The Research Playbook

Posts Tagged ‘Quality Research’

In our zeal to provide clean datasets by removing questionable cases, we can commit another research “sin” – the introduction of researcher bias.

More than once, I have witnessed a researcher going through a dataset case by case to try to determine if a respondent is a gamer or simply unqualified. The person started out with some basic rules or criteria, but in addition made decisions on respondents’ qualifications from a subjective position, arguing, “No one with this [attribute here] would frame answers the way this respondent did.”

Maybe the researcher was correct and the person was not a legitimate respondent, but this is a slippery slop and we should not take the task of deleting cases lightly. You should use both valid and repeatable criteria when you delete cases from a dataset.

If you are not careful you can start sliding down the slippery slope of researcher bias and not recognize it until it’s too late!

 

 

Please share your thoughts on this topic – leave a comment.

 

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Apparently many people do care about how panel recruitment affects sample development and with good reason.

Results from a poll posted on LinkedIn demonstrate that this is a serious issue. The question posed was:
“When you select a sample provider, how much importance do you place on their panel recruitment process?” Is it:

While the results derived are from a sample of convenience and hardly scientific, they are nevertheless instructional. So what did the 98 people who took time to participate tell us?

If you are a panel provider and you didn’t already know that recruitment practices play a deciding factor, it surely would be obvious now, with nearly seven out of ten (71%) prospective buyers voting “very and extremely” important.

 

Women are more likely to view recruitment as very or extremely important (72%) than men (64%) are. Differences by age were interesting. There was a very small portion of the sample (5%) in the 30-36 age group and they accounted for only 2% one of participants who voted “extremely important.” The 45+ age cohort, which was the largest age group in the sample, also had the highest proportion of votes in the extremely important and very important categories (68%). Perhaps it’s true that with age comes wisdom!

What can we learn from examining the results of this poll? I think the message is straightforward;  overall this simple polling question seems to have hit a nerve. We believe that sample development is one of the cornerstones of good research.

Market research is not an academic exercise. Real business decisions are made, or at least influenced, by the results of the research we conduct – how can you make a good business decision if the sample is faulty? Simply put, you can’t.

 

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No, I am not going to offer you yet another webinar, podcast, free report, or video.

We overstocked hard copies of my Book:

Questionnaire Design for Business Research

Tate Publishing (2010)

So I am making this offer to my Research Playbook readers

Purchase the book Questionnaire Design for Business Research, and you will receive a paperback copy signed by the author (my wife loves this author!)

 

My Special Offer is a signed copy [tell me who to address it to] for $16.75 with free shipping in the USA.

 

Perfect for anyone serious about:

• Raising the bar on questionnaire design in his or her organization
• Finding a cost-effective way to start designing a questionnaire
• Preparing for the next market research project
• Improving his or her research skills

IMPORTANT: To reserve your signed copy of Questionnaire Design for Business Research you must: Email me carey.azzara@atheath.com or call 508 400 6837.

 

We have less than 100 copies and my signing hand will probably give out sooner LOL. . . 

“I want to get this book in your hands.“

It is also available from the publisher’s website: http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61566-835-9

 

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The questionnaire Audit, Correct, and Enhance (ACE) approach starts with the audit. The Questionnaire Quality Control (QQC) audit identifies problems and errors commonly encountered during the task of questionnaire design.

My Questionnaire seems perfectly fine to me

No one wants to hear that what she or he created is less than masterful, but there is more to Questionnaire Design than asking questions the way you do in everyday discourse. Our audit is structured to be helpful and provide actionable guidance to the author(s) of the research instrument.

We have created a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) version of this audit process and we invite you to use this process to improve your questionnaires before submitting them for fielding. The process is described in this post and we hope you find it valuable. Read the rest of this entry »