Overview
For this week’s deliverable:
Develop a quantitative study crafted as a survey of 10-20 items.
State your research goal.
- Identify your audience for the survey respondents.
Describe your approach or strategy for distributing the surveys.
- Develop your survey on a tool such as Qualtrics or Google Forms. You may find these resources about how to create a Qualtrics’ survey and a Google Forms survey helpful to review before you begin.
- The survey items should directly connect to your market research goals from the Week 2 assignment. For instance, you may ask which aspects of your client’s organization are most appealing, whether survey respondents are familiar with the organization, their views and opinions of the organization, how likely they are to purchase from the organization, which social media channels they use, and what factors drive their purchasing decisions. You will also need to include questions about demographics.
- Craft the survey items to obtain as much information as possible. For instance, rather than asking, “Which social media platforms do you use most often?” create a matrix that lists several platforms and ask, “How many hours per week do you use each of these social media platforms?”.
- Surveys must include items on digital media use and frequency in order to learn how and where to connect with customers.
Use multiple choice rather than short answer questions.
Avoid using age cohorts or categories; instead, ask respondents’ age.
Then, develop a qualitative study crafted as an interview.
State your research goal.
- Identify your audience for the interviews.
- Describe your approach to the interviews (i.e., the number of interviews and the means used to conduct them, such as via a virtual meeting room, in-person, or otherwise).
- Write 5-10 in-depth interview questions. These questions should also connect to the market research goals to gain a deeper understanding of the respondents’ opinions on various aspects of your client’s organization, how likely they are to purchase from the organization, and the factors driving their purchasing decisions.
- Ensure your survey and interview meet the assignment requirements.
- Follow the best practices for market research as provided in this week’s readings and multimedia.
- Ask survey and interview questions objectively. For instance, ask “What are your thoughts about…” rather than “What are your concerns about…”.
Do not interview survey participants or vice versa unless one study is dependent (e.g., a follow-up) on the other study.
- If you choose to have multiple-choice, Likert-type items in your survey, use consistent scaling throughout the survey for the sake of accurately analyzing your data.
- If your survey and/or interview branches based on responses, include the logic for the question order. Here is an example of survey logic:
- Q2: What is your age?
- Dropdown Box:
- 1 through 100
[Survey Logic: If the answer is younger than 18, go to Q22: Disqualification Page]
- Provide information about both the survey and interview to respondents, including an introduction and consent.
- The introduction should provide brief context regarding the purpose of the survey; however, avoid providing excessive detail as this may result in biased responses.
- The consent should protect anonymity and obtain permission for participation via a digital signature. Please refer to the appropriate articles for instructions:
- Adding a digital signature in Qualtrics survey
- Adding a digital signature in Google Forms surveys
Requesting a digital signature via email (for use in interviews)
- You may copy and paste the following language, making changes to the yellow highlighted portions as needed:
Introduction:
Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey/interview. This survey/interview should take about 10 minutes to complete. The purpose of this survey/interview is to collect data on [briefly state survey/interview topic or market research goals]. Please answer all questions as truthfully as possible.
For survey only: Questions may not be skipped, there is no back button to change answers, and the survey cannot be saved to complete later. Participants may only take the survey once unless otherwise instructed.
Consent:
You are invited to participate in a survey/interview being conducted by graduate students at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The purpose of the survey/interview is to evaluate the current marketing conditions pertaining to [market category]. You must be over 18 to complete this survey/interview. Your participation in this survey/interview is completely voluntary. Your responses will not be associated with your name or other identifiable information. No names or identifying information will be included in any reports or presentations based on this data, and your responses to this survey will remain confidential.
[Insert digital signature]
- Provide a debrief and full disclosure at the end of the surveys and interviews. Guarantee anonymity and use pseudonyms for the interview results and reporting. You may copy and paste the following language, making changes to the highlighted portions as needed:
Thank you for your participation in this survey/interview. The data collected will be used in [state market research goal]. More specifically, your responses will be used to inform strategies for this campaign. Your responses will be kept anonymous. The survey/interview results and reporting will use pseudonyms rather than your given name