Workshop 7: From Insights to Survey
Workshop 6 suggested Australian consumers would be responsive to product placement. Exclusive Inc now wants a survey for conclusive, representative insight into how best to implement the strategy — reflect on an expert's take on surveys, then recommend and defend a survey method, at your own pace.
Running the session?
Open the read-only dashboard — shows how many students have started and finished, no individual names or answers, safe for the projector.
Case brief
Exclusive Inc has engaged you to research whether product placement — its most effective US advertising strategy — will work in Australia. A first round of in-depth interviews (the two transcripts coded in Workshop 6) suggested Australian consumers would be responsive. The client now wants a survey to gain conclusive insight into how best to implement a product placement strategy, using a representative sample of their target market.
About this exercise
First, reflect on an expert's real-world take on surveys (from this week's conversation with HESTA's Marianne Pearce). Then step into the consultant role: recommend a survey method for Exclusive Inc, justify it, and think through the sources of survey error you'd need to guard against.
How marking works
- Your 6 written answers (3 reflections, factors considered, compare & contrast, error mitigation) are each graded out of 10 by AI once you've written enough for a fair assessment.
- Grading happens quietly in the background as you work — there's no submit button.
- Marks and feedback appear in the Results tab as soon as each answer is graded — no need to wait for anyone else.
Conversation with an MR expert — reflection
Before this activity: watch/read the conversation with Marianne Pearce, Member Experience Lead at HESTA, about how HESTA uses surveys to understand its members and brand (linked on Canvas). Then answer in your own words.
Recommend a survey method
The client wants conclusive insight from a representative sample. Use the reference table below, then pick and defend a survey method.
| Consideration | Face-to-face | Phone | Online / email | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Researcher needed | ✔ | ✔ | – | – |
| Complex, uninteresting topic | ✔ | – | – | – |
| Low respondent cooperation | ✔ | – | – | – |
| Data needs to be collected quickly | – | ✔ | – | ✔ |
| Long and complex questionnaire | ✔ | – | – | – |
| Lots of probing on responses required | ✔ | ✔ | – | – |
| Budget is limited | – | – | ✔ | ✔ |
| Difficulty accessing the population of interest | – | – | ✔ | ✔ |
| Representative sample needed | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | – |
Survey error analysis
Every survey is vulnerable to error. Select the error type(s) most relevant to this survey, then explain how you'd minimise them.
- Non-response error: low response rate, or respondents differ systematically from non-respondents — the final sample no longer represents the population.
- Response error: respondents give inaccurate data, through deliberate falsification or unconscious misrepresentation.
- Administrative error: mistakes in the research process itself — data-entry errors, improper sampling execution, or recording mistakes.