This paper approaches designing of questionnaires for the personal interview from the point of view of attempting to illustrate ways in which the questionnaire designer can make the interviewer's task less difficult. It starts off by explaining why there is an apparent incompatibility between the requirements of the questionnaire designer and those of the interviewer, in particular the fact that complex and sophisticated marketing models have necessitated the use of long and complicated questionnaires. The paper then goes on to suggest ways in which the interviewer can be helped, covering 4 specific aspects of questionnaire: design; length; complexity; layout and wording. Finally 4 Golden Rules for questionnaire designers are presented.
This paper is concerned with the quality of the data derived from the personal interview. The possible sources of error at each stage of the interview are examined. Error arising from the selection of respondents by the interviewer, and from faulty questionnaire construction are also included. Relevant research findings are discussed. Suggestions are made as to how error in the personal interview can be minimised. Finally a plea is made for more attention to be paid to the raising of fieldwork standards.
This paper sets out to describe ways in which the standard market research techniques of personal interview and self-completion questionnaire (both postal and personally distributed) can provide valuable data for operational and marketing management in all sectors of the accommodation industry. By the discussion of three case studies, the paper illustrates how the methods described can determine product and marketing strategies by indicating such aspects as operational shortcomings, factors accounting for success, manpower requirements, market segmentation, competitive strengths and weaknesses.
The purpose of the work upon which this paper is based was to examine the implications, for the immediate purposes of current media planning in the United Kingdom, of an important experiment reported to the ESOMAR-WAPOR Congress 1967. We owe a particular debt of gratitude to John Parfitt and to Attwood Statistics Limited, who prepared for us a special punch card pack based upon their original data. Without their interest and collaboration it would not have been possible to continue this investigation.
The results of this study offer small comfort to companies who rely upon campus interviewers as a primary recruiting medium. By and large, they are not reaching the students in a meaningful way. There is a signal lack of communication between companies and students, when the campus interviewer is the medium of communication. The study also pinpoints the weak links in this chain of communications and makes it possible to repair them. By using the techniques of product market research, it is possible to learn what the consumer wants; to tailor the product to his needs; and to communicate more effectively with the consumer.
Over the past decade or so, managements of American corporations have been making increased use of survey research to guide decisions in the building of company reputations that will facilitate the achievement of specific corporate objectives. This paper draws upon the experience accumulated by Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey, in numerous corporate image research studies carried out over the last ten years, involving more than 145.000 personal interviews and the collection of data on over 200 companies and organisations.
This paper reports some of the findings of an experimental study which Attwood Consumer Panel housewives in Great-Britain were interviewed (anonymously) on their purchasing behaviour in 12 consumer product fields being measured in the Panel diaries. The object was to see how accurately they were able to recall their purchasing behaviour, by comparing their claims with the diary returns recorded by the same housewives. In order to meet the possibility that Panel housewives would be better able than housewives in general to recall their purchasing behaviour a matched sample of non-Panel housewives was also interviewed, using the same questionnaire. The findings are based on a total of 999 Panel housewives and 999 matched nonPanel housewives, demographically balanced to the total housewife population. The findings show that, on average, there is considerable exaggeration of purchasing claims and that this exaggeration is greater in the matched sample than in the interviewed Panel housewife sample.
This study is of very much wider interest than the title might suggest. Although the study was in fact a critical investigation of the methods currently used in the National Readership Survey conducted in the United Kingdom by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, it also represents one of the most important and insensitive investigations ever undertaken into the structured personal interview, the basic technique of most market research.