This document provides an introduction to qualitative online research methodologies, focusing on online focus groups, research forums/blogs, online communities (MROCs), and netnography. It discusses how each method works, including recruitment, moderation, and analysis. Online focus groups involve moderated discussions among recruited participants. Research forums/blogs involve participants posting on discussion topics. MROCs allow both moderated discussions and other interactive activities among community members. Netnography involves passive observation and analysis of user-generated content online. The document emphasizes that online methods provide new opportunities for research but also have limitations compared to traditional offline methods.
Introduction to online qualitative research methods
1. INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES –
FOCUS ON QUALITATIVE
Robert Pinter
Corvinus University, Department of Information and Comm.
Ipsos Interactive Services, Client Service Director
02 October 2012, Budapest Business School
2. ONLINE RESEARCH – TOPICS FOR TODAY
Introduction: research of online phenomena and
online research methodologies
Qualitative online research
Online focus groups
Research forums / blogs
Research with online communities (MROC)
Netnography – social media research, social listening
(Never)ending: future of online research
4. INTRO
How does internet change internet research?
1. Internet changes the business environment, it
plays more and more important role in clients’
life, hence it becomes in itself a research topic.
2. But research methodologies also change, internet
becomes a research tool (or more exactly: many
tools) I AM GOING TO SPEAK ABOUT THIS
5. TYPES OF ONLINE RESEARCH METHODS
Online qualitative: asking questions (active
methods) or observation (passive merhods)
Questionnaire based (quantitative)
Software based measurement, data collection (e.g.
internet audience measurement)
I WON’T SPEAK ABOUT THESE
7. MAIN ONLINE QUAL METHODS
Possible classifications:
synchronous or asynchronous
active or passive
Methods
Online focus group / in-depth interview (active,
synchronous)
Online research forums / blogs (active, asynchronous)
Market research online communities (both active or
passive / both synchronous or asynchronous
Netnography (passive, asynchronous)
Let’s have a look first on online focus groups!
9. WHY/WHEN TO DO ONLINE FOCUS GROUP
INTERVIEWS (FGI): BENEFITS OF ONLINE FGI
Benefit What does it mean?
Less time Effective recruitment, shorter field time, full script
of FGI from software right at closing interview
Less cost Recruitment is less costly and project
management as well
One way mirror Online FGI can apply a virtual one way mirror,
clients may watch discussion (but not interact)
Honesty and safety Participants can’t see each other, making good
impressions is less seducing, they feel the
situation more comfortable and secure
Valuable results Participants are more open to sensitive topics,
they think over reactions
9
Hard to reach respondents Easier to involve hard to reach respondents, no
geographical limits, less time consuming for
participants
10. POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR FGIS
Evaluation of an existing
web service (appearance,
content, functions,
possible future plans);
Evaluation of marketing
and promotional materials
at their different stages of
production;
Investigation of already
existing or new products of
a market;
Sensitive or highly
personal topics: erotics,
drugs, healthcare, religion,
moral issues, stereotypes,
etc.
10
11. STAGES OF A FGI PROJECT 1: PREPARATION
Interaction with end client, preparing of brief (aim of
research, definition of target group, deadlines, costs
etc.)
Schedule of research project (milestones, key
persons, deadlines)
FGI interview guideline (draft and final versions)
Pilot site for project, testing the environment (login)
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12. STAGES OF A FGI PROJECT 2: RECRUITMENT
Refinement of definition of research target group
Preparation of recruitment materials
Recruitment via phone and / or e-mail / and or / f2f
Over sampling the target group (based on past
experiences)
12
13. STAGES OF A FGI PROJECT 3: FIELDWORK
Invitation materials sent to respondents
Respondents login to the live research environment
Warm-up: few introductory questions
Questions / tasks from approved guideline
Discussion by participant lead by moderator
Possible further questions from end clients (via
moderator only)
13
14. STAGES OF A FGI PROJECT: RESULTS
Transcript of full FGI by software (automatically
ready at closing of interview)
Quantitative & qualitative analysis of responses
Preparation of research results (mainly
presentation)
14
15. LET’S SEE IT IN ACTION!
Screenshots from an online FGI
software in action:
• login
• discussion
• using pictures
• virtual room for clients
• instructions at click
•clients interaction (to each other
and to moderator)
• pop-up messaging to all
15
24. OUTPUT: LOG FILE
24
System prepares
automatically logs
of all window
25. ONLINE FGI: SUMMARY
Online FGI is practically joint chatting with recruited
members based on a guideline (active, synchronous
method)
Nearly completely different group dynamics
Not so deep involvement, more active discussion,
plenty of shorter posts / comments
Avoiding research topics which need deeper
involvement and longer reactions
No geographical limits in participation
Intimacy is less problematic
Online research topics are good choices
This is not widespread like offline, traditional focus
groups
28. RESEARCH FORUMS/BLOGS
Online research forum / blog is practically joint
participation in a forum / blog with recruited
members
Based on discussion on pre-defined questions
(active but asynchronous method)
Not widespread globally
29. USING BLOGS / FORUMS FOR RESEARCH
PURPOSES
Participants are recruited from target group(s) defined
by end client
Participants have access to research blog / forum
Blog or forum is restricted area for participants (need
to login)
Respondents need to prepare post /comments in
given topics and time period, moderated by
researchers
After closing fieldwork researcher prepares analysis
Analysing traditional blogposts / forum activities is part
of netnography
30. EXAMPLE FOR RESEARCH FORUM
Discussion between recruited
members in a restricted area in
given topics & certain time
period
30
32. MARKET RESEARCH ONLINE COMMUNITIES
(MROC)
Research communities: a kind of online research
panels, which are communities as well, users may
interact with each other
This is suitable for both online quantitative and
qualitative research
Short surveys (or votes) with many participants
Moderated conversations (real time or
asynchronous)
Other activities, e.g. posting
pictures, videos, comments etc.
33. MROC – DIFFERENCES FROM ONLINE PANELS
Similar to online research access panels
But there are important differences:
Special recruitment aspects / groups
Usually much smaller panel size
Unique registration form
Not only questionnaire based research projects, but
moderated discussions (online qual) as well
Community: members may interact with each other
It demands high involvement from both researcher and
end client (and participants) – huge workload (impact on
costs)
Can be used for: getting know target group more deeply,
insight generation, testing company materials (e.g.
concepts, ads, products)…
34. HOW DOES AN MROC PLATFORM LOOK LIKE?
An example for an MROC platform in action
35. SUMMARY
MROCs are good choice for ongoing research
activities
Suitable for both online qual / quant
It can be both active and passive, synchronous and
asynchronous
MROC is a real mix of all online research methods
It means usually a huge workload
37. NETNOGRAPHY: WHAT IS IT?
Observation of any kind of online discussions of
users, any user generated content
It is called also social media research or social
listening
38. HOW DOES NETNOGRAPHY WORK?
• Researchers use a social media mining tool to bring us the cleanest data.
This tool crawls the web every day and captures new content
Social Networks
• Recurring phrases, topics & people are identified using Natural Language
Processing
• The Sentiment Classifier works out if the tone of the mentions are good,
neutral or bad
• Researchers then read, clean and analyze the content to provide actionable
insight
40. NETNOGRAPHY
Collecting, categorizing and analysing of user
generated content on internet (e.g. blog posts,
comments, social media activities)
Passive method: observation and not asking
questions
Hence content may not reply to our exact questions
Question: who are represented by this data?
Not really quantifiable results (not percents, but
opinions, attitudes)
Researcher must follow strict ethical and legal rules
(e.g. anonymous participants, walled gardens etc.)
41. SUMMARY
Thanks to internet researchers may conduct not
only active, but passive research (observation
based) as well.
Internet is a huge data base (a goldmine) for
researchers: users tell everything by themselves for
free, it only needs to be collected and analyzed
But it has its limitations: representativity,
quantifiability, not replying to questions, limited
coverage (walled gardens), strict rules
43. MARKET RESEARCH (METHOD) IS IN CONSTANT
CHANGE: INNOVATION IS ON ITS WAY
Gartner MR
„hype-curve”
Plenty of
promising new
methodologies
Which one of
them will be
succesful and
reach stage of
Productivity?
Productive,
widespread
methods
nowadays: CATI,
CAPI, CAWI and
focus groups
44. FURTHER READING
Ray Poynter (2010): The
Handbook of Online and
Social Media Research.
John Wiley and Sons.
45. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
Robert Pinter
Corvinus University
Department of Information and
Communication
Ipsos Interactive Services
Client Service Director
robert.pinter@uni-corvinus.hu
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