COMM428D:
Lesson 3: Research Process
Lesson 3 Overview
Introduction
How does an organization assess its reputation? How do companies know which media outlets to use to reach their customers? How do advertising teams identify the best messages to use in their campaigns? The answer to all of these, of course, is research. In this lesson we will talk about the process of conducting research - where to start and how to collect data that can help solve problems that strategic communications professionals encounter as they develop campaigns and communication .
Objectives
Here are the objective for this lesson:
- Recognize the value of research in strategic communication.
- Understand how the scientific method applies to advertising and public relations research.
- Know the differences between qualitative and quantitative research.
- Define key term in research, including: sampling, population, and variables.
Lesson Readings and Activities
By the end of this lesson, please complete the readings and activities listed in the Lesson 3 Course Schedule.
Please direct technical questions to the IT Service Desk.
The Scientific Method
When you hear the term “the scientific method,” what image comes to mind? A test tube? A scientist in a white lab coat?
Well, here’s something amazing; the scientific method is used every day by strategic communications professionals for research that helps them do their jobs better.
Elements of the Scientific Method
Let’s start by taking a look at the elements of the scientific method:
- Identify the problem
- Define the problem: review existing research and information
- Develop hypotheses and research questions
- Determine an appropriate methodology/research design
- Collect relevant data
- Analyze and interpret the results
- Present the results in an appropriate form
- Replicate the study
So, how does this process work for strategic communication research? Let’s look at that in the following sections.
The Research Process in Strategic Communication
Strategic communication research gathers information to better understand a situation. We can check assumptions about audiences including what they think of our brand, what media outlets they pay the most attention to, and what social issues are most important to our audiences. We can use the results of our research to help craft messages, create media plans, and develop programs to improve social concerns.
Research can also be used to anticipate consequences from our decisions. Its main purpose is to reduce uncertainty in decision making. Research helps with this by showing us which tactics will be most effective with our audiences. It can help us do the following too:
- Understand audience perception and interests
- Save time and money by making sound decisions
- Avoid mistakes by identifying potential problems with our campaign plans
- Justify our efforts
- Gauge our success
Research for strategic communication uses a process that begins with identifying a problem and ends with presenting findings and replicating the study. Here’s how it works.
Example
Throughout the semester we will be following John Reynolds, a communications coordinator for an environmental nonprofit GreenGood, as he uses research to help improve a communications campaign.
The biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up for GreenGood, and John has developed a campaign to promote it. Unfortunately, ticket sales have been slower than expected, and John's organization is about to start a second round of promotional advertising and publicity. He is wondering whether the problem is the promotional materials. To help identify the issue and create a better strategy for the next stage of promotion, he decides to conduct some research.
Click on the steps below to see the process that John will be following this semester. You will learn more about his process in Video 3.1.
DENISE BORTREE: Research happens in a series of steps. Throughout the semester we will be walking through the process one step at a time. Here are eight steps that we will look at.
- Identifying the problem
- Defining the problem
- Developing the hypotheses and research questions
- Determining an appropriate methodology and research design
- Collecting relevant data
- Analyzing and interpreting the results
- Presenting the results in an appropriate form
- Replicating the study
Let’s talk about each one of the steps and how John from GreenGood implemented them carefully to gather useful information for his organization.
The first step in the research process is identifying the problem. For John, the problem is the lack of ticket sales. But, is this a problem that can be addressed with research? By defining the problem we can determine what we need to know to solve it.
The second step is defining the problem. Taking a closer look at what you know about the problem will help determine what you need to know before you can make a good decision about communication. Here are a few questions to get the process started:
- When is this a problem? Is it a problem now or in the future?
- Where is it a problem? Is it a problem in just one location or are you experiencing the problem everywhere?
- How is this a problem? How does the problem affect your organization or your community?
- And finally for whom is this a problem? What groups are affected by the problem?
John realizes that his problem is happening now, and it’s a problem that is happening in his community—people are not purchasing the tickets to the fundraiser. This creates an issue for the organization because it depends on the annual fundraiser for a large portion of its operating costs. John suspects that an important question that he will need to answer in his research is the WHO question—who should he be targeting and with what messages.
To further define the problem, John will conduct background research. He will start by looking at reports from research his organization has conducted in past years, and he will search for research reports on outdoor sports enthusiasts. Any information he can gather through background research will save him money and time in the long run because he will not have to gather the information through primary research methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys.
The third step in the process is developing hypotheses and research questions. These are questions or statements that you will investigate in the research. They help guide the types of information that is gathered in the research process. A hypothesis states the relationship between two variables; for example: “Environmentally responsible consumers are willing to pay more for green products than other products.” This is a statement that can be tested. You may find that the data you collect supports this statement or you may find that the environmentally responsible consumers that you talk to are not willing to pay more for green products, so the statement would not be supported.
A research question allows the researcher to explore the relationship between variables. For example, “how do environmentally responsible consumers make decisions about green products?” This is NOT a statement that can be supported. Rather, it is a question that an investigator uses to explore the decision making process of eco-friendly consumers.
John does not have enough background information to develop hypotheses for his research investigation, so he will likely develop a few good research questions to help focus the research.
The fourth step in the research process is determining an appropriate method and research design. There are two general types of methods—qualitative methods and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and ethnography—provide indepth information that helps a researcher better understand how people make meaning of messages and experiences. Quantitative methods—such as surveys, content analysis, and experiments—provide numerical information that allows researchers to conduct statistical analysis and determine the significance of the findings from the study. The methods chosen are dependent on the questions that are being asked. Hypotheses are always tested with quantitative methods, but research questions can be investigated with either type. John will use a mix of both types of methods to help him answer his research questions.
The fifth step is collecting relevant data. John needs to decide from whom he will be collecting data. He has a list of members from his organization and a list outdoor sports enthusiasts. He could pull probability samples, which mean his sample would be random and he could generalize the results of his quantitative methods to his population. Or, he could pull a nonprobability sample, which is representative of his population but is not a random sample. John will pull samples that make the most sense for his methods.
The sixth step is analyzing and interpreting the results. John will analyze his quantitative data through statistical tests to find the significant relationships between his variables. And, he will analyze his qualitative information by looking for key themes and patterns in his data. The analysis will lead to important discoveries that will help him better target the right audiences with the right messages.
The seventh step is to write up and present his result in an appropriate form. Most certainly, John will write a report that can be shared with others in the organization. He will also create a presentation that he can deliver to decision makers at the organization.
And finally, the last step of the process is replicating the study. Good study design will reduce error in sampling and analysis, but sometimes the findings of a study are not valid for other reasons, so repeating the study with another group or at another time would help confirm ( or call into question) the findings of the study.
By working through this process, John will better understand who to target in the second phase of his campaign and what messages might attract the public to his fundraiser. In this lesson your will read more about the way John implemented the process. And, throughout the semester we will revisit John to learn more about the eight steps in the research process.
Identify the Problem
The research process begins when a problem is identified. In this case the problem is the lack of ticket sales. But, is this a problem that can be addressed with research? By defining the problem we can determine what we need to know to solve the problem.
Define the Problem
Defining the problem will help you identify what you already know and what you need to know about the problem. Here are a few questions to ask to help define the problem.
When, where, how, and for whom is this a problem?
- When: Is this a problem now? Or is it something that you anticipate encountering in the future? Is the problem different from something you've experienced before?
- Where: Is this problem only happening in one place or with one group of people? Could it be a location issue or an audience issue?
- How: In what ways does this problem affect the organization or the audience?
- Who: Who does the problem affect?
What do we already know about the problem?
- Do some background research to see if you can find the answers to your questions. Background research is much less expensive than conducting primary research (collecting data and analyzing it).
Develop Hypotheses and Research Questions
Once we have asked questions to define the problem, and we have looked at prior research, we can create a list of questions or hypotheses that guide our research process.
- First, we need to decide WHAT we want to learn from our research. Do you need to know about the audience’s communication style? Do you need to know how certain messages are perceived or whether an audience member would be willing to change a behavior?
- Second we need to define the variables (or attributes) that we plan to measure. For example, one variable that a company could measure is its reputation. But, first you need to define reputation. The term could be defined as the degree to which a company meets the expectation of its customers. Or, it could mean the degree to which stakeholders like the brand image of the company. And, still, it could mean the degree to which the company provides a good product at a reasonable price. How you define a variable will determine how you measure it. For each of the definitions above, you would ask different questions to assess a company’s reputation.
- Third, this leads to the creation of hypotheses or research questions.
- Hypotheses are statements that suggest a relationship between variables. For example, if you work for a tutoring center and your company wants to test the impact of its product, you might create this hypothesis “SAT prep classes have a significant positive effect on SAT scores.”
- On the other hand, if you are not confident in predicting a relationship between the two variables, you may propose a research question about the variables, for example, “Is there a relationship between SAT prep classes and SAT scores?”
- Hypotheses are more powerful as they allow you to design your research to confirm a relationship.
Determine an Appropriate Methodology/Research Design
Once the research questions and hypotheses are developed, the next step is to decide how to collect data that will help answer the questions or test the hypotheses. This semester we will learn about two types of research methods—qualitative methods and quantitative methods.
- Qualitative methods give an indepth understanding of an issue by providing direct quotes and insights from participants. Some examples of qualitative methods are interviews, focus groups, and ethnography.
- Quantitative methods provide numerical data—numbers, percentages, averages, etc. Some examples are surveys, content analysis, and experiments.
How do you decide which methods to use? It all depends on your questions and hypotheses. We will take a closer look at this during the semester.
Collect Relevant Data
Next, a researcher needs to decide how to get data. An important part of the research design is sampling. In research with human subjects, a sample is the group of people that you invite to participate in your study. You need to decide who you will invite and draw a sample that is appropriate for your method.
- A random sample is a sample in which the researcher knows the chances of everyone in the population being in that sample. In general, this means that each person has an equal chance (or another known chance) of being selected to be in the sample. For example, if I were to sample five people from the class to survey about online learning experiences, I would want everyone to have an equal chance of being in the sample. The class members are the population for the study. By pulling a random sample and surveying the sample, I can generalize to the rest of the population (the class). We will talk more about why this is later in the semester.
- On the other hand, qualitative research often uses a representative sample. That means that the people who are selected to be in the study represent the group that we want to get to know better, but they are not selected randomly. We are not assuming that we can generalize results to the rest of the population. Rather, we are looking for insights into how people think and feel about phenomena.
Analyze and Interpret the Results
The method of analysis that you use depends on the data collection method that you have chosen. Qualitative and quantitative methods take different approaches to analysis.
- Quantitative data is analyzed through statistical tests. We will talk more about that later in the semester.
- In qualitative research the researcher looks for key themes and patterns in the responses of participants to try to better understand and shed light on phenomena.
After analyzing data, the researcher should consider the value of the findings and how they apply to the problem.
Present Results in an Appropriate Form
In strategic communication, the most common form used to present research findings is the research report. Agencies, companies, or nonprofits will put together a summary of the purpose of the research, the methods used to collect data, the analysis used, the key findings, and a discussion of the implications of the research.
Replicate the Study
Sometimes sampling problems can influence the results of the study. So, it is always best to replicate your study with another sample to be sure you can trust the results that you found.
Test Your Understanding
Here is an opportunity to apply the material from this lesson. Below is a scenario in which a strategic communication professional used research to solve a problem. See if you can identify how she used each of the eight steps in the scientific process. Below the scenario you will find a list of the eight steps. Fill in the blank to summarize how it was used in the scenario.
Scenario
Sally Clark works for an advertising agency that represents a large ice cream company based in the US. Recently, the company ran an advertising campaign promoting a new chocolate covered ice cream bar that comes in four fluorescent colors—pink, blue, orange, and green. The bars are made with low fat milk, and they have more vitamins and fewer calories than the competitors' bars.
The campaign was conducted entirely on social media including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. The target for the campaign was 25–44 year old moms who would make buying decisions about desserts for their kids. After the campaign began, web analytics showed that the demographic that most commonly viewed and shared content from the campaign was 16–24 year old females. While this was interesting, it didn't tell Sally why others weren't clicking on the advertisements or videos, or why people weren't reading or viewing other information on the product. To begin to explore these questions she reviewed reports from prior campaigns that the company conducted, and she revisited the research that had been conducted on 25–44 women before the campaign was launched. As she read through the materials, she found that health was a key concern of this demographic, and she found that social media use by this group was rapidly increasing. This led to two research questions. First, Sally wondered what kind of material moms in this age range were most likely to share in social media. And, second, Sally wondered what role health played in their engagement with promotional materials for the ice cream product.
To better understand why the campaign was not reaching the target audience, Sally conducted a study to determine what kind of content moms share online and how they perceived the ice cream social media content. She decided to hold three focus groups with moms in the target age range. She recruited the focus group participants through a newspaper advertisement and paid each participant $50 for her time. During the focus groups, participants were asked to talk about the kinds of social media advertisements and videos that they clicked on and shared with others. Laptops were made available for anyone wanting to log in and show examples of her favorite content from companies.
Next, the focus group moderator showed the group examples from the ice cream campaign. The participants shared their thoughts about the product and about the messages in the ads, videos, and pictures.
After the focus groups were complete, Sally had the dialogue transcribed, and she analyzed it for key themes and patterns. She found that the mothers valued content that they considered to be funny or useful. In specific, they were interested in content on health, budgeting, and relationships. They considered content to be more "share-able" if it was humorous as well.
Most moms in the focus groups had seen the content before, but they expressed a concern about the dye that might be used in the products to give it the fluorescent color. When the moderator pointed out that the video messages included information about the all natural content of the dye, some participants said that they had not watched the video, and so they did not know. They did point out, however, that the stationary ads did not mention "natural content." In addition, others said that they were not convinced that "all natural" meant healthy, so they were not interested in the product. Even though some of the content was funny, the moms still did not think that they would share the content with others because of their uncertainty of the product.
Sally interpreted the data to mean that the humor in the ice cream campaign content was not effective in attracting the moms because of the concern that the product raised about health. Sally recommended that the company clearly communicate about the content of the dye and further promote the relative healthful content of the product compared to competitors' products. The campaign will only be effective, Sally concluded, if moms feel comfortable about the ingredients of the product.
Sally wrote up the report and presented it to her boss, the vice president of marketing, and to the account representatives for the client.
In the end, the client agreed to modify the messaging in the advertising to reflect a focus on the healthful aspects of the product and to clearly disclose the ingredients of the ice cream bars.
Eight Steps in the Scientific Method
Below each of the eight steps, summarize how it was used in the scenario above.
- Identify the problem
- Define the problem: review existing research and information
- Develop hypotheses and research questions
- Determine an appropriate methodology/research design
- Collect relevant data
- Analyze and interpret the results
- Present the results in an appropriate form
- Replicate the study
Lesson 3 Wrap Up and Looking Ahead
Summary
During this semester we will see John Reynolds from GreenGood walk through each step of the research process to collect and analyze data in a meaningful way. You also had a chance to identify the steps of the process by examining another example.
Check and Double Check
By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 3 Course Schedule.
Looking Ahead
Background reseach is important. In the next lesson, we will discuss situation analysis, SWOT analysis, and identify useful sources for background research.