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Here’s an unfortunate reality in the world of survey research: Survey questions can sometimes be copyrighted. When certain questions (no matter how obvious and common) are asked together as a set, and then scaled into a single measure (no matter how obvious and simple), and then validated in a study as being a solid tool…
A cool deliverable of many segmentation studies is a “typing tool” that allows you to input data on just a few dimensions (usually six to twelve survey questions) in order to predict which segment any customer belongs to. It works because even though segmentation algorithms sort through tons of data to find the best clusters,…
Here is an update on what went wrong with the Clinton vs. Trump polling debacle last fall, according to AAPOR’s official Evaluation of 2016 Election Polls in the U.S. that was released several weeks ago. The conclusions are based on an analysis and assessment of publicly available polling data plus additional data supplied by top…
If you grew up in the United States, you probably think big numbers are better when it comes to rating things. Higher scores on school exams are better. Higher scores in games and sports are usually better. Higher credit scores are better. Five-star restaurants are definitely better than one-star restaurants. In Germany it is often…
The pointy-hair boss has a point here, even though he does not realize it. From a research perspective, focus groups should provide rich, new, and surprising depths of insight, not necessarily “reliable” data. In fact, that’s why we typically suggest doing multiple focus groups, in different locations, with different types of participants. We want each…
We use Google Surveys for quick, cheap incidence tests, or to test question wording or answer scales. Every time I use it, however, I am startled by how foolish Google Surveys can be. Here is an example we noticed from our most recent use of the tool. Start constructing your Google Survey. Add a “single…
Dividing a market into unique segments makes sense. But the statistical methods we rely on for segmentation often result in segments that are strongly differentiated in useless and misleading ways. A recent analysis of Facebook data by The New York Times illustrates this perfectly.
If you conduct a well-designed, well-executed survey of 500 people you probably think (and yes, we may have told you) that your margin of error is ±4%. It’s beautiful. It’s all based on math. And if you ever had that “aha” moment in statistics class, you probably agree that the mathematical proof of it is…
Of all the many components that need to come together for great research, one piece not often discussed is the art and science of getting people into your study. Recruiting respondents is part targeting, part persuasion, and part persistence. For researchers, it is probably the closest thing we do to actual marketing. In the Versta…
I’ve been reading through a report from the AAPOR Task Force on The Future of U.S. General Population Telephone Survey Research, which I thought might be interesting and provocative, given how oddly reluctant the organization has been to embrace online methods. Only a few years ago AAPOR (the American Association of Public Opinion Research) finally…