The right question flow

Research is a profession that should be carried out by experts. The biggest threat to quick and cost-efficient research is that the quality is almost always suffering. DVJ wants research to remain good. Even when it is quick and against low cost. For this reason, we regularly share examples of mistakes and best practises in the market. We share our thoughts and possible solutions to improve research. By following these tips, we can make research better. This time the honour belonged to Research Expert Iris Kempers.

How to measure and analyse the wonderful and complicated world of human behaviour, is a question which fascinates me. The complexity of capturing human behaviour in a valid way is what it makes interesting. As a researcher you do not want socially desired answers or answers that do not reflect the true situation of the respondent. You want to be able to draw conclusions from the data. In order to develop a valid research approach, engagement of respondents is key. A happy, fully engaged respondent, who can fill in his/her opinion/situation easily, provides us the valid answers we need.

Being active in market research, means that it is important to fill in questionnaires regularly. While filling in one of those questionnaires, I came across a discouraging example. This example is about kiwis. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of kiwis. So, when asked which products I bought recently, I did not select the kiwis. And then this question followed: Which kiwi brands did you buy in the past seven days?

Which kiwi brands did you buy in the past seven days? Select everything that applies to you. *Choose at least one of the following answers:

Zespri, Sikig, New Exfrut

I’m positive I did not buy any kiwis last week. However, I could not continue the survey without choosing a brand. This incorrect follow-up question really frustrated me, as I had to fill in an untrue answer. The consequence of this mistake in research set-up is that respondents get annoyed. They are forced to answer the question in a way that is not true. This decreases the validity of this particular question. Moreover, the engagement of respondents in total probably decreases as well. They don’t bother selecting the correct answer anymore or even quit the survey. As a result, the research collects data that does not reflect the actual situation.

Such mistakes can easily be prevented, and they should be. My advice is to always check the question flow when choosing several answers. Every route of answers has to make sense before starting the fieldwork. In that way, valid research presents itself and makes me a happy researcher again.