How We Do It

Sometimes the most difficult aspect of social sciences is the design of the study itself. Do you need a cross-sectional study with a single mode of data collection; or does your research warrant a longitudinal design with multiple experimental design conditions? We can handle the simple and complex. Often this design work is involved as our collaborators build their proposal for funding—we find that the earlier you engage with us, the better the resulting study.

Data collection can be the most time-consuming and budget-busting part of social science research. Often primary data collection makes up well over half of a typical grant budget. Managing quality together with timeline, limited resources, and other administrative burdens can take the scientist away from their science. SoundRocket will serve as your general contractor for your data collection efforts—allowing you to focus on what you do best. We maintain internal capacities to conduct web-based, paper, qualitative interviews, and small-scale telephone studies. We also have partners who can help with large scale telephone or geographical in-person data collections.

User comprehension studies, label comprehension studies, and user experience studies evaluate how well one understands and experiences the content. While the content itself can vary, SoundRocket has developed an expertise in evaluating content intended for health-related reports. High user comprehension is required by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) when marketing Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) genetic tests, and it is a stated goal of any legitimate health report provider to ensure that their products/services are understood.

The FDA requires a very high bar of 90% comprehension with DTC genetic tests with key conceptual topics such as test purpose, test limitations, next steps, and any special consideration about the test, as well as the test result. We have helped multiple organizations achieve this level of comprehension—and FDA 510k clearance—for their new products. Our team of survey methodologist experts and in-house genetic counselors are ready to help!

The SoundRocket Comprehension Study service uses iterative, interview-based stages to assist in the development and refinement of report contents and user comprehension questionnaire validity.

While web-based surveys have become commonplace, we are experts in web-based survey design. Everything you put in a web-based survey can impact data quality, and we understand those dynamics well. Working with us, you will never make a mistake like including an inappropriate progress indicator in your web-based survey. (Want to know why progress indicators are usually not appropriate? Schedule a consult and we can explain.) Self-administered survey design (including web and paper surveys) takes into account questionnaire design, visual design, language, and various psychological concepts to maximize quality in survey research.

We excel at the design and execution of responsive designs. In fact, our founder, Scott D. Crawford, teaches the course on Responsive Designs in Web-based Surveys each summer, Responsive Survey Design at the University of Michigan. With dropping response rates, data collection strategies must address quality directly. It is no longer adequate to simply throw money at increasing response rates blindly without attention to quality metrics. We can help design a data collection strategy that uses multi-stage data collection efforts and sampling to target the efforts to maximize study quality. In the age of personalized medicine, we now practice personalized social science.

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