One might think that with evolving technologies, the old-fashioned ways of doing research, like using paper and pencil, might disappear. But it turns out that paper surveys are not dead, and here is a nice example that dramatically illustrates their value. As newly-appointed director of market research for the American Marketing Association in Chicago, I…
The technology to field surveys via mobile devices has been around for a while, but has not yet gained much traction (and for good reasons). But with smartphones now proliferating at a remarkable pace, we may be in for a change. Deloitte released their 2011 IT and technology predictions last week, arguing that smartphones are…
The latest data from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey show that one quarter (25%) of U.S. adults do not have land-line telephones in their homes. So if you conduct a traditional random-digit-dial (RDD) phone survey, you will automatically be excluding one quarter of the population. Does it matter, given that surveys rarely interview everyone…
Good data from a survey requires, among other things, thoughtful feedback from respondents. Low-quality data most often comes not from fraudulent or lazy respondents, but from well-meaning survey takers who are bored or irritated with surveys that are not user-friendly. In this article we focus not on the unengaged respondents who may be offering up…
Surveys matter only if people are willing to fill them out – and getting people to fill them out is not an easy task. There are many interesting distractions in the world! And there many silly surveys and junk surveys competing for people’s attention. When the time comes that you need important feedback via a…
One critical trend that is transforming the research industry is the rapid adoption of mobile technologies, especially smartphones. It transforms research in multiple ways. It means that people disconnect their landlines, so we have to adjust our methods for phone polling. But more importantly, it means people are accessible in multiple ways (text, phone, email)…
Another article was just published in the Spring 2010 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly exploring data quality differences between online surveys and phone surveys. The findings were based on a lab experiment in which subjects completed survey questions either on a computer or over an intercom system with an interviewer. Doing the study in a…
Ten years ago, surveys through online panels were rare. Mostly we conducted telephone surveys. Today it is the other way around. With online survey panels being a $2 billion industry in the U.S., there is now a wealth of comparative data to measure and assess the implications of using online surveys as a substitute for…
Telephone surveys are still considered the gold standard for rigorous public opinion polling and market research. The reason is that virtually every household in the U.S. can be reached by telephone, and therefore we have careful methods of determining the probability that any individual person is included in a sample to be surveyed. Knowing this…
In the previous post we noted that our industry is driven by data and information, which meant huge changes in the nature of our work over the last ten years. Looking ahead, here are what we predict will be the five biggest trends that will shape market research challenges in the decade to come: