On my side of the fence (beautiful)

13Jul09

Another question from the discussion.

Q3: Is consumer attitude shifting in regard to research participation?

A: Chinese whispers from quant-land suggest that long, boring surveys are failing to engage respondents. This isn’t new, but there’s more research on research now, and thus we’re hearing more about it.

I’ve no doubt that poorly designed surveys would spark a shift in terms of how many people are willing to give their time to participate in research, and the price they set for their contribution.

Things are a bit different on my side of the research fence; ie qualitative.

In this context, buzz words such as ‘collaboration’ and ‘co-creation’ are being thrown around as the new terms of research participant engagement; these concepts underpin the fundamental premise of online market research communities.

But actually, collaboration and co-creation aren’t new concepts in qualitative research. In fact they constitute the very essence of most qualitative research – on or offline.

It’s always been a dialogue between researcher and respondent/participant. We ask questions and they collaborate in answering. Or they ask questions and we listen and ask questions about the questions…etc. We show them stimulus and they co-create a vision.

Beautiful.