IJMR Research Methods Forum 2010:

Fit for Purpose

The Royal Society, London
2 November 2010

The Forum returned for a third year to highlight the methodological challenges facing the research sector.

• Programme

• Speakers

This year’s theme, Fit for Purpose, reflected recent warnings that research suppliers will increasingly need to defend their methods against the incursion of low cost, technology-based providers and demonstrate why their recommended research design adds real value to the client’s business.

The aim of the day was to go back to basics and re-assess the fundamentals of designing effective research projects in today’s world, where time is often of the essence and there are significant pressures on costs. With traditional suppliers facing a wider range of competitors and the internet rapidly becoming a major force in data collection, sampling frames are disappearing. The 2010 IJMR Research Methods Forum explored how all of this might be challenging previously accepted ‘best practice’, its impact on the future direction of methodology and whether the principles of good research design, as laid out by methodological gurus such as Moser & Kalton, are under real threat.

In particular, the Forum discussed issues such as:

The buyer and supplier perspective on ‘quality’ in research and whether the role and influence of the research expert declining.
Whether representativeness is an important consideration in research design and the challenges facing sample design, design effects, response rates and extrapolating population level estimates from sample based data.
How the need to integrate data from multiple sources in project design can be addressed.
How the sector should address concerns about research design

Presentations

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