 Methods Matter: Interviewing and beyond
The Royal Society, London
25 November 2008
What is the Forum?
The International Journal of Market Research (IJMR), published for MRS by WARC, is celebrating its 50th
anniversary as the leading international journal for research practitioners and academics with an interest in
this field.
As part of this celebration MRS launched the IJMR Research Methods Forum, the first UK event to focus on
the methodological challenges facing the research sector.
This first Forum focused on innovation in methodological developments.
Why is it needed?
The research sector has shown remarkable growth over the past fifty years. Essential to this growth has been
the continuing ability to respond creatively to the changing needs of clients. In doing so, researchers have
demonstrated their capability to successfully address new challenges, adapt to changing conditions, evolve
methodologies and introduce new practices.
Market research techniques have also been successfully applied to an increasing range of issues across all
sectors of the economy. However, despite the vital importance of methodology to research, there is currently
no single event in the UK that focuses on the methodological challenges faced by the sector and provides a
forum for debating the issues and discussing solutions.
Some of the challenges currently faced relate to traditional research practices, such as sampling, interview
methods and respondent co-operation. Other challenges relate to new sources of information about
consumers or citizens and their behaviour that do not depend on traditional sampling and interview
methods to collect the data.
Programme
Morning Session: Challenges Facing Traditional Research: Developing Solutions
Chairman’s Introduction - Peter Mouncey, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Market Research
Keynote Speaker - Professor Paul Wiles, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Home Office and Director of Research, Development and
Statistics
International/Mixed Mode Research - Sir Roger Jowell, Research Professor at City University London and Founder Director of its Centre for
Comparative Social Surveys, Gillian Eva, Researcher, City University London
- Challenges faced in conducting mixed mode international surveys
- Examples of experimental research undertaken to develop solutions in major projects
Survey Design - Bill Blyth, Research Director, TNS Europe
- Challenges researchers increasingly face in interviewing representative samples
- Possible solutions to this dilemma
Sociologist View - Professor Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester and Director of the ESRC Centre for
Research on Socio-cultural Change
- Why the days of the sample based survey might be numbered
Databases and Market Research - Martin Hayward, Director of Strategy & Futures, dunnhumby
- The power of the customer database as a source of customer knowledge
- Why there is still an important role left for traditional market research
Panel discussion
Afternoon Session:
Everything but an Interview?
Media Research - Richard Windle, Managing Director, Ipsos MediaCT, Ipsos MORI
- Media measurement: can technology replace interviews?
Qualitative Perspective - Gill Ereaut, Principal, Linguistic Landscapes and Rachel Lawes, Principal, Lawes Consulting
- Spontaneously occurring data: researching what consumers are doing, not what researchers ask them to do
Panel discussion
Netnography - Anjali Puri, Director Product Development & Management, The Nielsen Company
- Webnography: its evolution and implications for market research
Ethics - Dr Agnes Nairn, Affiliate Professor of Marketing, EM-Lyon Business School
- Ethical issues facing researchers in the virtual world
Panel discussion
Forum Blog
WARC reports from the IJMR Research Methods Forum. |
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