Despite having been on the front lines of social research for so many years, interviewing respondents personally and eliciting data through surveys, I still feel somewhat surprised and disbelieving that people really want to participate in research. But they do. Sometimes eagerly. Almost always truthfully. Surely, my surprise stems from my own reluctance to fill…
We feel strongly that people who give us information through surveys, in-depth interviews, or focus group deserve a promise that this will never happen to them: Courtesy of WorkChronicles.com One of the tenets of rigorous market research is that respondent confidentiality is key. Why? Primarily because it benefits you as a client. To make smart…
At a moment when our industry is scandalized by a panel provider having been indicted for selling fraudulent survey respondents, in comes another provider that is doing nearly the same thing with absolutely full disclosure. The catch? They are using AI to do it, and dressing it up with phrases like “contextually relevant” and “statistically…
Asking people to fill out long, tiresome, and boring surveys is a scourge of the research, polling, and survey industry. (Another is asking them to fill out a survey every time they interact with you — see There Are Too Many Surveys.) Asking people to fill out long surveys teaches them to avoid surveys in…
Nearly every survey begins with screening questions to ensure that only the people you are trying to reach are included in the survey. For example, if you are conducting a survey of women, you need to ask about gender and kick out the men. And because every question costs money, you want to qualify respondents…
For some reason I’m always a little surprised that people tell the truth on surveys. I like to think of my “healthy skepticism” as a professional asset, because it forces us to check and double check, corroborate and triangulate. Before we commit to the findings of a research effort, we need to feel 100% sure…
You might think that a research firm specializing in surveys would be glad to see a world in which customer feedback surveys are everywhere. Not so. I take part in a lot of webinars, and unfortunately I am asked to complete a survey (at least one) every time I attend. Some websites ask me to…
Market researchers complain a lot when they get data back from surveys and see that people have been “speeding” through their surveys or that people are not giving thoughtful responses. Putting aside the issue of fraud (which is a huge problem in our industry) the problem is rarely “bad respondents” – instead the problem is…
There are three important characteristics of people who “satisfice” on surveys: They are less conscientious They are less agreeable They have different cognitive skills The first two refer to dimensions of the Big Five personality traits. Conscientious people are efficient and organized vs. extravagant or careless. Agreeable people are friendly and compassionate vs. critical and…
Satisfice is not a word you will find in most dictionaries, but it is a word you will hear often in the world of survey research. Satisficing is what survey respondents do when they “sort of” want to answer survey questions but not really. They are like lazy students taking a test. They dislike too…