Posts Tagged ‘Public Polls’
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
The idea that online panel surveys can replace telephone surveys ruffles feathers among my colleagues at the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). So what would they think of using Twitter posts as a substitute for phone surveys?
The idea seems crazy, but as reported in Science, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that certain kinds of twitter data can give them a good read on public sentiment. (more…)
Tags: phone surveys, public opinion, Public Polls, Sampling, social media
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Public Polls | No Comments »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
In the old days (decades ago), phone surveys had limited utility because many people had no phone service in their homes. When that changed, phone surveys became ubiquitous because they allowed researchers better control over the process. Data quality improved. Now increasing numbers of people have moved to cell phones only, which has been a significant challenge for the survey industry. The numbers are staggering:
The number of people without home access to landline telephones is increasing.
Almost half of adults under age 30 live in a household with only wireless telephone service.
(more…)
Tags: mobile surveys, phone surveys, Public Polls
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Methods & Tools, Public Polls | No Comments »
Friday, April 9th, 2010
If something works and it keeps on working but you don’t know exactly why it works, what would you do? Our view is that you should keep doing it. Not everyone agrees with us. The American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) convened a task force to study online survey panels, and released their report last month (we posted a summary of findings last week). To us, the most jarring statement in the report was this:
“There currently is no generally accepted theoretical basis from which to claim that survey results using samples from nonprobability online panels are projectable to the general population.”
Even with careful statistical weighting based on demographics, known biases, propensity to be online and partake in surveys, and so on, the report concludes that online panels should not be used to estimate population parameters. Why? Not because this method doesn’t work (in many cases it does) but because there is no statistical theory to explain why it works, in contrast to probability sampling, for which there is solid theory explaining why it works. (more…)
Tags: Online Surveys, panels, Public Polls, Sampling, statistics, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Sampling | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Telephone surveys are still considered the gold standard for rigorous public opinion polling and market research. The reason is that virtually every household in the U.S. can be reached by telephone, and therefore we have careful methods of determining the probability that any individual person is included in a sample to be surveyed. Knowing this probability is at the core of statistical inference, which makes mathematical purists very happy.
Here are the steps involved in conducting a rigorous “gold standard” telephone survey of the U.S. population: (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Internet, Market Research, population, public opinion, Public Polls, Sampling
Posted in Data Collection, Future Trends, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Public Polls, Sampling | No 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 »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
Five of Chicago’s PR leaders gathered at a PRSA forum this week to discuss current trends and the future of public relations. The discussion was striking in how fully it echoed the trends and challenges facing the polling and research industry, and what we need to do to keep our eye on the ball. Here are a few take-away ideas from that forum that apply to both PR professionals and their research partners: (more…)
Tags: communication, data, insight, journalism, media, Public Polls, Public Relations, research, stories, survey, value
Posted in Future Trends, Presenting Research, Public Relations, Turning Data into Stories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In a recent blog post entitled Data-Driven Journalism, Walker Sands, a Chicago PR agency, outlined two ways to get media placement for your company or your client with research. The premise is that journalists and readers are hungry for interesting stories, and in today’s data-driven world some of the most interesting stories come from – of all places – statistics. Ken Gaebler, founder of the agency, notes that there are two effective approaches. In his words, “You can mine data or you can make data.” (more…)
Tags: data, journalism, media, news, public opinion, Public Polls, Public Relations, research, statistics, stories, survey
Posted in Public Polls, Public Relations, Turning Data into Stories | No Comments »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Versta Research fields omnibus surveys, and we often recommend such surveys for our clients. But omnibus surveys do no not always save money or offer the insights that are needed, and so we often recommend inexpensive alternatives as well. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, Internet, Market Research, omnibus, Online Surveys, Public Polls, value
Posted in Data Collection, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Public Relations | No Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Market researchers complain a lot when they get data back from surveys and see that people have been “speeding” through their surveys or that people are not giving thoughtful responses.
But the problem is rarely “bad respondents” – instead the problem is lazy researchers. When people discover that the survey they just agreed to take is boring, tedious, repetitive, or too long, they either quit altogether or they stop providing good answers.
(more…)
Tags: Data Collection, data quality, Market Research, online, Online Surveys, Public Polls, research, survey, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Methods & Tools, Online Surveys, Public Polls, Survey Design, Survey Tips, Uncategorized | No Comments »