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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Is now a good time? Surveying higher ed students in a pandemic

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 . . .

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Surveying College Students with SMS: Is it Feasible?

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.

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SoundRocket Founder to Speak at FEDCASIC Workshop

SoundRocket Founder to Speak at FEDCASIC Workshop

If you would like to spot some serious survey nerds while enjoying the Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C. this year, step on down to the Bureau of Labor Statistics where SoundRocket founder Scott D. Crawford will be presenting at the The Federal Computer Assisted Survey Information Collection (FEDCASIC) Workshop. Scott will be presenting “Best Practices in Consent to Capture Geolocation Data in Self-Administered Web Surveys” in the Wednesday afternoon session on Advances in the Use of Location Data.  

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