Research Services

Answers to some common questions we receive about research. The answers come from WestGroup Research in Phoenix, a primary provider of research for C3:

How receptive are people to being called for research purposes?

We have kept a watchful eye on how receptive people are to participating in telephone research studies. We are particularly interested in study refusal rates, the impact of telephone technologies, and the intrusiveness of telephone selling. In October we added some questions to WestTrack's statewide sample. Here are a few results based on 400 completed interviews (plus or minus 5% at 95% confidence)...

We routinely find about 60% of the people we talk to decline to participate in telephone surveys. When we asked WestTrack respondents, 63% said they had declined at least once in the past six months. Our WestTrack sample accurately reflects what we are finding when we dial, supporting the conclusion that participants really do represent the total population.

More than two-thirds (68%) of our respondents have telephone answering machines and 38% of them use their machines to screen calls. Apparently a lot of call-screeners are willing to participate in telephone research.

The majority of respondents (57%) have cell phones. Of these 92% say it would be inappropriate for a telephone researcher to call them on their cell phones. (Which of course we never do.)

Twenty-seven percent (27%) of our respondents have unlisted telephone numbers. That's one reason random digit dialing is important in sampling.

Telephone sales calls outnumber research calls more than 7 to 1. On the average, people believe they get 567 telephone sales calls compared to only 78 telephone research calls annually. It would seem that if sales calls were limited, people would be more likely to answer their phones and participate in marketing research.

Why should I worry about weighting?

We understand that many data manipulation techniques that seem simple to market research professionals are not so easy for those who don’t spend their lives getting cozy with data. One such technique is weighting.

Weighting is the process by which data are adjusted to better reflect your target population. Weighting is a step during the data management process that provides a greater or lesser impact to individual respondents’ answers based on his/her particular demographic or psychographic categories. Instead of each survey participant counting as a single respondent, a person in an underrepresented group, like grandmothers who rap to Eminem, might count more (e.g., given a weight of two instead of one) than someone’s responses from an overrepresented group, like retirees in Sun City who love to talk on the phone (e.g., given a weight of .25 instead of one).

Why weight?

Weighting the data will counter effects of differential refusal rates, falling short on particular quotas, or to correct for any over-sampling of minority populations. We need to weight the sample if the responses show that a particular group, for example, younger people or those living in a particular area, are underrepresented in the sample. If this is not carried out, then the results may not properly reflect the views of the entire population being considered. It serves the purpose of providing data that look like the population it represents.

Benefits of Weighting The benefits of weighting are primarily driven by financial considerations. Weighting allows you to reflect your population exactly, without the expense of meeting strict quotas. This is important because some groups that are difficult to reach, such as males under the age of 25, can cause data collection costs to soar.

Drawbacks of Weighting

Any time you weight data, you are penalized in terms of statistical accuracy. A sub-group that is given more weight appears to be larger and more statistically reliable than it actually is. Another drawback is the unknown. The reason for the underrepresentation of a subgroup given more weight could skew results for that group. For example, young males tend to be underrepresented in strictly random samples because they are harder to reach by telephone. If they are hard to reach due to something that makes them different (i.e., high reliance on cell phones), those who do respond may be very different from those who do not.

Recommendation

Weighting is a great solution to keeping research costs reasonable. We recommend weighting when the cost of quota control is too high. Clients and their research partners should always make the weighting decision together, fully discussing the advantages and disadvantages.