March 26, 2012
Helping ESOMAR Update Its 26 Questions
By Efrain Ribeiro, Chief Operating Officer
Over the past couple of months, I’ve had the pleasure of being part of a team working to update the ESOMAR 26 Questions to Help Research Buyers of Online Sample. This list of
questions, which ESOMAR first made available in 2005, helps research buyers to become familiar with the issues and variables relating to online sample and to understand the specifics of each provider’s approach. They provide a standard set of questions for market researchers/buyers of online sample to determine whether an online sample provider’s practices and resulting sourced respondents comply with their research objectives.
Acknowledging the rapid and dramatic change taking place in our industry in recent years, ESOMAR is taking proactive steps to help research buyers keep up in this rapidly evolving environment. Several of the 26 questions, which were reflective of how sample was collected a half dozen years ago solely via online panels, are now out of date. One reason is that providers are turning increasingly to alternative sourcing methods, specifically the use of routers and other dynamic sourcing methods utilizing social media to reach niche audiences.
This trend is important because it can have significant implications on data quality. This has been a focus of my recently, and I am encouraged that the industry is taking a serious look into the sourcing and routing of online respondents through the ARF Routing Committee. In fact, I have found it to be a pleasure to work on both the ESOMAR and ARF teams, whose members have in-depth online experience and most have been part of online data quality initiatives from yesteryears. We’ve all dealt with many of the same issues and pressures since the inception of online panel market research in 1996.
I am quite heartened by the spirit of cooperation and receptiveness to each other’s ideas this group has demonstrated. I believe it will produce a useful list of questions.
Read more from Efrain in his Lightspeed Ahead Newsletter article .
Category:Data Quality, Future of Online Research, Panel Quality
Posted on March 26, 2012
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