I saw the oddest question in a survey the other day. The question itself wasn’t that odd, but the options for responses were very strange to me. 1 - Not at all Satisfied 2 - Not at all Satisfied 3 - Not at all Satisfied 4 - Not at all Satisfied 5 - Not at all Satisfied 6 - Not at all Satisfied 7 - Somewhat Satisfied 8 - Somewhat Satisfied 9 - Highly [...]

A tale of three types of cheating. If you are going to fudge the numbers, you’d better be very clever. Last December’s Annual Year in Ideas issue of the New York Times magazine included an idea titled “Forensic Polling Analysis” describing how Nate Silver analyzed results published by a polling firm called Strategic Vision. Silver decided to take a look at the results because Strategic Vision had been censured by the American Association for Public Opinion [...]

I came across a published report recently that made me wonder why people persist in reporting that there is a causal relationship when the data doesn’t justify the assertion. Actually, the reasons aren’t all that hard to figure out. Usually, it’s because the relationship seems obvious, and sometimes it is when the person writing the report has a bias they wish to share.But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s start with a couple of definitions: A [...]

[...]

Proctor and Gamble UK has been forced to pull a TV ad due to misleading claims based on a poorly designed survey.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority felt that the survey results were too likely to biased by the invitation process, which included providing free samples of Clairol Nice 'n' Easy (the advertised product) prior to the survey and a entry in a drawing for a photo shoot in New York. The ASA also felt that surveys might have been completed by [...]

[...]

A survey should aim to be like a conversation.  Online surveys don’t have humans involved to listen to how someone feels about the survey, to reword for clarity or to encourage, so you have to work harder to generate comfort.  Although you don’t want to take too long (the number one complaint of survey takers is time), it is still better to work up to the key questions gradually if possible.  Even though it might be the burning issue for you, you risk turning someone off if [...]

This is a follow up to classes I taught recently that included a short section on pricing research methodologies. I promised some more details on the Van Westendorp approach, in part because information available online may be confusing, or worse. This article is intended to be a practitioner’s guide for those conducting their own research. First, a refresher. Van Westendorp’s Price Sensitivity Meter is one of a number of direct techniques to research pricing. Direct [...]

As a tea-drinking Brit I was fascinated by a study about tea drinking in Northern Iran concluding that drinking very hot tea is strongly associated with higher risk of oesophageal cancer. Digging in further, I was struck by a number of points: The article I first noticed, by Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times, was very clearly written and didn’t mangle the facts or interpretations. Such clarity is unusual and deserves a commendation. [...]