This is part one of a two-part blog post regarding longitudinal-based qualitative research exercises. Here at Itracks, we have been seeing an increasing number of clients utilizing the new Bulletin Board (BBFG4) platform to run longitudinal-based qualitative research. The new software is an ideal place to run this style of project. There isn’t a typical time period that we recommend for longitudinal-based studies, because it can vary from a few weeks up to 12 months. The timeframe is all dependent on your research objectives. Upon request, you can even run it longer than 12 months. Itracks has introduced longitudinal pricing with the BBFG4 release, which makes it very affordable to run long-term projects.
One of our best practices that we recommend on a longitudinal-based project is to ensure that you are paying out an incentive every month, and in a timely fashion, in order to reduce some of the natural attrition that will occur. It is important to plan for this so you or your customers are not surprised when you jump into another phase of recruitment. Over 12 months, you may want to refresh your group two times and plan for recruiting about 1/4 of your total number with new and fresh participants.
In a longitudinal qualitative exercise, engagement is key and should be tied closely to your research objectives. Spend some time planning your engagement activities and how they will help you achieve your research objectives. As a moderator, you should plan to have at a minimum, one participant engagement exercise per week for the duration of the project. Here at Itracks, we recommend at least two engagement activities per week. Try and keep each activity under 15 minutes. Examples of engagement activities include email broadcasts, surveys, drag-n-drop exercises, video dial testing exercises, topics and questions, video or picture-based homework exercises, the profile module, and many more. In fact, join me for a webinar on March 31st, where I will actually demonstrate some of these engagement techniques inside of our BBFG4 platform. Information for webinar registration can be found at http://www.moderatorcommunity.com.
Keep the engagement fun. Respondents like participating in interactive exercises like iMarkIt and drag-n-drop activities, which are integrated into the whiteboard in the BBFG platform. You can obtain visual representations of the finished exercises that you can use in your reports. Other engagement activities which stimulate participation include the profile feature. Encourage your participants to upload Avatars and a little information about themselves, giving your respondents a little taste of some Facebook-like experiences.
You have the option of making profile fields required so that they must be completed before respondents can participate. In the profile, they can share anything that you would like them to. This section is completely customizable by the moderator; no Itracks’ support is needed for anything profile related in BBFG4. In fact, part way through your exercise, you can add to the profile sections and have your participants be required to make additional updates.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Blog posting, coming soon!
Joel Schmaltz
Director, Operations
Itracks