In business research articles, there are three types of data collection methodologies. The first methodology combines Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed data, which combines the first and second methodologies. There are also many methodologies for calculating the average, the first of which is the Mean, which is the most used and is calculated by adding up all the values in a dataset and dividing by the number of observations (Epstein, 2020).
The Selected Paper:
"The Church of Mac: Exploratory examination on the loyalty of Apple customers."
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/DeborahBrosdahl/publication/283714797_The_Church_of_Mac_exploratory_examination_on_the_loyalty_of_Apple_customers/links/564460d008ae9f9c13e42207/The-Church-App-Mac-exploratory-tyoferacus-tomers-on-the-lomination.pdf
Paper Description:
This paper explores the percentage of loyalty among Apple customers to its brand. It uses various research data, such as surveys, interviews, and secondary data analysis.
Data Collection Methodology:
I see that the paper's data collection methodology relies on quantitative data, primarily descriptive statistics, as the paper describes an already existing situation and not an assumption generalized to a random sample as used in inferential statistics.
Mean Calculation Methodology:
The author used the Mean to calculate the average. In analyzing the percentage of customer loyalty to Apple, the author concluded that the answer to the question "Does Apple have a good reputation?" 93% of the respondents strongly agreed, with a mean of 4.43 (s.d. = 0.69), that Apple has a good reputation (Pinson & Brosdahl, 2014).
Mean Selection:
The author successfully used the Mean, as it is the arithmetic mean, which equals the sum of the values divided by their number. The result is where the sample is heading. This type is used when there is no anomaly or deviation in the data.
The Benefit of the Mean for Descriptive Statistics:
Descriptive statistics and mean are closely related as the Mean is the most common measure of central tendency in descriptive statistics. Mean as a representative value provides insight into the general properties of the data set (Proches, 2016).
Conclusion
Although the Mean is the most widely used, other methodologies for calculating the Mean include the Median, the Mode, the Geometric Mean, and the Harmonic Mean (Manikandan, 2011). Each of them depends on the specific research question and the characteristics of the data being analyzed, whether Descriptive statistics or inferential statistics. There are also many data distributions, the most important of which are the standard, skewed, Bimodal, and Uniform distributions.
References
Epstein, Michael (2020). Statistics Unit 3: Descriptive Measures: Averages / Variability / Distributions. Retrieved from: https://www.amplaboratory.org/classes/statistics/statistics-unit-3-introduction-to-statistics-and-data-collection/ (pass: teaching stats) (sections 1 and 2 only)
Manikandan, S. (2011). Measures of central tendency: The Mean. Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapeutics, 2(2), 140.
Pinson, C., & Brosdahl, D. J. (2014). The Church of Mac: Exploratory examination on the loyalty of Apple customers. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 14, 1.
Proches, S. (2016). Descriptive statistics in research and teaching: Are we losing the middle ground? Quality and Quantity, 50(5), 2165-2174. Retrieved from ProQuest One Academic.