VIP Research and Evaluation is qualified and equipped to take on Survey Research projects of all sizes and levels of complexity. All survey instruments are custom-designed and developed in-house by our experts for utilization online, over the telephone, or via self-administration (paper).
When a research project involves telephone surveys, our firm relies on select telephone centers that have proven to employ highly skilled and competently-trained telephone interviewers. All telephone sampling includes landline and cell phone numbers and are set to corresponding proportions of the population.
» Sampling Design
Sampling design is one of the most important factors of any research project. Whether a study calls for a representative subset of the population, a convenience sample, or pulling from a customer list, VIP staff members are adept at determining sample targets and sizes for both telephone and online surveys to accommodate any subgroup/subpopulation. Years of professional research practice and testing has allowed us to refine the sampling process and set ourselves apart from other firms.
Our unique process ensures a sampling design that will lead to accurate, reliable results that can be extrapolated to the population. This sampling process adheres to the highest of industry standards. For example, for many regional studies we employ the same methods and protocol used by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in their state and federal research studies.
Our techniques permit us to confidently generalize findings to the corresponding populations while guarding against limitations such as measurement error and other process-related concerns.
» Data Weighting
Research is typically conducted to solve problems and/or to understand the opinions, behaviors, and perceptions of a particular group of people (county residents, consumers, parents, etc.) Without the ability to approach every individual in the population, researchers aim to collect responses from a representative sample of the population. Further, certain individuals are more likely to participate in research than others. For example, in surveys conducted via telephone, women are more likely than men to answer the phone, and therefore more likely to participate if the interviewer is only looking for responses from the first person willing to participate.
To remove as much bias as possible, and to allow research findings to be generalized from the sample to the population from which it was drawn, VIP Research and Evaluation employs both design weighting and raking, otherwise known as iterative disproportional fitting.
In telephone surveys, design weights help address bias that results from both (1) individuals having unequal probabilities of being selected, and (2) noncoverage and nonresponse bias that exists in all segments of the population. Utilizing design weights can help to adjust for these differences.
We use raking, as opposed to post-stratification weights, in order to be able to generalize sample results to the population. The advantage of raking over post-stratification weights lies in the fact that the former allows for the introduction of many known population characteristics, or demographic variables, simultaneously. For example, variables such as telephone source, detailed race/ethnicity, education level, marital status, age by gender, gender by race/ethnicity, age by race/ethnicity, renter/owner status, and county region/section can used to weight the sample to ensure the data is more representative of the population of the county from which it was drawn.
VIP will work with you to determine the most appropriate methods, sampling, and analyses necessary to meet your project goals.