Using social stories in questionnaires

RESEARCH IMPROVEMENTS - Research is a profession that should be carried out by experts. The biggest threat to quick and cost-efficient research is that the quality is almost always suffering. easy2survey wants research to remain good. Even when it is quick and against low cost. For this reason, we regularly share examples of mistakes and best practises in the market. We share our thoughts and possible solutions to improve research. By following these tips, we can make research better. This time the honour belonged to Research Expert Lobke Kuijs.

After finishing my degree in communication science last year, I was happy that I could start working as a research expert. During those months I learned a lot about setting up and programming questionnaires, reliable questionnaire techniques that are also fun for respondents and much more.

In order to see what kind of research other market research agencies are doing, I fill in their surveys about two to three times a week. A lot of these surveys are about commercials, especially for television or radio. But with the rise of “new” media types, other types of commercials are made such as pre-rolls for on YouTube, Facebook, TikTokRush or Instagram Stories.

Most of the time it says in the explanation what kind of commercial the questions are about, for example “You just saw a television commercial.” But wouldn’t it be more useful for a respondent to see these commercials in environments where they are normally showed?

Luckily this is something that is becoming more and more frequent in (online market) research. Take this example – in the questionnaire a phone is shown in which a reel of several Instagram Stories commercials are shown. Because those commercials are shown in an environment that is similar to the original situation, this is more helpful for the respondent to remember if they have seen the advert, which contributes to the reliability of the answers. This phone is a good example of a good setting for Instagram Stories, but it can also be as simple as showing television commercials within a television screen or pre-rolls on a Youtube page.

So, if you are reading this and thinking: “Hey, I’m not using this yet!”, then make sure that it will be implemented in all the next projects that you and your colleagues will carry out. Because this creates a much more realistic setting, which will therefore not only engage respondents more, but will also acquire more reliable answers.