Thursday, June 11, 2009

Multiple online consumer panel membership "doesn't affect quality"

A comprehensive research study by the Online Research Quality Council (ORQC) of the ARF concluded that respondents who are members of multiple panels are not necessarily a threat to data quality. Read more here Research-live.

"Findings of the study into duplication and overlap of online panel members concluded that multiple membership only has an impact on data quality when members take part in the same survey more than once. Duplication rates when combining two panels – a realistic scenario for a survey – ranged from 2% to 19%, with the average “well below 10%”, the study said. However, for surveys taking place in localized markets the rate could be significantly higher.

Further research will look at survey response quality, inter-study comparability and benchmarking. The full industry report, incorporating all the papers, will be published later this year. Committees of the ORQC focusing on industry solutions and metrics will review the results on overlap and duplication in panels to come up with principles, recommendations and guidelines for the industry, the foundation said."