25 Things You Might Not Know About Research

Whether you’re a seasoned research professional, a newbie, or whether you dabble in research for other job responsibilities (like marketing or strategy) you will probably find something you don’t yet know in our winter newsletter with a feature article on 25 Things You Might Not Know About Research.

It covers topics from stats, to charts, to qualitative research, dashboards, sample sizes, how research is priced … and lots more. In fact, here are the 25 things you might not know:

1. Qualitative costs more than quantitative
2. Tons of surveys are filled out by robots
3. There is no such thing as a statistically significant sample size
4. Pie charts are bad
5. 3-D charts are bad
6. Very large sample sizes are a waste
7. Large numbers are obvious
8. Statistical significance is arbitrary
9. You can’t stat test NPS the normal way
10. There is more than one margin of error
11. Your margin of error is bigger than you think
12. The best research is done by the government
13. The best research in public opinion is done by academics
14. The worst research in marketing is done by academics
15. A lot of research firms don’t do research
16. Insights dashboards don’t work
17. All vendors use the same suppliers
18. Adding “other” to surveys is useless
19. Probability samples are exceptionally rare
20. Phone surveys do not use probability samples
21. Your chance of being polled is extremely small
22. Survey respondents are not like you
23. Bad data looks frighteningly like good data
24. There is no anonymous research
25. Most survey takers tell the truth

All are explained in the newsletter, with lots of additional information and resources you can find along the way.

While you’re there, you can also read about some of our recent work for Fidelity Investments on money and divorce, a survey about clergy health (with a video report!), and research for an Ad Council campaign on brain health.

I always tell people that the best thing about professional research is that it’s our job (and we get paid!) to learn new things. I bet you’ll find new things to learn perusing this list.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.