Polling and phone technologies may finally have reached the point where mobile phones are no longer a threat to phone-based surveys, but a superior alternative. Only half (52%) of U.S. households now have a landline telephone. In contrast, more than nine out of ten adults have a mobile phone. And the latest findings from Pew…
Nine out of ten Americans (89%) regularly use the Internet. So the old argument that online surveys will miss big chunks of the U.S. population is no longer valid. But an important question remains: Are the remaining one in ten (11%) who are beyond reach with online surveys substantially different from the others? And if…
For all the high level intellectual work you do in research (statistical work, design work, analysis, or writing) there is just as much brute force effort you need to put into fieldwork. That means finding the people to interview, convincing them to participate, asking them questions, and recording their answers. Even if you outsource, keeping…
Actually, Joe Citizen does not love them, but Joe Researcher does. The horse-race polls for media release offer little value to the first Joe because the only poll that really matters is the election itself. But for Joe Researcher, political polls offer unparalleled, ongoing opportunities to understand, validate, and improve our methods of survey research.…
Early customer feedback, especially in multiple forms and from multiple channels, can make or break the success of a new product or service. But it turns out that not all customer feedback is created equal. Some people have a knack for grasping new ideas, seeing how products might be used in novel ways, or imagining…
There are good reasons to avoid phone surveys if you can. But if there is no alternative, it is critical to think about strategies for integrating cell phones into your outreach and sampling. Almost half (48%) of U.S. adults have no landline telephone service, while fewer than one in ten (9%) have no cell phone…
Having jumped back into the 1,016-page Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence from the Federal Judicial Center and the National Research Council (see last week’s article on Defending Your Statistics in Court), I keep finding fascinating nuggets of information worth sharing with our marketing and research colleagues of all stripes. Consider this snippet from the section…
When people refuse to participate in your research surveys or say “no thanks” to your invitation to join a panel or focus group, it can hurt. Not just because it feels like a rejection of the awesome work you are doing, but also because it means you have to worry about the dreaded potential of…
I resist the idea of using Twitter for research because I do not know anyone beyond journalists, PR people, and marketing folks who actually use Twitter. Well, that’s a terrible reason to dismiss a potentially rich source of data, especially because one premise of survey research is that small parts can represent the whole. My…
An irony of survey researchers’ obsession with high response rates is that higher response rates often hurt data quality. How can that be? It happens because aggressive recruiting boosts the participation of people who provide less reliable information. Two academic articles published in a special issue of Public Opinion Quarterly on “total survey error” nicely…