Would you be concerned if surveys overstated your organization’s brand awareness by 50%? Or your slogan awareness by 33%?
In the research you conduct online, do you ever ask respondents fact-based questions such as:
- Which automotive company manufactures the Maxima?
- Who are the Republican and Democrat candidates for governor?
- What company uses the slogan “Imagination at work”?
- Which political party currently has the most members in the U.S. Senate?
Fact-based questions are relatively common in quantitative surveys. These questions have a correct answer; they are not based on a respondent’s individual opinions or behaviors. With an online survey, it’s very easy for a respondent to ask another person in the room, grab a nearby reference book, or move to another window on their computer and do a quick online search for the right answer. It takes about ten seconds to type “Maxima” into the Yahoo! search box and find that on the first question above, the correct answer is Nissan. How many survey respondents actually do this because they don’t want to feel or appear ignorant?
Simply put, are the results you get from fact-based questions in online surveys accurate?
Using a national study with thousands of respondents, Ellison Research developed an algorithm to help identify respondents who were likely using an outside resource to help them answer fact-based questions. Read what we found in our new report.
