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Questionnaire Design, Survey Methods, and Sampling

Market IntelligenceJulie Edell Britton

Session 5September 4, 2009

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Today’s Agenda

Announcements

Comparative Advertising, Measurement Scales & Data Analysis

Introduction to Survey Research

Sampling Procedures

Causal Research - maybe

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Announcements

For Sat prepare Milan Food case – download data (Milan.sav) from the platform, please post your responses by 8 pm tonight – no slides needed.

For Sat prepare WSJ/ Harris Survey – no slides

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Comparative Advertising Measurement Scales & Data Analysis

Page 52 packet

What do you conclude?

Remember – Percentage change or difference can only be calculated with Ratio scales

This is an interval scale (at best).

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Descriptive Survey Research Surveys usually used for descriptive research

Provide a snapshot at a point in time Most analyses univariate or bivariate (but can do

elaboration model with control variables) Would you recommend National to a friend interested in

insurance services? Yes 1 No 2

Bivariate allows for hypothesis testing Hypothesis: Less educated people more likely to recommend

Descriptive, not causal Recommendation could be driven by some 3rd factor

correlated with education such as income

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Sources of Survey Errors Population definition Representativeness of the sample frame Sampling Procedure Used Respondent Participation:

Willing to participate (Do Not Call) Comprehend questions Have knowledge, opinions Willing & able to respond (language or memory)

Interviewer understands & records accurately

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Raising Willingness to Participate

A good response rate requires persuasion Survey Introduction

Phone or send letter in advance Introduce self, give affiliation unless this would

bias Describe purpose briefly, w/o making survey

sound threatening or demanding Make respondent feel that s/he is getting chance

to provide opinions that will influence market offerings & that her/his cooperation is extremely important

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Comprehends Questions? Advice on Question Wording

Be simple and precise Give clear instructions Check for question applicability

respondent screening question branching based on prior

answers

Avoid leading & double barrel questions

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What’s the Problem?

“Laws should be passed to eliminate the possibilities of special interests giving huge sums of money to candidates”

“Laws should be passed to prohibit interest groups from contributing to campaigns, as groups do not have the right to contribute to candidates they support?”

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Comprehends Questions? Literacy, translation considerations

Conversational Norms How demanding was Term 3? How demanding was

Core Finance?

How demanding was Core Finance? How demanding was Term 3?

How demanding was Managerial Accounting? How demanding was Core Finance? How demanding was Global Economic Environment of the Firm? How demanding was Term 3?

“Question order effects in measuring service quality,” by DeMoranville and Bienstock, in International Journal of Research in Marketing, September, 2003

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Do Respondents Have Knowledge?

Retrieve answer from memory vs. construct it on spot

Constructed answers are more likely to be influenced by question wording & prior questions.

When answering later questions or engaging in later behavior, likelihood of using earlier answer input A: positively related to accessibility of A

positively related to diagnosticity (relevance) of A

negatively related to accessibility, diagnosticity of alternative inputs B, C, etc. (Feldman & Lynch)

e.g., when political poll respondents asked: issue opinion A, presidential voting intention, issue opinion B,

answers to A predict intention, but only for those who did not vote for either candidate in primary

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Survey Best Practices: Survey Content, Question Order

Survey Questions First figure out what questions are needed! Then order Lead with interesting, nonthreatening, easy questions

Do you like to play golf? Have you ever travelled with your clubs? Can you remember the last time you traveled with your clubs?

Put difficult or sensitive questions well into the interview How many times did you have to see your doctor for your

reconstructive surgery? What is the size of your company (revenue)?

Usually use funnel order (general to specific) Use product category? Brand X? Do you like Brand X? Why?

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Question Order (Cont.)

Survey Questions (cont.) Inverted funnel (specific to general) for complex topics.

Is your company considering offering training courses on word processing over the Internet?

Database? Spreadsheets? In general, how big is the untapped market for your software

training courses if offered over the Internet?

Group questions in logical order All questions about one subject together, with transitional

phrases in between, “Now I’m going to ask you about agricultural applications of GPS systems...”

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Survey Best Practices: Question Order (cont.)

Demographics Questions Put last—these are less sensitive to prior questions Seem nosy if put first Rely on standard approaches for assessing

http://www.norc.org/GSS+Website/

The Process of Survey Design Use Backwards Marketing Research to decide what is

“need to know” Draft the survey Pretest for time, clarity, variability in responses Revise and retest Field the survey and keep an eye open for problems

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Survey Best Practices:Choosing a Survey Method

Mail, phone, web, in person? Cost Complexity of inquiries (branching) Need for aids Issue sensitivity Control over sample

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Web and Telephone

Web surveys now dominate. To compare web, in person, phone, mail, see http://knowledge-base.supersurvey.com/

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Free to Fuqua students: Qualtrics

http://www.qualtrics.com/duke#submit Set up an account Build surveys Allows for complex designs

Available to you during this course

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Multi-Attribute Attitude Model (MAAM)

Liking for a product as a whole = sum of liking for component parts

Attitude toward brand j = (sum from i = 1 to n for salient attributes)

Importance of Attributei * Evaluationij

Importance 0 – 100 (allocate 100 points across attributes) Rating on 1 (unimportant) to 7 (very important) where 0

undefined but implicitly entirely unimportant )

Evaluation of brand j on attribute I -4 = poor to +4 = excellent

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Land Rover RAV Land Rover RAV

Attribute

Importance 1=unimp, 7= important

Brand Evaluation -4 = poor, +4 =

excellent Imp*Eval Imp*EvalSporty Styling 6 1 2 6 12Handling 5 0 1 0 5Cost 2 -2 3 -4 6Ruggedness 4 4 2 16 8Off-Road Ability 2 2 4 4 8Total Attitude 22 39

MAAM and SUVs

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Diagnostics of Advantage

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Measure Types Revisited

Nominal (Unordered Categories) Just need unique number for each category

Ordinal: ranking scale, intervals not assumed equal

Interval: Intervals assumed equal, zero is arbitrary

Ratio: Intervals assumed equal, zero means zero To multiply X * Y, (e.g., importance * evaluation), both X and Y must

be on ratio scales. If X1*Y1 > X2*Y2 (XYbrand 1 >XYbrand 2), it does NOT follow that

(X1+a)*Y1 > (X1+a)*Y2…. e.g., 2*2 > 2*(-2), but (2-4)*2 < (2-4)*(-2) To say % change in Y, Y must be on ratio scales

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More on Scaling

To multiply importance x evaluation for each attribute, both must be on ratio scales

0 on scale must be 0 of underlying quantity

Importance unipolar (all positive). Completely unimportant = 0 weight

Evaluation bipolar (negative to positive). To multiply, must code “neutral” as zero.

24I got these by subtracting 4 from the values three slides back

Land Rover RAV Land Rover RAV

Attribute

Importance -3 =unimp, +3 = imp

Evaluation -4 = poor, +4 = excellent Imp*Eval Imp*Eval Diff

Sporty Styling 2 1 2 2 4 2Handling 1 0 1 0 1 1Cost -2 -2 3 4 -6 -10Ruggedness 0 4 2 0 0 0Off-Road Ability -2 2 4 -4 -8 -4Total Attitude 2 -9 -11

Improper Rescaling

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Consumer Attitudes We want to be able to predict consumer behavior

However, instead of examining behavior directly (e.g., choice modeling), we often measure attitudes because… Measuring attitudes is sometimes easier than observing

choice

Attitudes are more diagnostic

Attitudes are sometimes easier to interpret

Attitudes can be reasonable predictors of behavior

Attitudes toward products or brands typically derive from beliefs, actions, and perceptions

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Types of Attitude Scales Semantic differential Colgate Combo is:

low quality __:__:__:__:__:__:__ high quality

unappealing __:__:__:__:__:__:__ appealing

Constant sum (e.g., Importance)

Purchase intent

Likert scale (Agree-Disagree)

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Recap

Survey Design: responses constructed on the spot Moving parts of a good survey Population definition,

choosing a survey method, determining what information needed

Order of questions Attitude Measurement & multi-attribute attitude model To multiply or examine percentage differences, data

must be on ratio scales