Jennie Pearson » Survey Research http://jenniepearson.com Measuring up Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:39:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Read my article in the PAPOR Newsletter http://jenniepearson.com/i-have-an-article-in-the-papor-newsletter/ http://jenniepearson.com/i-have-an-article-in-the-papor-newsletter/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:35:04 +0000 Jennie http://jenniepearson.com/?p=100 PAPOR is the Pacific chapter of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). I met the President of PAPOR at the Annual AAPOR Conference and she asked me if I would write an article for the next newsletter for their “New Member Spotlight”. It came out a while ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting it up here for all my lovely readers (Hi Mom!).

2009 PAPOR Summer Newsletter
(Apologies for the PDF)

All it is is an introduction to yours truly and a brief foray into my favorite survey research topic, mobile web survey design.
If you don’t want to open the PDF (and I don’t blame you) here’s the bulk of what I had to say on the topic:

While some of the complications that make surveys so challenging are almost always present, we are now facing issues that were largely unimaginable just a few years ago. The increase in cell-only and cell-mostly households has lead many to question the validity of telephone surveys. The legal, ethical, sampling and measurement issues are all cause for concern but mobile phones present another challenge for survey research in that they are now being used, with great frequency, to access the web.

One concern with this is that the small size of the screen can cause a web survey to appear very differently than on a desktop. This is problematic because research has shown that the visual presentation of the survey may influence the respondent’s choices. The burden on the respondent may also increase because the user experience on a mobile is very different than a desktop or laptop. For example, where a mouse can easily select small radio buttons, they can be much harder to select with a finger on a 3×5″ touch screen. Grids can be even more problematic on a mobile device. Next time you have some time to kill, I implore you to try responding to a web survey with your smart-phone. Does this mean we should have different versions of a web survey specifically for the mobile? Should we restrict web survey access to desktop or laptop computers? What is the likelihood of responding to a web survey via a mobile device and is it likely to increase? These are just some of the questions in need of research.

]]> http://jenniepearson.com/i-have-an-article-in-the-papor-newsletter/feed/ 1 Elections and Exit Polling http://jenniepearson.com/elections-and-exit-polling/ http://jenniepearson.com/elections-and-exit-polling/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:30:51 +0000 Jennie http://jenniepearson.com/?p=44 There’s a new book by Wiley that was just published about elections and political polling.
It’s sort of an homage to the late Warren Mitofsky, otherwise known as the father of exit polling and inventor of random digit dialing (with Joe Waksberg).
In other words, in the world of survey research, he’s as close to a god as we’ve got.

I’m very grateful for having had the good fortune to meet Warren once.  He was a great innovator and an unabashed critic when it came to political surveys and methodology.

So this new book by Fritz J. Scheuren and Wendy Alvey brings together a collection of work by leaders in our field.

PS. Be sure to check out Appendix 7.4.2!! It’s a good one!

election-and-exit-polling-cover.jpg

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