Previously we talked about the earliest stages of a research project, from planning and preparing to designing and implementing. Now with your data collected, it’s time to move on to the final stages: Analyze and Act.
Check the Response Quality
If your research was quantitative (a survey, etc.) then you want to make sure the data has been reviewed – both early in the fielding process, to identify any survey issues, and in the analysis stages. In particular, you will want to review and remove any obvious bot activity and check for any other indications that collected responses may include signs of low data quality, or other indicators that some of the responses may not be valid for your analysis. We’re likely to talk about some of these considerations in a future post.
Let the Analysis Fit the Data Type
If your study was highly qualitative (such as a series of interviews), your analysis effort is going to involve reviewing the interview content and parsing out themes to provide directional insight.
For a survey or other quantitative study, you’re going to want to start with the total responses. Keep an eye on the sample size when looking at your results: if only a few people answered a given question, you probably want to treat that as more qualitative and directional. (If one person makes up several % of the total, just a few responses could completely skew your results, so you probably don’t want to show responses on a percentage basis in that case.)
If you’re making segmented comparisons, you also want to make sure you have enough responses in each category to ensure those comparisons are valid and statistically relevant.
Visualize Your Data
Very often, the process of adding visualizations to your data will help you pull out the key findings. Whether using Word Clouds or Charts, this process may also make it easier for others in your organization to digest the information.
Review the results question by question as well as holistically, to see if there are overarching themes to the findings, that help address your organization’s overarching questions.
Then, armed with the resulting insights, determine what next steps to take against your initial goals – and what future research you’ll want to incorporate into those plans.
Coming Up: User Input to Prepare for Budget Season
Next time, we’ll explore ways that research can help you inform your budgeting cycle. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss an issue. Do you have a question about market research, or the stages of a research project? Post a comment below, and it may make its way into a future post.
Do you have a question you hope to answer with market research? Contact our team at Coax Insights. We’d be happy to help.