From the LaunchPad

Welcome to The Launchpad, SoundRocket’s blog, where we share our insights and musings on the science of doing science (well), #soundscience.

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Evaluating Nonresponse Bias in a Longitudinal Study of Healthy Adults Receiving Genome Sequencing

Evaluating Nonresponse Bias in a Longitudinal Study of Healthy Adults Receiving Genome Sequencing

We know your survey is exciting and will divulge important findings; you know your survey is exciting and will divulge important findings. But darn those who don’t know this and so don’t participate. Or worse – those who do know this, but choose not to participate for some other reason. Their nonresponse can create uncertainty in how accurate our survey results actually are.  If only we could survey robots or well-trained dogs who followed our instructions instead of people!

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Web-Based Survey Testing: Seven Tips for More Effective Questionnaires

Web-Based Survey Testing: Seven Tips for More Effective Questionnaires

Testing a web-based survey is one of the most detested activities to many in the survey research business.  It requires patience, persistence, and tremendous focus. Finding someone who enjoys testing and is good at it is a valuable asset to any survey research team. 

A wonderful resource for many details about testing questionnaires (including a chapter on web-based surveys) is Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires.

Here are seven tips to better web-based survey testing practices for your next study…

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Six Common Mistakes in Survey Research

Survey research is a part of the scientific process – and even a science on its own.  So why do researchers abandon the science when they implement their studies?  An astronomer would not go to the hobby store to buy a telescope to study the galaxy.  A geneticist would never purchase non-sterile test tubes from an unknown source to capture saliva samples from research subjects.  So why do social scientists routinely treat their own data collection tools this way?   

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