Tag: General Survey Stuff

This is the title of a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.   This is a well-reported piece on a wide variety of topics and it even inlcudes research we have executed for Roger Tourangeau as part of our ongoing work with survey methodologists at ISR.  But arguably the most interesting stuff is a…

There was an interesting tidbit in this morning’s Washington Post discussing some reasons why Hillary Clinton performed better than the polls expected in the New Hampshire primary.  Because the link may go away I’ve included the relevant quote below: A further potential source of error stems from New Hampshire ballot rules. In previous contests, the…

One of the more interesting sessions here at the ESOMAR Congress was one titled, "Measuring Emotions."   The Europeans have been into this for some time and I was curious to get a better sense of what is all about.  Much of it revolves around a field called cognitive neuroscience which essentially is about how our…

Arguably the most compelling story of the last ten years of the MR industry has been the introduction and then dramatic growth of online interviewing. Virtually non-existent 10 years ago, online today accounts for around $1.6 billion of the research in the US alone. Despite that growth, the often-forecasted demise of telephone interviewing has yet…

At the end of 2006 Public Opinion Quarterly published a special issue devoted to nonresponse in surveys.   There is no denying that declining respondent cooperation is the most serious problem we face as an industry.  Key government face-to-face surveys like the Current Population Survey and the National Health Interview Survey are still getting north of…

I spent the weekend outside Atlanta at the Health Survey Research Methods Conference.  This is an episodic (the last one was in 2003) invitation-only gathering of about 80 government health survey practitioners and academic survey methodologists. We were all pretty much locked in a hotel for three days with nothing but survey talk and fattening…

The research industry has seen more than its share of innovation over the last five years with much of it related to the Internet.  The December issue of Research World includes an interesting little piece by  Ray Poynter of Virtual Surveys in the UK in which he sizees up eight of these innovations to identify…

It is a generally held principle in survey research that identification of the survey sponsor improves response rates. We know, for example, that government sponsored studies elicit higher response rates, partly because respondents may think they are required to respond or simply because the experience may make them feel patriotic. Surveys sponsored by academic institutions…

ESOMAR has set about developing a definition of market research as a way to differentiate itself from other sectors in the information industry.  Here is what they have so far: Market research, which includes social and opinion research, is the gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organisations using statistical and analytical tools to…