INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES – FOCUS ON QUANTITATIVE

Pintér Róbert

Corvinus Egyetem, Department of Information and Comm.

Ipsos Interactive Services, Client Service Director

06 November 2012

ONLINE RESEARCH – TOPICS FOR TODAY

Introduction: research of online phenomena and online research methodologies

Online quantitative research in details

INTRODUCTION (REMINDER): WHAT IS INTERNET (OR ONLINE) RESEARCH?

INTRO

How does internet change internet research?

1. Internet changes the business environment, it plays more and more important role in clients’ life, hence it becomes in itself a research topic.

2. But research methodologies also change, internet becomes a research tool (or more exactly: many tools) I AM GOING TO SPEAK ABOUT THIS

AN IMPORTANT COMMENT BEFORE WE START

Starting and ending point of quantitative research methods is representativity (probability sample)

But how could an online research be representative?

In online quantitative research studies quota method substitutes representativity (and guarantees trusted and and valid results)

TYPES OF ONLINE RESEARCH METHODS

Questionnaire based (quantitative) THIS IS TOPIC FOR TODAY

Online qualitative: asking questions (active methods) or observation (passive merhods)

Software based measurement, data collection (e.g. internet audience measurement) I WON’T SPEAK ABOUT THIS

ONLINE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

ONLINE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH IS THE MOST WIDSPREAD METHOD IN THE WORLD

ESOMAR Industry Report, 2012: 16

TYPES OF ONLINE QUANT RESEARCH

Banner based or so called open research

Client based address list

(Access) panel based research – most common

BANNER BASED (OR SO CALLED OPEN) RESEARCH

Research questionnaire is accessible via a banner on a page (hence its name), an e-mail link or link shared in social media

This link is not unique: anyone can access to it and may fill it even more than once but researcher can’t send reminders to respondents

Easily implementable and cost effective But we can’t really control the size of sample or

structure of it (long field timing) We don’t know who are represented by sample It may be a good choice: surveying visitors of a

website, involving readers of a newsletter, background research for a thesis

CLIENT LIST BASED RESEARCH METHOD

Only members of a certain list can participate in this type of invitation only survey

It assumes that there is a list of target group from legal source that may be used for research purposes (rare)

Research links are unique, hence fieldwork status may be monitored and targeted reminders can be sent

Hence response rate is better (compared to banner based research) and timing is shorter

However the size of list is the theoretical maximum of sample size as well (which can’t be extended easily)

PANEL BASED RESEARCH The most common (thanks to the limits of other

methods) Predictable and trusted design Beforre invitation to a research questionnaire

respondents register to a research panel In this registration process they fill the registration form

that can be used for targeted invitation later Panel members accept that they receive research

invitations in the future and also accept both the panel and data protection rules

Why to register: incentive, curiosity, to be heard, access to results

However panel members see more research questionnaires than traditional face to face respondents

TYPES OF RESEARCH PANELS

Access panel vs client panel

General vs special panel

Research panel vs research community

A rare approach: probability panel

MERITS AND DEMERITS OF ONLINE QUANT RESEARCH

Cost effective Fast and flexible Possibility of more complex questionnaire

structure Lack of interviewee Relation of target group, research topic and

internet

WHEN WE MAY CARRRY OUT AN ONLINE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH?

Target group is available on internet Target group is both available in panel and

capacity of panel (or list) is enough to reach the requested sample size

No need for a sample which representative for the entire (online and offline) national population

Research topic and internet use has no significant connection

Research questionnaire is not longer than 20-30 minutes.

DIY: ”DO IT YOURSELF” RESEARCH

Availabe research method for laymen For a good online research you don’t only need

infrastructure (e.g. questionnaire software) but professional knowledge and experience

Procedures by professionals:1. Preparing questionnaire2. Data collection (right sample is the key)3. Data analysis

Who are represented in the database? What is the purpose of the research (e.g. preparing

thesis OR important decision making of a company)?

SUMMARY

Internet has changed the research methodologies

Nowadays online research is the most widespread research method in the world

Among online research methods access panel based research is the most common

But we can’t use online research methods at any time

For you as students DIY research can be the most useful

QUESTIONS

What do you think what is the impact of diffusion of smartphones on online research?

Does Facebook change the applicability of recent market research methodologies?

What do you think how we could reach the youngsters (15-24 years old) with traditional panel based online research?

Why to ask people with questionnaires if we can observe the same respondents in social media?

FURTHER READING

Ray Poynter (2010): The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research. John Wiley and Sons.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

Robert Pinter

Corvinus University

Department of Information and Communication

Ipsos Interactive Services

Client Service Director

robert.pinter@uni-corvinus.hu

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