Blogs with keyword: Bias

Posted on Wednesday 16th January 2019 at 10:00pm

Sometime it's necessary to offer potential respondents an incentive to participate in a survey. There's ample opportunity to unnecessarily increase research costs and decrease response rates if you don't know what you're doing.

In a busy world with numerous and often competing requests for potential survey respondents’ attention and time, researchers sometimes have to draw on additional skills and resources to garner the requisite number of respondents.

One of the methods for increasing the participation rate is to offer potential respondents an incentive of some kind as a motivation or compensation for their time and effort.

Some studies won't require a respondent incentive, while others won't succeed without one.

Keywords: Bias | Market research | Poll / survey | Research design | Respondent recruitment | Sampling

 

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Posted on Saturday 21st July 2018 at 10:40pm

Some researchers, even experienced ones, refer to some forms of survey results as “unprompted”. We argue not only that there’s no such thing, but that thinking “unprompted” is a dangerous and biased pastime.

We repeatedly hear researchers refer to statistical survey results as “unprompted”. Sadly, it’s an oxymoron that can only serve to impoverish, if not seriously misguide and bias, the insights to be gained from the survey.

“Prompted versus unprompted” response language even turns up in peer-reviewed research papers, along with the gibberish of supposed “unprompted questions” in marketing textbooks. Oh dear. Can they even hear themselves talking?

At ResearchSquirrel we argue that “unprompted” language should be excised from the research lexicon. Here’s why.

Keywords: Analysis | Bias | Market research | Poll / survey | Questionnaire design | Research design

 

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Posted on Sunday 29th October 2017 at 10:30pm

The Australian Government is conducting a $120m+ ‘polling’ exercise to determine if there is majority electorate support for marriage equality. But we already know the correct answer, and it’s a resounding Yes.

At a cost of more than $120 million, the Australian Government is ‘polling’ Australian voters to determine if a majority are in favour of legalising marriage equality. If the result of the poll is positive (over 50%), the Government says it will introduce a Bill to legalise marriage equality. However, MPs will be granted a ‘conscience’ vote: they will not be bound to honour the majority will of the electorate in any case.

The ‘polling’ is wholly different from the process adopted by Australia's federal parliament in 2004, when without consulting the electorate, it amended the Marriage Act to expressly ban same-sex marriage, including refusing to recognise those lawfully solemnised in other Commonwealth countries.

Keywords: Australia | Analysis | Bias | Market research | Poll / survey | Questionnaire design | Secondary research

 

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Posted on Tuesday 12th July 2016 at 1:00am

Using a free generic questionnaire template for your survey is likely to yield very limited or possibly even misleading insights.

There are plenty of free, generic survey questionnaire templates online. I argue that they present a significant risk to entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals who are attempting to gain specific and meaningful insights.

It happens a little too often: the client who asks us to tweak a questionnaire template they've retrieved from... somewhere or other.

Keywords: Bias | Market research | Questionnaire design

 

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Posted on Monday 13th June 2016 at 7:00pm

We critique a typical "expert-certified" free questionnaire template. The results are not pretty and your research will suffer if you use them.

For market research to be valuable, each step from the initial strategic plan, through design and fieldwork, and to analysis and final reporting needs to be accomplished to a professional standard using valid and relevant procedures and techniques. That includes questionnaire design.

Free questionnaire templates are offered online as pre-packaged 'solutions.' But as you might expect, you usually get what you pay for. In this article we comment on a real, free 'customer satisfaction survey' questionnaire template. The template is even classed as 'certified by a research expert.' We wonder how that is. As you will see, we identify many shortcomings that will result in underinformed, if not misinformed decision making.

Keywords: Bias | Market research | Questionnaire design

 

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