We ran this script of a Christmas Eve phone survey interview two years ago. It’s time to bring it out again! It’s an amusing and oh-too-true parody of how market research pollsters ask questions in clear, precise, linear ways to gather data we need for analysis. Although it takes the form of a phone interview…
One way to get more people responding to your survey is to let them know ahead of time that the survey is coming their way. Is one method of outreach better than another? It depends on your audience and the type of survey, but several studies over the last decade have shown a consistent difference…
A few weeks ago, The Patient, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published an article based on findings from two surveys conducted by Versta Research. This follows on the heels of a poster presentation last June at the annual meetings of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and another one just prior to that at meetings sponsored by…
Or at the very least, ignorance should drive market research because fundamentally research should be about findings answers to questions that we do not already know. This idea for focusing on “ignorance” is inspired by a book published last year called Ignorance: How It Drives Science, by Stuart Firestein. Applied to our industry, the argument…
We have been experimenting with the idea and the process of using infographics for all our research studies at Versta. Infographics are not easy, because they require careful attention to the data, to the succinct story that the data tells, and to graphic design. But so far I have been struck by how compelling research…
The Associated Press (AP) announced last month it is moving all of its public opinion polling from phone surveys to online surveys. This is progress, because over the last decade AP has been one of a handful of media holdouts (along with ABC News and The New York Times) who have insisted that only phone-based…
The purists in the polling industry who have always insisted that only probability sampling is valid may finally be accepting that their methods are dead. This is one happy conclusion I draw from the debate over AAPOR’s recent task force report on non-probability sampling, which is nicely summarized (and debated) as the lead article of…
There was a recent online discussion among colleagues who are active in the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) about experiences with and recommendations for survey analysis and statistics software. Many noted that traditional commercial software is getting extremely expensive, but that newer options do not always have the same capabilities that many of…
This picture sits on my bookshelf, right next to my computer monitor, and reminds me all day long about the importance of getting close to your data. It was one of my first research jobs out of college, working for Tom Greene at St. Lawrence University. We hiked up mountains in the Adirondacks, waited at…
Last week I attended the Corporate Researchers Conference (CRC) in Dallas, organized by the Marketing Research Association (MRA). It was an outstanding event. I had considered having Versta exhibit at this conference, but I’m glad I did not. Why? Because instead of being in a booth talking about Versta, I did the opposite. I went…