Capturing Quantitative Data

Chapter 6 CMI

Quantitative research

structured research approach with a sample of the population to produce quantifiable insights into behaviour, motivations and attitudes

• more structured, less flexible

• larger samples

• more easily replicated

• quantify incidence of particular behaviours, motivations and attitudes

• statistical

Survey methods

Structured questioning of participants and the recording of responses. Can be verbal, written or online. Administered by interviewer or done alone by respondent. 

Interviewer-administered questionaires undertaken over telephone or face-to-face contact in home, street or place of work

Collected data through tech or paper-based

Self-completion surveys can be delivered and collected from respondents online, by hand, post or messaging or apps

Face-to-Face surveys

Research that involves meeting respondents face-to-face and interviewing them using a laptop computer, tablet or paper-based questionaire

Pros of face-to-face

• motivate respondent to take part and answer hard questions

• convince respondent that research and interviewer are genuine

• check and ensure respondent eligibility before interview conducted

• assist a respondent with more complex questionaire or set of questions

• judge interest, impatience and seriousness of respondent with questions

• improve understanding interviewer and respondent through non-verbal communication

• deliver visual elements of questionaire like photographs or lists of items

Cons of face-to-face 

• more costly, time-consuming 

• clustered in specific geographical areas, remote people less likely interviewed

• training and briefing of interviewers more difficult due to geographical dispersal 

• quality control more difficult as supervisors travel around dispersed

• difficult to motivate interviewers than if they were in a centralised call centre

• Interviewer bias

In-home/doorstep interviewing

Face-to-face interviews undertaken within the home of the respondent or on the doorstep of their home

Less people are home during the day when interviewers call so its more time-consuming, more expensive.

However, still used where type of house or neighbourhood is critical to the research design

Executive interviewing

Quantitative research interviews with buisiness people, usually undertaken at their place of work, covering subjects related to industrial or business products and services

Expensive as interviewer needs more skills to remain credible and successfully undertake interviews in areas with less knowledge or understanding. More complex. Individuals responsible for purchasing or specifying products are identified and located, phoning organisations to find them. Find them then get them to agree to an interview, then travel to their workplace.

Street interviewing 

Interviews where respondents are approached and recruited while they are shopping or walking in town centres. 

Some shopping centres charge a fee and book in advance as its sometimes a nuisance to shoppers. 

Can affect the quality of data obtained, weather can affect people being attentive to questions, noise and busy streets are distracting, people in a hurry avoiding people with clipboards. Restricts interview length as not likely to answer questions more than 10 mins.

Less expensive than in-home interviews, less time. 

Telephone interviewing

Quantitative research where the interviewing is undertaken over the telephone.

Centralised call centres benefit is control. Can train and brief interviewers in one location, monitor calls, quality control, cost of calls logged accurately, control in timing of interviews. Taken nationally or internationally. Interviewer bias reduced. Help reach people who may be otherwise inaccessible like a travelling business person. Speedy.

Biggest disadvanatge is respondents attitudes towards the telephone. Lots of telemarketing calls so refusal rates increase.

Different cultures react differently towards telephone surveys.

Distractions whilst on the phone travelling, lose interest quicker over the phone, hard to do ranking questions over the phone.

Self-administered surveys

Surveys where respondents completes the questionaire with no help from an interviewer.

No interviewer, live or recorded is involved.

No interviewer bias or influence data gathered. No interviwer avaliable to clarify questions or responses. Must clearly communicate questions being posed or straightforward approach to respond. Be able to motivate repsondents to complete it.

Delivery done online or SMS messaging or apps or post

Online surveys 

Self-completion questionaires that are delivered via the internet.

Questions shown one at a time to not influence respondents answers seeing the full set of questions. annoying for people with slow internet or dont want to answer every question. 

Most common self-completion surveys, not typical for all consumer groups as they are all internet users. Can send out assurances regarding confidentiality and data protection before sending the survey. 

Pop-up blocking software reduses the use of pop-up surveys on websites

Kiosk-based surveys

surveys often undertaken at an exhibition or trade show using touchscreen computers to collect info from respondents

Free-standing computers to report on satisfaction with the event. Have colour visuals, sound and video clips. Cheaper than human interviewer exit surveys E.g. face emojis in airport toilets

Advantages of online surveys

• national and international coverage

• reduced costs - no call charges

• no interviewer bias

• fast delivery

• easily personalised

• respondent convenience

• piggybacking onto other correspondence like online bank statements, warranty registrations and newsletters, reducing costs further

• Penetrating different target groups

• can include images and video

Disadvantages of online surveys

• low response rates - goes to spam

• not appropriate for all consumer groups - those not technologically literate

• biased response - respondents may not be representative of the population

• lack of control of respondent

• limited open-ended questions

• response time

Develop and conduct online surveys

• online survey software: produce questionaires for all types of surveys, put onto organisations web server, linked to database that recieves and stores responses, analyse the data

• Survey design and web hosting sites: design online survey without loading any design software. Survey administered on web hosting site server, tabulations and data files made avaliable to researcher

Mobile phone surveys

questionaires formatted for mobile screens, good for not many response options but harder for long questionaires. Greater costs, limit on size of text messages so inflexible but good for immediate responses to an event or service. Need to be short questions and simple.

Postal surveys 

Self-administered surveys that are mailed to preselected repondents along with a return envelope, covering letter and possibly an incentive.

Read all the questions in advance before completing, implications for awareness and attitude type questions. low response rates, depend on level of interest on the subject, relationship with respondent and researching firm, accuracy of mailing list and incentive offered. Takes time to send these out and wait for a response. 

Improving response rates of online and postal surveys

• accuracy of mailing list - regular interacters

• pre-contact

• part of an exisiting relationship

• the covering letter - sell the benefit of the survey, personalised, reasons to respond, ease of completion/time required, assurance of confidentiality, manner they were selected, contact number for more info, timescale to complete and way to return, a thank you

• appearance - official looking taken more seriously

• incentives - prize draw, vouchers

• reminders

• timing - consider timetables of targeted respondents to send them out

• Questionaire design

Hand-delivered surveys

self-administered questionnaires may also be handed to potential respondents or left for their collection. Where the audience is captive, such as in an aeroplane. inexpensive, high response rate

Mixed-mode studies

Research studies that use a variety of collection methods in a single survey in order to improve response rates e.g. same questionaire online and face-to-face

Combination helps reduce low response rates

beneficial in international multi-country research studies where method most suited to individual countrys culture can be used.

Concern on comparability of the types of respondents across different methods and also comparability of response collected by different survey types.

Reduce the differences to be more simple and straightforward

Mode selected influences respondents 

• online = complete responses

• Verbatim = longer in personal interviews than online, longer online than on phone

• stimulus material on screen = give longer/more detailed responses

• scale questions vary = phone people favour extreme points, online people use entire range of scale

• Socially sensitive subjects = respondents admit more online than on the phone or personal modes or paper-based questionaires 

Omnibus surveys

A data collection approach that is undertaken at regular intervals for a changing group of clients who share the costs involved in the survey’s set-up, sampling and interviewing.

Short question sets, each set belonging to a different client

• TNS face-to-face omnibus

• Capibus

• Telebus

• Omnibus online

Can get fast results to a small number of questions from a relatively large sample at a relatively low cost.

Joining fee, cost per question/per coded answer and charge of special analysis required. 

Help obtain a ‘snapshot’ of awareness, attitudes or behaviour, can subscribe to it to track overtime. Good for monitoring effectiveness of promotional activities. 

Negatives of Omnibus surveys

inflexible as client cant change nature of sample being interviewed as itd affect other clients using survey as tracking study.

Inflexible in type and number of questions that client can ask within a particular wave of a survey. Questions need to be relatively straightforward. Concern about where to position the questions in the questionaire.

Concern of questions bias the answers to their own questions.

Respondent will lose interest nearer the end of the questionaire.

Panel research

A research approach where comparative data are collected from the same respondents on more than one occasion. They can consist of individuals, households or organisations and can provide info on changes in behaviour awareness and attitudes over time. (longtitudual survey)

Help find info on broad trends in the market, case histories of specific respondents, attitudes/reactions overtime, voting intentions

Internet panel 

A panel of people recruited through the internet. Based on the profile of each individual participant, the panel operator sends out personalised email alerts identifying surveys that would like the participant to complete. 

Need to keep panel mambers motivated, impacted by: number of surveys, rewards, sameness of surveys. 

Key tasks for panel research

• recruitment of a representative sample of the population that is willing and capable of doing the task

• maintaining the members of the panel once recruited

• replacing panel members who leave with similar respondents to maintain consistency

• quality control

Hall tests 

Research undertaken in a central hall or venue commonly used to test respondents’ initial reactions to a product, package or concept. Respondents are recruited into the hall by interviewers stationed on main pedestrian throughfares nearby. 

A quota sample. Asked to try, taste or look at a new design or product for a short period of time (10-20 mins)

Not appropriate for longer-term usage of a product e.g. some can only be truly tested at home.

Take care and common sense in planning hall tests, type of venue, time of day can be an influence. 

Products can be tested alone (monadic test) but more often tested against 1 or 2 other products (multiple test).

Carried out in number of locations overcome regional bias, sample of 100-400 people interviewed. 

Placement testing

The testing of reactions to product in the home or location where they are to be used. Information about respondents experiences with and attitudes towards the product are collected either by a questionaire or by a self-completion diary. Results sent back to researcher by post or electronic means.

Good for testing over a period of time and in use. From 3 weeks for electrical products, 6-12 months for new car or equipment.

Recruited through omnibus surveys or street interviews.

Expensive to organise and undertake, sufficient number of products need to be produced for testing. Recruit more respondents than required, people may drop out from loss of interest.

Simulated test markets

A simulated or laboratory-type testing research approach used to predict the potential results of a product launch and to experiment with changes to different elements of a products marketing mix.

Simulated test markets involve

1. Recruiting participants using street, doorstep or telephone interviews. Screened to ensure they are target population.

2. Exposed to product concept/prototype, the packaging, promotion, advertising for new product. Done at same time as participants exposed to competing products/ads

3. Participants given opportunity to buy product from range under investigation from researcher/interviewer

4. if product is one thats consumed or repurchased, respondents would need to buy this type from researcher. Researcher visits each week overtime and asked to repurchase. Questionaires used to examine participants experience of using their chosen product and reasons for purchasing it.

5. The trial and repeat purchase info developed from the activities would be used as input to computerised simulation program thats used to project share or volume for the product if distributed on a national basis

4 potential sources of bias in simulated test markets

1. Subject bias - subject of the test may react different than they do in reality to impress researcher

2. Experiment mortality - people may withdraw from experiment before stages are complete

3. Extraneous variables - External events may impact participants, family issues, health, financial, impact behaviour

4. Other influences - influenced by national media and ads that they are exposed to, impact attitudes and behaviour relating to product.