Versta Research recently partnered with a consulting firm to complete an eight-month study about when and how employers have the strongest impact on worker satisfaction. The research found several critical moments in the life cycle of an employee—from the moment they begin considering employment to moment they leave for new opportunities—that dramatically shape how engaged,…
It is good to use multiple survey questions to measure a particular attitude or opinion, and for many years experts on survey design recommended reversing the wording on some questions to get a stronger and more valid measure. For example, if we want to measure retirement confidence we might ask respondents how much they agree…
Who says that Olympic sports are the only way to bring nations and people together? In 2013, statistics will unite the world as governments, businesses, and not-for-profit organizations from 111 countries around the world work together via global seminars, conferences, and educational activities to celebrate and promote statistics. The International Year of Statistics is the…
I’m not sure if this cartoon is funny. Maybe I’m just not cynical enough (ha! my friends are laughing already!) But I can’t think of any managers or clients for whom I’ve worked that are like the pointy-haired boss in this episode. I have never been asked to provide tons of data that look so…
As we begin the New Year 2013 (and as Versta Research enters its fifth year in business!) my colleagues and I are thinking less about the hottest trends that dazzle, and more about a few rock-solid resolutions for the market research industry that would make research more valuable, relevant, and useful compared to last year,…
Ever worried that you might have missed something important, funny, useful, or downright insightful here at the Versta Research Blog? Fear not. For our 2012 year-in-review, we compiled, among other useful statistics, the traffic analytics from our website. Here is a list of the top five published articles or posts that our readers viewed in…
With all our excitement over the last few months about the accuracy of online polling during the election season—substantially outperforming “gold standard” telephone research—there was not time to share ESOMAR’s September 2012 updated guide to purchasing online sample. The guide consists of 28 questions all purveyors of online sample should answer, publish, and make available…
An article not too long ago in the Journal of Consumer Psychology summed up current research on brand extensions thus: What factors determine whether or not a brand extension will be successful? The most important factor identified by prior research is perceived fit. Consumers respond more favorably if they are able to perceive a fit…
This week we published Versta Research’s quarterly newsletter with a feature article entitled “Wisdom in an Age-Old Question.” While it might seem simple to ask a person’s age on a survey, it turns out that there are all sorts of ambiguities and documented sources of error in the various ways you might ask it. Fortunately,…
Successful innovation and new product development involves a great deal of customer input. The more ways in which customers are involved, and the more systematic your efforts to involve them in multiple ways, the more likely you are to succeed with an innovative product or service. This is according to new qualitative research just published…