Posts Tagged ‘mathematics’
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
Monty Hall in Let's Make A Deal
The hardest part of quantitative market research is not that it involves numbers, math, or even statistics, but that it involves complex problems in probability.
Over the past several years, psychologists have been documenting how difficult it is for us humans to solve even “simple” probability problems. One fascinating example is a puzzle known as the Monty Hall dilemma based on the 1960’s game show Let’s Make A Deal. Monty would offer his contestants three doors to choose from, one of which had a valuable prize behind it. After the contestant chose, Monty would open one of the other two doors, deliberately choosing one that had no prize behind it. Then he offered the contestant an option of staying with the original choice, or switching to the other unopened door. Which should the contestant do? (more…)
Tags: conjoint, data, Market Research, mathematics, Sampling, statistics, stories
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Market Research, Presenting Research, Sampling, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Friday, March 18th, 2011
Learning the math behind market research is not easy because there is no programmatic way to master it as a body of learning. It is not like algebra, geometry, calculus, or statistics in high school or college. It is complex and multifaceted and draws upon nearly every area of theoretical mathematics, but it must be continually adapted to the needs and practical problems of measuring and predicting customer behaviors and attitudes.
So it requires both (1) a rigorous foundation in mathematics and (2) years of experience to understand how it gets re-worked and applied to the real-life questions of market research. And even the rigorous foundation needs to be continually reinforced and expanded as the scope of our capabilities expands. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that Bayesian statistics and Monte Carlo simulations would become so central to our work? (more…)
Tags: Market Research, mathematics, statistics
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Survey Design | No Comments »
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Our March 2011 newsletter focuses on conjoint research, which we consider to be one of the most clever and powerful techniques of survey research. Why? Because it allows us to build working models of decision-making.
Conjoint works by presenting people with scenarios that are more like the real-life trade-offs they always make. For example, instead of just asking a respondent about the importance of price, we ask them to make decisions about price, where price varies based on other attributes that are important to them. (more…)
Tags: concept testing, conjoint, Market Research, mathematics
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Market Research, Methods & Tools | No Comments »
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Last quarter we wrote about Magic Numbers in Market Research—those arbitrary rules of thumb and cut-off points we use when quoting things like minimum samples sizes or how many people to include in a focus group. Presto! Like magic, the issue appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago, this time related to a dispute about the best way to statistically test for the existence of ESP.
The backstory: A respected academic journal in social psychology published an article showing data that suggests ESP exists. Horrified, some researchers argued that psychologists were using old-fashioned inferential statistics when they should be using modern-day Bayesian statistics. Here is a link to the article, if you’re interested. Unfortunately, it does a lousy job explaining what Bayesian statistics is.
But fortunately, in response, the editor in chief of The Annals of Applied Statistics submitted a letter to the New York Times clarifying that all statistics ends up relying on arbitrary magic numbers: (more…)
Tags: Focus Groups, Market Research, mathematics, statistics, stories
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Focus Groups, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Thursday, January 13th, 2011
In a recent survey we fielded among B2B decision-makers, respondents told us how much they liked participating in the study compared to other research studies they have done. They said it was “real” and interesting because it was confronting them with questions that reflect the kinds of decisions and trade-offs they make every day in their work.
The technique we used for that study is called Adaptive Conjoint. If you want to know how people in your target audience make decisions—how they weigh the pros and cons of your product or service versus others— adaptive conjoint can be a powerful technique that provides robust and insightful data at the same time it really engages the participants. (more…)
Tags: conjoint, mathematics, survey respondents, survey technology
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Data Collection, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys | No Comments »
Friday, December 17th, 2010
With the magic of the holidays upon us, we got to thinking about “magic” in market research, or the lack thereof. So our just- published quarterly newsletter focuses on magic numbers in market research, arguing that certain “magical” numbers seem to guide much of what we do, whether we realize it or not. The best researchers know the difference between the real magic of numbers and the not-so-real. We hope you find our commentary useful.
There is also, of course, the magic of story-telling, which market research can embrace, but rarely does. We were inspired by a recent New York Times interview with Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net. What could be more boring than online file storage? But as Levie said: (more…)
Tags: confidence intervals, Market Research, mathematics, response scales, Sampling, statistics, stories
Posted in Market Research, Presenting Research, Public Polls, Sampling, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Friday, August 6th, 2010
Doing “statistics” strikes fear in the hearts of many, so how about if we talk about “algorithms” instead? It’s a safer word because most people in the worlds of business and market research never have to take (or fail) a course in algorithms.
Algorithms are central to the work that we do in business and market research, and they are top of mind for us at Versta Research because we have been involved in several data-intensive projects that involve either (a) developing new algorithms for clients, or (b) tools that apply sophisticated algorithms to data in new and exciting ways. (more…)
Tags: analytics, cluster analysis, data analysis, mathematics, segmentation, statistics, survey technology
Posted in Data Analysis & Analytics, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
One of the devilish problems with statistics in market research is that we deal with probabilities rather than simple yes/no answers. But you, as a business person, need to make clear-cut decisions: Should you launch the product, yes or no? Which one name should you choose for your new service? Which three areas should you focus on to drive customer satisfaction? (more…)
Tags: Market Research, mathematics, satisfaction research, statistics
Posted in Market Research, Methods & Tools | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
As an industry driven by data and information, market research and public opinion polling has seen dramatic changes in the last ten years and will no doubt change quickly and in big ways during the next ten.
Looking back, here are what we consider to be the five biggest changes that shaped current challenges faced by market research and opinion polling: (more…)
Tags: communication, data, Data Collection, data quality, Market Research, mathematics, media, online, Online Surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, Public Relations, research, Sampling, statistics, stories, survey, survey respondents, survey technology
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Presenting Research, Public Polls, Public Relations, Sampling, Turning Data into Stories, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Bad pollsters give the market research industry a bad name, so it is encouraging when smart people figure out clever ways of ratting them out. What is a bad pollster? One who makes up data to support an agenda, or who asks biased questions to get preferred answers. The only good reason for doing research or public opinion polling is to learn or share something new. All else is suspect.
Two researchers recently came up with methods of testing whether polling data is legitimate in a case where a research firm is accused of falsifying publicly released data. (more…)
Tags: bias, data quality, ethics, mathematics, Public Polls, statistics, trust
Posted in Future Trends, Public Polls, Public Relations | No Comments »