Posts Tagged ‘Data Collection’
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
As much as we love numbers, we find ourselves often advising clients against using numeric scales in their surveys. A numeric scale is any response format that asks people to give a number within a certain range to indicate the strength of their feeling or opinion. The insanely popular survey question used to calculate Net Promoter Scores is a good example:
“How likely is it that you would recommend Acme Solutions to a friend or colleague? Please answer on a scale from zero to ten, where zero means not at all likely, five is a neutral score, and ten means extremely likely.”
There are many good reasons to use numeric scales and many types of research for which numeric scales are optimal. The NPS scale is good because it has eleven points with meaningful endpoints and a meaningful midpoint. Research shows that scales like this can be highly reliable and valid, with sufficient variability to allow for sophisticated statistical modeling.
But if your objective is to use survey data for marketing materials, public relations, news releases, or white papers, numeric scales make things difficult. They are not easy to summarize in words, and if you want to use charts that tell quick, compelling stories, you will end up having to do something like this:
A Poor Fit: Pie Charts and Numeric Scales
(more…)
Tags: charts, communication, Data Collection, journalism, media, news, omnibus, Public Relations, stories, Survey Design, visualizing data
Posted in Charts and Data Visualization, Data Collection, Omnibus Surveys, Presenting Research, Public Relations, Survey Design, Survey Tips, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Among the many sources of potential error that can affect surveys are respondents themselves. They sometimes misinterpret questions, respond in socially acceptable ways, or give “easy” answers in hopes that a more interesting question is just around the corner.
This is not to say they are bad or fraudulent respondents. Research shows that the vast majority of survey respondents are careful, thoughtful, and truthful in how they answer survey questions. The problem with respondent error, it turns out, is poor survey design, which may involve biased or ambiguous questions, tasks that are too complicated or boring, surveys that are too long, and so on.
Recent research shows that grid-style questions that look like this:
or this: (more…)
Tags: bias, Data Collection, data quality, Market Research, Online Surveys, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Survey Design, Survey Tips | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
One resource that we give far too little thought in market research are the people who offer their time and thoughts about the stuff we are researching. They are truly the lifeblood of market research.
An article in the spring 2011 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly looks at trends over the last thirty years in Americans’ view of polling and market research surveys. The news is mixed. While the vast majority feel that public opinion polling is generally a good thing, fewer feel that market research surveys serve a useful purpose, and trust in the industry is not so great. The most worrisome news (but not surprising, given the number of truly bad surveys flooding our lives nowadays) is the steady decline in people saying that participating in research is interesting and in their best interest:
Declining Satisfaction with Surveys
In addition to the chart above, key statistics outlined in the article include: (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, data quality, Market Research, public opinion, Public Polls, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Public Polls, Public Relations, Survey Design | No Comments »
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
One might think that with evolving technologies, the old-fashioned ways of doing research, like using paper and pencil, might disappear. But it turns out that paper surveys are not dead, and here is a nice example that dramatically illustrates their value.
As newly-appointed director of market research for the American Marketing Association in Chicago, I oversee efforts to develop and organize events related to market research. I also oversee efforts to measure, track, and analyze customer satisfaction for all other events and activities sponsored by the AMA. For the past few events, the AMA collected feedback via an online survey sent by e-mail immediately after the events. They were also using a less-than-stellar do-it-yourself survey tool that promises to deliver “actionable insights!” at the click of a button.
The results were abysmal. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Online Surveys, phone surveys, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys | No Comments »
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
The technology to field surveys via mobile devices has been around for a while, but has not yet gained much traction (and for good reasons). But with smartphones now proliferating at a remarkable pace, we may be in for a change. Deloitte released their 2011 IT and technology predictions last week, arguing that smartphones are likely to account for almost half of computer spending during the year. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Internet, Online Surveys, Survey Design, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Survey Design, Survey Tips | No Comments »
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
The latest data from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey show that one quarter (25%) of U.S. adults do not have land-line telephones in their homes. So if you conduct a traditional random-digit-dial (RDD) phone survey, you will automatically be excluding one quarter of the population. Does it matter, given that surveys rarely interview everyone anyway? Probably. If those 25% are different from the remaining 75% in important ways, then excluding them will skew your survey findings.
(more…)
Tags: bias, Data Collection, data quality, ethics, Market Research, phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, research, Sampling, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Good data from a survey requires, among other things, thoughtful feedback from respondents. Low-quality data most often comes not from fraudulent or lazy respondents, but from well-meaning survey takers who are bored or irritated with surveys that are not user-friendly.
In this article we focus not on the unengaged respondents who may be offering up poor-quality data (which is usually our own fault) but instead ask what we can learn from survey takers who say they loved a particular survey. Why do they love good surveys, and what about them do they love? (more…)
Tags: best practices, Data Collection, data quality, Market Research, Online Surveys, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Online Surveys, Survey Design, Survey Tips | No Comments »
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
Surveys matter only if people are willing to fill them out – and getting people to fill them out is not an easy task. There are many interesting distractions in the world! And there many silly surveys and junk surveys competing for people’s attention. When the time comes that you need important feedback via a survey, getting a sufficient response rate can be challenging.
Though relatively low response rates can yield statistically sound data (see our article, Do Response Rates Really Matter?) you need to have some data to work with. One organization we recently advised found itself with just two respondents for a do-it-yourself survey they launched, and unfortunately they lost the opportunity to go back into the field for another shot.
Based on our experience and what we have learned from the ever-evolving scientific literature on survey methods, here are three important steps you can take to improve your survey response rates: (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, response rates, survey, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Survey Tips | No Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
One critical trend that is transforming the research industry is the rapid adoption of mobile technologies, especially smartphones. It transforms research in multiple ways. It means that people disconnect their landlines, so we have to adjust our methods for phone polling. But more importantly, it means people are accessible in multiple ways (text, phone, email) all the time, and wherever they are. We can ask them for feedback instantaneously in the stores where they shop, or as they are making a decision we care about. We can talk to them, send messages, ask them to respond to survey questions, ask them to take pictures or videos for us, and so on. There are amazing opportunities for rich, immediate data for research that we could only dream about a few years back. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Market Research, mobile surveys, survey technology
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, May 28th, 2010
We saw an ad today for a downloadable survey app similar to Survey Monkey or Zoomerang that was pitched as a tool for actionable insights. Wow! Download, install, run . . . click again, and there they are, sitting on your desktop or smart phone: actionable insights. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, insight, Market Research, survey, survey technology, tools
Posted in Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
