result of gainful employment, however their approach is different. All students with career majors are entitled to "Gainful Employment," because the vast majority of students who choose career-oriented majors instead of academic majors do so to find employment in the field in which they have been educated, or a related one. In the end, the very Gainful Employment is supposed to protect- students and taxpayers alike - will be the ones hurt the most by a flawed or selective implementation. Secondary data sometimes can be bias, it has it own pros and cons. “Gainful Employment” is great example of that, individuals who are employed by for profit schools are against Gainful Employment and those who are not are for it. It is obvious that secondary data has it pros and cons in additions to for it or against it. So it is vital for researchers to be very alert and to eliminate the bias opinions as much as possible.
Scientific Methods Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established. For example, "The U.S. Department of Education’s recently published gainful employment rule arose during the 2009-10 regulatory review process, and is an important tool for ensuring that for-profit schools—and potentially underperforming public and nonprofit schools—don’t take advantage of students. It requires these programs to prove that they prepare students for “gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” And the Department of Education has begun to take the initial steps toward enforcing this goal by wrestling with how to measure the quality and value of a college education (Kantrowitz, 2010)." Therefore, scientific methods would be ideal for subject.
Design an Experiment The Scientific Method to design an experiment which will be able to answer questions such as whether the for profit schools are taking advantages of the students or not. Upon graduation are the students placed in jobs related to field of study "Gainful Employment"? In this section we will take a look at the method you should use to design your research. The Scientific Method is a way to make sure that your experiment can give a good answer to your specific question. The Scientific Method helps to organize thoughts and procedures so that scientists can be confident in the answers they find. Scientists use observations, hypotheses, and deductions to make these conclusions (McDaniel & Gates, 2010).
The Steps of the Scientific Method The steps of the Scientific Method are, observation, hypothesis, prediction, experimentation and conclusion. The observation is done first, it gives a direction to research. For example, how you want to go about your research. The hypothesis is the answer you think you'll find. The prediction is your specific belief about the scientific idea: If my hypothesis is true, then I predict we will discover..... The experiment is the tool that you invent to answer the question, and the conclusion is the answer that the experiment gives (Essortment, 2010) .
Observation
This step could also be called "research." It is the first stage in understanding the problem you have chosen. After you decide on your area of science and the specific question you want to ask, you will need to research everything that you can find about the problem. For example, collect information on Gainful Employment from other schools, such as Career Services Statistic report, placement and salary report in addition, books, the internet, or even smaller "unofficial" experiments (Experiment Resource, 2010).
Hypothesis
The next stage of the Scientific Method is known as the "hypothesis." The hypothesis is a simple statement that defines what you think the outcome of the research or investigation will be. Observation, or research stage -- is designed to help you express a problem in a single question Are the student being taken advantages of by for profit schools? HYPOTHESIS: "I believe that the for profit schools are not taken the advantages of the students" (Experiment Resource, 2010).
Prediction
The hypothesis is the general statement of how you think the scientific phenomenon in question works. Prediction lets you get specific -- how will you demonstrate that you hypothesis is true? The experiment that you will design is done to test the prediction.
Experiment
The scientific method that tests the hypothesis. An experiment is a tool that you design to find out if your ideas about your topic are right or wrong. The experiment is the most important part of the scientific method.
Qualitative Design Qualitative research can be characterized by an approach which aims to describe and analyze the culture and behaviors of human beings from the point of view of those being studied. Consequently, it looks at knowledge in a holistic way and in the social context in which the research is being conducted. Social life is viewed as a series of linked events, described in such a way as to reflect everyday life. Qualitative research takes a flexible and interactive approach. The qualitative design is a way to make sure that the experiment can give a good answer to specific question. The qualitative design helps to organize thoughts and procedures to make what the Gainful Employment is suggesting can be confident in the answers they find. Scientists use observations, hypotheses, and deductions to make these conclusions (McDaniel & Gates, 2010).
Design
The design of qualitative research is probably the most flexible of the various experimental techniques, encompassing a variety of accepted methods and structures. From an individual case study to an extensive survey, this type of study still needs to be carefully constructed and designed, but there is no standardized structure. Case studies and survey designs are the most commonly used methods (Experiment Resource, 2010).
Advantages
Qualitative techniques are extremely useful when a subject is too complex be answered by a simple yes or no hypothesis. These types of designs are much easier to plan and carry out, useful when budgetary decisions have to be taken into account. The broader scope covered by these designs ensures that some useful data is always generated, whereas an unproved hypothesis in a quantitative experiment can mean that a lot of time has been wasted. Qualitative research methods are not as dependent upon sample sizes as quantitative methods; a case study, for example, can generate meaningful results with a small sample group (Essortment, 2010).
Disadvantages
Whilst not as time or resource consuming as quantitative experiments, qualitative methods still require a lot of careful thought and planning, to ensure that the results obtained are as accurate as possible. Qualitative data cannot be mathematically analyzed in the same comprehensive way as quantitative results, so can only give a guide to general trends. It is a lot more open to personal opinion and judgment, and so can only ever give observations rather than results. Any qualitative research design is usually unique and cannot be exactly recreated, meaning that they do lack the ability to be peer reviewed (McDaniel & Gates, 2010). A sample is a subset of a population being studied. Both the quality and the size of the sample are important aspects of sampling. A researcher needs to make sure that the people who are selected for a market survey accurately represent the population in terms of quality and that are enough in the sample to be able to do statistical tests and make inferences from the data collected (Argosy, 2010).
Purposive Method Sampling The appropriate sampling method for the proposed project "Gainful Employment" is purposive method; method in which elements are chosen based on purpose of the study. In the purposive sampling the researcher have one or more specific predefined groups they are seeking for. For example, based on the "Gainful Employment" the researchers wants to test whether the students graduating from private school are placed or obtain gainful employment. The researchers are conducting a purposive sample and most likely are engaged in market research. Purposive sampling can be very useful for situations like the "Gainful Employment" case to reach a targeted sample quickly and where sampling for proportionality is not the primary concern. With a purposive sample, the researchers are likely to get the opinions of the target population, but they are also likely to overweight subgroups in the population that are more readily accessible (Article Base, 2010).