Posts Tagged ‘survey respondents’
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 »
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 »
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
Survey respondents and other participants in our research studies are the lifeblood of the polling and market research industry. Therefore it is critical that we promote and nurture public participation in research, and that we reward, respect, and thank our respondents.
So whatever you do, please don’t take Dogbert’s approach to conducting a survey:
Versta Research believes strongly in protecting the privacy of all research respondents. We adhere to the strictest standards of ethics and privacy as outlined by The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and other industry organizations to which we belong. The following two paragraphs nicely summarize our views and approach: (more…)
Tags: ethics, privacy, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Funnies | No Comments »
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
Many assume that rigorous market research always works with random samples or probability samples. This assumption is not true. There are many studies that require purposive sampling instead. Purposive sampling involves finding people with specific characteristics or qualities, even if they do not fully represent the whole population, because these specific people can provide unique insights or data that are difficult to get otherwise.
An article in the October 2010 issue of the Journal of Marketing Research offers research to this point. The authors identify a unique profile of consumers who are measurably better at developing, testing, and reacting to new product ideas. The personal qualities these consumers possess include (quoting from the article): (more…)
Tags: concept testing, Focus Groups, new product development, product innovation, Sampling, survey respondents
Posted in Focus Groups, Market Research, New Products and Innovation, Sampling | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
Despite having been on the front lines of social research for twenty five years, interviewing respondents personally and eliciting data through surveys, I still feel somewhat surprised and disbelieving that people really want to participate in research. But they do. Sometimes eagerly. Almost always truthfully. Surely, my surprise stems from my own reluctance to fill out surveys.
It turns out that I may just lack the survey-taking gene. No joke. New research of genetic and fraternal twins shows that our willingness to participate in research is shaped in part by our genes. The research was led by Lori Foster Thompson, an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, and is soon to be published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. As reported on Science Daily: (more…)
Tags: bias, Sampling, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Market Research, Sampling | No Comments »
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
We feel strongly that people who give us information through surveys, in-depth interviews, or focus group deserve a promise that this will never happen to them:
One of the tenets of rigorous market research is that respondent confidentiality is key. Why? Primarily because it benefits you as a client. To make smart decisions, you need honest and thoughtful information from your customers and constituents. In most cases, your customers want to give us that information (because they want you to do a better job) as long as it won’t come back to haunt them.
Versta Research adheres to the ethics guidelines for privacy as outlined by CASRO, AAPOR, and other industry organizations to which we belong. The following two paragraphs nicely summarize our views and approach: (more…)
Tags: ethics, privacy, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Funnies | No Comments »
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
Asking people to fill out long, tiresome, and boring surveys is a scourge of the research, polling, and survey industry. (Another is asking them to fill out a survey every time they interact with you — see There Are Too Many Surveys.) Asking people to fill out long surveys teaches them to avoid surveys in the future, and indeed we see survey participation rates continuing to decline. But more importantly if you are the one who needs to rely on survey data, long surveys result in measurably lower data quality. (more…)
Tags: Data Collection, data quality, open-ends, survey, Survey Design, survey respondents
Posted in Data Collection, Online Surveys, Survey Design, Survey Tips | 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 »