In 1998, fascinated with the potential for the web to serve as a data collection platform, I wondered what sources of error may crop up with this new technology. Not surprisingly, we noticed early on that if participants did not finish a web-based survey in one...
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.
How to Prepare and Conduct Live Televideo Interviews – Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two-part series; to begin at the beginning, check out How to Prepare and Conduct Live Televideo Interviews - Part 1. Over the past year, our team at SoundRocket has been conducting ‘pandemic-friendly’ Live Televideo Interviews (LTIs) on Zoom. After...
How to Prepare and Conduct Live Televideo Interviews – Part 1
I remember it well - we both walked into the interview room, the research participant and myself, and immediately noticed we had the same shoes. We instantly bonded over being ‘shoe twins’, praising each other's taste in footwear, and setting a positive tone for the...
Is now a good time? Surveying higher ed students in a pandemic
One of the most common questions I am fielding today—with COVID-19 spreading across the nation, is now a good time to conduct surveys? Is the pandemic having an impact on response rates?
As one of my favorite grad school professors, Mick Couper, loved to say, “It depends.”
Whether one engages in a survey right now will depend on their current status. This may not be a good time to survey emergency department staff. Professionals who are engaged in conducting online surveys may also have their hands full of work (from home) and may not have much extra time to spare. But if you are surveying the general population, with exploding rates of unemployment, you may have better luck. Students in higher education have been ripped from their regular social routines and disconnected from others. They may welcome an opportunity to share their experiences . . .
Surveying College Students with SMS: Is it Feasible?
Text messages (also known as Short Message Service, or SMS) have become the go-to medium when contacting others. This is especially the case for today’s college students, who seem to conduct their social and even business lives completely via messaging service.
SoundRocket examined the data surrounding the efficacy of using SMS when surveying college students, resulting in presentation at a past American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Conference.
Assessing event-based college student drinking and social context using mobile devices
Most surveys of alcohol-use ask about behaviors and patterns that happen days, weeks months or even years ago. It’s all retrospective recollection from study participants. It’s useful for identifying general trends but it’s fraught with measurement errors. And when the topic of the study is binge drinking, errors involving memory can increase. — even if you’re asking the question the next day.
ICYMI: Seven tips for effective web-based survey testing
Testing a web-based survey is one of the most detested activities to many in the survey research business. From a 2016 post, here are seven tips to better web-based survey testing practices for your next study. You’re welcome 🙂
Survey Data Collection Part 2: 12 Pre-launch Steps to Quality Data
Use this as a checklist for your own studies – or as a tool to evaluate survey research collaborators. Researchers who do not consider each of these elements will make disastrous mistakes. A solid researcher is not one who is perfect – it is one who learns from past mistakes. Here are the final six (of twelve)…