It is an approach where a theoretical framework is developed from the research (after it has been conducted).

It is an approach where a theoretical framework is developed before the research is conducted.

A priori segmentation refers to a segmentation technique based on conventional assumptions rather than on market research. 

It provides consumer-oriented and media research market intelligence from various sources.

It is a process of showing two variants of the same web page to different segments of website visitors at the same time and comparing which variant drives more conversions.

Usage & Attitude Surveys.

American Association of Public Opinion Research.

Absolute Error is the amount of error in your measurements. It is the difference between the measured value and “true” value.

It is a form of observation study where an interviewer accompanies a respondent (with his or her agreement) as they go shopping.

An account executive is an employee who has the primary day-to-day responsibility for an ongoing business relationship with a client.

Accuracy is the proximity of measurement results to the true value

A term used in factor analysis that represents the proportion of variance in an original variable accounted for by all the extracted factors. Each original variable will have an achieved communality value in the factor analysis output.

ACORN is a geo-demographic tool assisting business in understanding their target market. ACORN focuses on population location and other lifestyle variables. Individuals in rural locations have different purchasing behavior than those residing in bustling downtown neighborhoods. The information gathered by ACORN allows business to concentrate marketing strategies for specific geographic locations. This impacts marketing campaigns, where to open the next franchise, which store location to close and more.

Acquiescence bias, also known as agreement bias, is a category of response bias common to survey research in which respondents have a tendency to select a positive response option or indicate a positive connotation disproportionately more frequently.

Association for Consumer Research

Action Device also called as involvement device, as the name suggests elicits an action or response from the recipient. 

In marketing, a customer who has bought a product from a company recently.

A piece of software designed to prevent advertisements from appearing on a web page.

The process of getting an idea evaluated by your target audience before it becomes available to the public. It includes anything from product concepts to ad campaigns.

It is research that is specifically designed to address a particular problem or issue. Ad hoc research is usually conducted when there is insufficient existing information. Projects are usually single pieces of research rather than part of a continuous programme.

An ad hoc survey is a survey without any plan for repetition.

The evaluation of a positioning statement measuring audience response. 

Ad recall is a campaign metric that measures how memorable an advertisement is to an audience.

Ad Tracking research refers to the concept of evaluating the in-market performance of advertising and the greater definition of 'marketing communications' and any brand touchpoints.

The strength of conjoint analysis is its ability to ask realistic questions that mimic the tradeoffs that respondents make in the real world. Respondents evaluate product alternatives (concepts) described by various attributes and indicate which products they prefer.

Adaptive scripting is a tailored list of questions. The respondent's response dictates which question to ask next.

It is a type of causal relationship in which the effect of two variables on a third variable is additive (i.e. one variable does not counteract the effect of the other variable).

The Address Coding Guide is a comprehensive listing of address ranges and streets solely within the corporate.

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is the only organization that creates and curates objective, original research through education, events, and networking for advertising practitioners.

It is one of the three components of attitude that is concerned with individuals’ emotions or feelings towards an object or idea.

An emotion generated in response to a person, object, or event. The emotion or feeling toward a person or object is the affective component of attitudes.

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.

Affinity marketing is a concept that consists of a partnership between a company (supplier) and an organization that gathers persons sharing the same interests to bring a greater consumer base to their service, product or opinion. This partnership is known as an affinity group.

There is no measurement taken from either group before the experimental variable is introduced and the control group is not subsequently subjected to the experimental variable.

It is a summary measure made by compounding two or more separate measures, e.g. national income and price index numbers.

It is the percentage of respondents who claim to have seen something (eg a brand or an advert) after having been shown some form of stimulus material.

Aided Recall is a market research technique in which the respondents are shown an advertisement and asked questions corresponding to it. Aided Recall is a technique of aided brand awareness. The respondents express their knowledge about a particular product when they are prompted.

It is a means of informing a data collection company of a study authorisation and it usually includes a start date, delivery of materials, quota, timings and cost etc. Alerts can be made by e-mail, telephone or fax etc.

Any means (i.e., telephone, fax, mail) of informing a Data Collection Company of the study authorization to include the starting date, delivery of materials, quota, timing, cost, etc.

It is the base commonly used in reporting a product's retail distribution. If a product is distributed in only one out of every five stores, it is 20%. However, if the stores that carry the product are the very largest stores that account for 80% of sales, then the ACV is 80%.

A sampling error occurs when the sample used in the study is not representative of the whole population. Sampling errors often occur, and thus, researchers always calculate a margin of error during final results as a statistical practice.

It is a statement that suggests a difference or an effect is present (i.e. there is an alternative). The alternative hypothesis is adopted when the null hypothesis has been disproved.

American Marketing Association

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a standard table of seven-bit designations for digital representation of uppercase and lowercase Roman letters, numbers and special control characters in teletype, computer and word processor systems.

An analysis of variance procedure in which the effects of one or more metric-scaled extraneous variables (covariates) are removed from the dependent variable data before one conducts ANOVA.

It is a statistical technique for examining the differences among means for two or more populations.

A person whose job is to examine something carefully as an expert.

The review of information gained from the responses to questionnaires completed for a study or other data and to arrive at conclusions or to make decisions and recommendations on the subject being studied.

It is label used to define an extremity of a measurement scale.

It involves concealing respondents’ identities from interviewers and/or researchers.

It is a card, a piece of paper, or an electronic screen containing answer categories to a question, from which the respondent chooses the answer to the survey question. ... The primary purpose for using show cards is to reduce survey measurement error.

Anthropomorphism is defined loosely as the attribution of human emotions to animals and inanimate objects.

A research technique in which participants describe a product, service or brand in terms of a human being with personality traits so that the participants' feelings about the object/brand can be determined. Also called Brand Personality Research. Based on the premise that brands can have personalities in much the same way as humans, Brand Personality describes brands in terms of human characteristics.

American Psychological Association

Applets typically are Java programs that can display interactive animation, execute immediate calculations, and provide more uses for a market research questionnaire.

An application service provider (ASP) is defined as an enterprise that delivers application functionality and associated services across a network to multiple customers using a rental or usage-based transaction-pricing model.

Applied research is designed to answer specific questions aimed at solving practical problems. ... New knowledge acquired from applied research has specific commercial objectives in the form of products, procedures or services

An ADI or Area of Dominant Influence is the geographic area or market reached by a certain radio or television station. It is used by advertisers and rating companies to determine the potential audience of a station.

A method of sampling when no complete frame of reference is available. The total area under investigation is divided into small sub-areas which are sampled at random or by some restricted random process.

It is a type of cluster sampling where geographical areas are the clusters.

Advertising Research Foundation

the Arithmetic Mean (AM) or called average is the ratio of all observations to the total number of observations.

It is a the degree to which experimental conditions do not reflect real-life conditions. A high degree of artificiality reduces external validity (ie it becomes difficult to project the experimental results to the population of interest).

American Statistical Association

An association matrix shows how people and businesses are related. A filled circle means that there is a confirmed relationship between the two people.

It is a form of projective technique where participants are presented with some stimulus material and they are then asked to respond with the first thing that comes to their minds.

A law preventing telemarketing or telephone interviewers calling the phone numbers of subscribers requesting not to be contacted.

In asynchronous qualitative methods, the researcher has more time to consider. participants' responses during the data collection process.

Asynchronous research is an approach in which the respondent records their response on their own time - within a given time frame.

At-home testing involves placing a product in a respondent’s home and asking them to use it in the manner they normally would. Depending on scale it can either be classified as a qualitative or quantitative technique – although, as a quantitative tool, samples tend to be in the hundreds not thousands.

It is a test that aims to assess participants’ reactions to individual elements of a product or concept (in contrast to a holistic test that looks at a product or concept as a whole).

It is when someone tries to contact a potential research participant, whether or not anyone is actually reached and whether or not the contact results in the potential respondent participating in some research.

It is an individual’s learned predisposition to behave in a consistent manner towards an object or idea. There are three components of attitude: (i) a cognitive component - knowledge and beliefs (ii) an affective component - feelings and emotions (iii) a conative component - behaviour (usually measured in terms of likelihood to buy).

It is a research study to obtain information on how people feel about certain products, ideas or companies.

It is the development of measurement criteria used to measure individuals’ attitudes.

It is a research study to obtain information on how people feel about certain products, ideas or companies.

It allows client companies to gain a greater understanding of their market presence, and their strength within the market.

Scaling Techniques for Measuring Data Gathered from Respondents. The term scaling is applied to the attempts to measure the attitude objectively. 

It is a word or phrase to describe a qualitative characteristic of an idea or object under consideration, e.g. gender is a attribute but age is a variable.

It is a technique that is designed to develop lists of characteristics, uses or benefits relevant to a particular product category

A devise attached to a television (or, originally, a radio) that records and transmits whether or not the television is turned on, and how long it broadcasts a particular channel. 

Audio-Computer Assisted Self- Interview (ACASI) is a method of data collection in which participants listen to pre-recorded questions through headphones and respond to questions by selecting their answers on a touch screen or keypad.

The respondent conducts a self-administered survey by listening to the interview questions over headphones.

Audit has two definitions in the context of Marketing Research. A Store Audit is a method of determining the number of product units that have been sold by counting physical units in stores and combining that with a knowledge of the number ordered and stock levels. A second definition is a Project Audit that involves visiting a project site to ensure all project specifications are being met and agreed procedures are being followed

This is the process of increasing the amount of research interviews for a particular subgroup within the population. 

Autocorrelation represents the degree of similarity between a given time series and a lagged version of itself over successive time intervals. Autocorrelation measures the relationship between a variable's current value and its past values.

Automatic Interaction Detector analysis (AID analysis) statistical technique for multivariate analysis. It can be used to determine the characteristics that differentiate buyers from nonbuyers.

It is a general term that is used to represent or summarise the relevant features of a set of values. The arithmetic mean is often used as a measure of average, but the median and the mode can also be used to summarise a set of values.

It is the average number of people who read a particular publication.

Opportunity To See or OTS is a measure in advertising media that denotes the number of times the viewer is most likely to see the advertisement.

It is a measure of respondents’ knowledge of an object or an idea. There are two main measures of awareness: spontaneous (or unaided) and prompted (or aided) awareness.

B2B exchanges are online marketplaces for businesses to buy and sell good and services from other businesses.

A time when more babies are born than usual, for example after a war.

are those people who were born between 1946 and 1964.

A small or secondary baby boom (as in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s).

a marked decline in birthrate.

A quality control process by which the eligibility of market research participants is checked after they have taken part in a study, usually by re-contacting a proportion of them.

a room situated in the rear.

This research method ushers a focus group immediately into another session upon the conclusion of the first session.

It is a validation process where a survey is first translated into another language and then translated back into the original language by a different person. The objective is to ensure that the original translation is accurate.

In a balanced incomplete block design, the treatments are assigned to the blocks so that every pair of treatments occurs together in a block the same number of times. This achieves the balance that is described in the title of the procedure.

A balanced scale refers to an ordinal question asked to the respondents of a piece of research. It is mainly used in quantitative market research questionnaires and surveys.

This is the column data set in a cross tab computer table.

It is a style of data tabulation where the responses from each sub-group are listed for each question in the survey.

banner points are demographic breakdowns or other classification questions like overall satisfaction levels. 

It is a type of graph where the data is displayed in the form of bars that can be arranged vertically or horizontally.

It is the required number of interviews to be completed.

It is the result of a study conducted to obtain a snapshot or reading of current conditions prior to some change in market conditions or the introduction of some test conditions. The result is then used as a standard for comparison with subsequent studies.

The first segmentation study conducted by an organization which will act as the initial state of the segment and will be compared to future studies.

Basic research, also called pure research or fundamental research, is a type of scientific research with the aim of improving scientific theories for better understanding and prediction of natural or other phenomena.

Bayesian statistics is a system for describing epistemological uncertainty using the mathematical language of probability. 

The idea is that any confounding factors would impact equally on both groups and therefore any differences in the data drawn from the two groups can be attributed to the experimental variable.

Behavioral advertising (aka online behavioral advertising or “OBA”) allows advertisers and publishers to display highly relevant ads and personalized marketing messages to users based on their web-browsing behavior.

Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences on how we act or behave.

Behavioral targeting is a marketing method that uses web user information to strengthen advertising campaigns.

A study conducted to obtain a snapshot or reading of current conditions prior to some change in market conditions or the introduction of some test conditions. 

A standard that other things can be compared to.

It is the dividing of potential consumers into sub-groups according the benefits sought.

Responses that require the choice of one out of two possibilities. Examples would be yes/no or on/off questions.

It is when respondents bias their answers in a market research project so that they can then appear in the best possible way to those who are looking at the responses

It is a general term referring to the inaccuracy in a research study caused by non-sampling errors

It is a question that is phrased or expressed in such a way that it influences the respondent’s opinion. Such questions may provide information that leads a respondent to consider the subject in a specific way. Bias may also be introduced through verbal or facial expressions, body language or by paraphrasing the original question.

Response bias (also called survey bias) is the tendency of a person to answer questions on a survey untruthfully or misleadingly.

It is a sample that does not contain units in the same proportion as the population of interest.

To offer to pay a particular price for something, especially at a public sale where things are sold to the person who offers most money (an auction).

Bimodal is the practice of managing two separate but coherent styles of work: one focused on predictability; the other on exploration.

It is a frequency distribution with two modes.

The experiment consists of n repeated trials. Each trial can result in just two possible outcomes. 

It is a statistical test of dichotomous data (where there are two possible outcomes) to check whether the research data is significantly different to what would be expected.

They are two opposing adjectives that define the opposite ends of a scale (such as a semantic differential scale).

It is a type of scale whose extremities are defined by two opposing adjectives.

The birth rate is the ratio between the number of live-born births in the year and the average total population of that year.

It is the analysis of a relationship between two variables.

Simple bivariate correlation is a statistical technique that is used to determine the existence of relationships between two different variables (i.e., X and Y).

bivariate data is data on each of two variables, where each value of one of the variables is paired with a value of the other variable. 

It is a procedure for deriving the equation that relates a single metric dependent variable and a single metric independent variable

To determine the strength of the relationship of two variables, an independent and dependent variable.

Bivariate Research Techniques consist of a variety of statistical testing methods used in market research to analyse the relationship between two variables. 

In the case of the blind study approach, participants are unaware if they are part of the experimental process or the control group. 

Blind testing is a way to consumer test products or packages whereby consumers are unaware of the underlying brand which they are evaluating. 

It is the testing of products with potential consumers where brand names, packaging and other identifying items have been removed.

Small divisions of non-metropolitan counties for which statistics are held for grouping and numbering.

Blocked call is a telephone call that is unable to connect to an intended recipient.

It is the relevant external variable that is used to group (or block) experimental units into groups so that the experimental group and the control group are matched.

A block trade is the sale or purchase of a large number of securities. A block trade involves a significantly large number of equities or bonds being traded at an arranged price between two parties.

refers to additional interviews involving a particular sub-group of a sample to ensure there are sufficient members of the sub-group in the resulting sample.

a decision must be made whether the products of all relevant technologies or only those of a particular technology are to be included.

Physical features that border a market area and can be recognized by a computer.

It is a basic graphing tool that displays centering, spread, and distribution of a continuous data set. 

are a creative method of coming up with new ideas or solutions to a problem by generating a large number of ideas without subjecting them or the person who suggested them to critical evaluation. They can also be referred to as "ideation sessions"

A question used to guide an interviewer through a survey to different questions (i.e. skipping some questions), depending on the answers given.

It is a product or service to which human beings attach a bundle of tangible (functional product and service characteristics) and intangible (emotional and/or symbolic) meanings that add value. A brand has one strategic purpose and that it to differentiate itself from competitors.

Brand association is when company traits are rooted in customers' minds. The goal of brand association is to have a brand linked with positive attributes. Brand association builds value and equity for a company brand.

It is a measure or indication of the readiness with which a brand springs to mind.

It is a term developed to describe the financial value of a brand to the bottom line profit of a business.

It is the set of core values that define a brand. These values remain constant over time even though the executional characteristics of packaging, advertising (and other marketing variables) may change. By defining the brand essence with clarity, a brand owner creates a template against which all marketing and NPD activity can be developed and integrated.

A brand extension is when a company uses one of its established brand names on a new product or new product category. It's sometimes known as brand stretching.

It is the total impression created in the mind of a potential consumer by a brand and all its functional and emotional associations. The total image can be seen as the sum of several images such as the product, user, occasion, service and personality images.

Brand Impact Market Research is a method used to establish the effectiveness of advertising and brand messaging for a particular brand, product or service. Brand Impact Market Research can also take the form of a tracking survey, whereby the impact of the client's brand is tracked over time against a benchmark.

Brand name is one of the brand elements which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another.

It is an expression of the fundamental core values and characteristics of a brand, described and experienced as human personality traits, eg friendly, intelligent, innovative etc. It is an expression of the relationship between the consumer and the brand.

It is the location of a brand in relation to its competitors in some pre-defined space. The space may be defined by criteria used by consumers, such as "value for money" or "age of consumer" etc.

It is a sentence or phrase that encapsulates the brand benefits, eg a brand with technical superiority or a brand that guarantees next-day delivery. Often a brand benefit is translated into an end-line that becomes part of the brand communication on advertising, packaging or promotions, eg "the world's favourite airline".

It is the percentage of sales of a specific product category that are accounted for by one brand. Brand shares can be expressed in terms of the sales value or the volume of units sold.

Brand switching is a term in which your customers change brands. It's an easy concept to understand, but preventing it from happening to your customers is an entirely different matter.

brand value is the financial significance the brand carries.

The process, which may take decades, by which a brand comes to have added values and involves long-term support by communications either above or below the line. The associative strength between an advertisement (usually) and a brand expressed as a positive or negative relationship, ie "well branded" or "poorly branded"

Survey respondents may start the survey but fail to complete it, resulting in breakoff.

The term "brick-and-mortar" refers to a traditional street-side business that offers products and services to its customers face-to-face in an office or store that the business owns or rents. 

can have two similar meanings in the context of Marketing Research. A Brief can be a statement (usually in writing) of a business problem that could be alleviated by conducting some marketing research. Briefs are normally written by a client company for a research supplier and they usually have a background and an objectives section. A suggested methodology section can also be included.

A Briefing can be a training session prior to starting work on a study in which all specifications and details of the study are reviewed. This is generally followed by practice (or pilot) interviews where they are being used. Bubble Test sees thematic apperception test.

Participants are invited to fill speech and thought into “bubbles” on a cartoon showing an imaginary situation relevant to the research.

A bulletin board is a methodology used for qualitative market research. A bulletin board is a virtual tool or discussion thread allowing users to sign-in and post comments, answer questions, read postings, post content, upload and download files.

Business intelligence is defined as a process of collecting and processing business information to derive insights and make profitable business decisions.

Definitions. B2B (or “Business To Business”) refers to all the business processes that take place between one company and another. It follows that B2B sales are therefore made between a selling company (the supplier) and a buying company (the customer company).

The term business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to the process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services.

Interviews with business people or experts within a particular field. Executive interviews are often used where the majority of knowledge of a subject is held by a minority of people.

It is the accepted abbreviation for indicating a busy signal in a telephone survey.

A process buyers go through when deciding whether or not to purchase goods or services.

It is the probability that a consumer will buy a product or service.

It is the average volume purchased per buyer over the period of an analysis.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is a metric that has been growing in use, along with the emergence of Internet companies and web-based advertising campaigns that can be tracked.

It is a tabulation of the outcome of calls made during a computer-aided telephone interview (CATI) survey

A call sheet is a record-keeping form that is used by telephone survey interviewers to keep track of information related to the calls they make to reach survey respondents.

In a general callback, the interviewer learns that the designated respondent is not available at the time of the call but does not learn anything that would help him or her determine the best time to reach the designated respondent.

It is the degree to which increased sales of one brand replace sales of another brand or brands from the same manufacturer.

It is an extension of multiple regression analysis that deals with two dependent variables

It is computer-aided personal interviewing, where the responses in a personal interview are keyed directly into a computer and the administration of the interview is managed by a specifically designed programme. The programme checks for invalid responses and will not accept responses outside prescribed limits, hence subsequent editing and keying in of data is avoided.

A projective technique where participants are presented with one or more pictures or cartoons that depict a situation. They are asked to suggest what will happen or what one character may be saying or thinking in response to another character or a situation.

A technique that allows participants to compose dialogue for a drawn character within a cartoon.

It is a complete record of an interview with a respondent or a data entry record.

It is when an entire questionnaire from a respondent is removed from the analysis because some of the questions have not been completed.

Computer assisted self-interviewing (CASI) is a technique for survey data collection in which the respondent uses a computer to complete the survey questionnaire without an interviewer administering it to the respondent.

The researcher must find more than just a correlation, or an association, among two or more variables.

To establish causal relationships—cause and effect—between two or more variables

Categorical variables are qualitative data in which the values are assigned to a set of distinct groups or categories.

It is a scale that asks respondents to choose from a limited number of alternatives. There are three main types of categorical scale; semantic differential, stapel and Likert.

Certain products or services among a population requiring a study. This is an incident rate for that product or service.

It is computer-aided telephone interviewing where the responses are keyed directly into a computer and administration of the interview is managed by a specifically designed programme. The programme checks for invalid responses and will not accept responses outside prescribed limits, hence subsequent editing and keying in of data is avoided.

It is a type of conclusive research that aims to collect data on causal relationships.

A variable that exerts some influence on another (dependent) variable.

To establish causal relationships—cause and effect—between two or more variables.

It is computer-aided web interviewing, where respondents complete a web site (or HTML) survey and some computer software, presents each question only after the previous question has been completed. Subsequent questions can be tailored to previous question answers, enabling sophisticated routing plans to be used in these surveys.

The United States Census Bureau's computer program to aid in the 1980 census.

The individual elements (cells) that make up a sample.

The number of respondents in a sample cell.

It is the collection of data from all available units in a population of interest.

Areas defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, including four census regions and nine census divisions.

are areas delineated for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation.

Percentage of People that were not accounted for by the census due to not answering the census.

It is a theorem that states that the sampling distribution curve (for sample sizes of 30 and over) will be centred on the population parameter value and it will have all the properties of a normal distribution.

It is when face-to-face interviews are conducted at one or more specified locations (eg mall intercept interviewing).

Central location testing (CLT) is a qualitative market research approach in which research takes place in a specific, controlled environment. 

A study that takes place at a physical site that is convenient for all participants to access.

It is where the marketing researchers in an organisation are located together in one department.

It is the average value of a group of objects in a cluster.

It is where participants in separate locations are invited to join a virtual group discussion using their PCs and the Internet. The discussion may or may not have a moderator and comments are communicated in writing on members’ screens. Participants in the discussion are usually not screened in the same way as for an online discussion group or a moderated e-mail group.

A list of items to be examined or things to be done. For example, a supervisor may receive a check list with the materials for a job listing the supplies enclosed.

It is a skewed distribution whose shape depends on the number of degrees of freedom. As the number of degrees of freedom increases, the distribution becomes more symmetrical.

The Chi-Square test is a statistical procedure used by researchers to examine the differences between categorical variables in the same population.

It is a non-parametric statistical test that compares research data with the expected results from a hypothesis.

It is the person in the household with the largest income, whether from employment, pensions, state benefits, investments or any other source. Where there are two people with the same income, the researcher should specify who to include in the study.

It is the member of a household who is responsible for the majority of household purchasing decisions

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a law created to protect the privacy of children under 13.

The rules that outline the regulation used for COPPA. An example is a rule that requires privacy statements to be linked on all websites that children of the United States might visit. See the FTC's COPPA site for more information.

Discrete Choice Modeling is a trade-off and simulation technique useful for studying these types of questions: Product design and pricing issues such as what features maximize share, revenue or profit or whether buyers value features enough to pay their incremental cost.

A choropleth map is a type of thematic map in which a set of pre-defined areas is colored or patterned in proportion to a statistical variable that represents an aggregate summary of a geographic characteristic within each area, such as population density or per-capita income.

It is individuals’ ages in years and months (which may be different to their cognitive age).

is the rate at which customers stop doing business with an entity. It is most commonly expressed as the percentage of service subscribers who discontinue their subscriptions within a given time period.

It is a measure used in advertising surveys that refers to the proportion of respondents who say they saw or heard an advertisement or a particular form of advertising.

It is the repeating or re-phrasing of an existing question to get a further explanation of an answer provided by a respondent.

It involves socio-economic and/or demographic information on participants in a market research study.

are questions that aim to collect classification information and they are usually put at the end of a questionnaire.

A scale where the numbers act only as data labels (e.g. 0=male, 1=female or a social security number). The only analysis that can be performed is to observe how frequently each of the scale members occurs in the survey.

A percentage measuring the amount of people that click on an ad compared to the amount of people that are exposed to the ad.

Click and mortar is a type of business model that has both online and offline operations, which typically include a website and a physical store.

are the ultimate consumers of marketing research, they create the demand for research services and pay for the research that is conducted. Clients can be internal or external. Internal clients are other users of research in the same organisation. External clients are based in other organisations.

are marketing researchers who are the link between research clients and the marketing research department or supplier.

Focus groups that are looking to expose a consumer's behaviors and the moderator uses techniques to explore the participants subconscious motivation. Focus group software can simplify this process for online research.

Close ended questions are defined as question types that ask respondents to choose from a distinct set of pre-defined responses, such as “yes/no” or among set multiple choice questions.

provide respondents with a pre-determined list of possible answers.

Describes a group of homes that are assumed to have similar demographic, social, and economic characteristics as one another within a neighborhood.

It is an analytical technique that arranges research data into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive groups (or clusters) where the contents of each cluster are similar to each other, but different to the other clusters in the analysis.

It is a type of probability sampling where a population of interest is divided into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive sub-groups (or clusters) and a sample of clusters is selected. From the selected clusters, a sample of units is drawn.

are video tapes with a number of TV commercials including the one(s) being tested and they are used to assess a commercial’s ability to stand out from the rest.

Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), an umbrella organization dedicated to respondent cooperation and government affairs, which merged into the Marketing Research Association (MRA). 

A reward given to participants or businesses for taking the time and trouble to cooperate in a marketing research study.

Compensation paid to research participants as an incentive for participation in focus groups, interviews, or surveys. 

Tabulating or calculating collected survey responses. The tabulations or calculations are can completed by computer or manually.

It is a plan that details the column and row headings in the cross-tabulations that are produced from the data

It is a set of instructions regarding the allocation of codes to research data. It helps researchers identify and locate the variables to be used in data analysis.

all professional marketing research societies have a code of conduct that details the rights and responsibilities of those involved with marketing and opinion research.

It is the organising of responses into categories and the assignment of a unique numerical code to each response prior to data entry.

A coding frame, code frame, or codebook shows how verbal or visual data have been converted into numeric data for purposes of analysis.

The coefficient of determination is a statistical measurement that examines how differences in one variable can be explained by the difference in a second variable, when predicting the outcome of a given event.

It is the exact percentage of variation shared by two variables, obtained by squaring the product moment correlation coefficient.

It is a measure of variability (or dispersion) of a distribution and it is equal to the standard deviation expressed as a percentage of the mean.

It is an individual’s perceived age, which may be different to their chronological age. For example pre-teens aspire to be older and 40 year olds may well aspire to be younger.

The cognitive component of attitudes refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes that we would associate with an object. It is the opinion or belief segment of an attitude.

A premise that seems to resonate well with audiences exploring true influence marketing is the concept of cognitive dissonance, which social scientists explain as a feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs.

Those in a study with similar demographic characteristics.

It is a type of multiple cross-sectional design where the population of interest is a cohort whose members have all experienced the same event in the same time period (e.g. birth). The samples are usually drawn at regular time intervals.

Recording and analyzing a cohort's activities for an extended period of time.

A set of alternatives is collectively exhaustive when they include all possibilities.

A bias in statistical procedure due to the correlation of multiple independent variables that influence a single dependent variable. This makes it difficult to recognize which independent variable is really causing the change in the dependent variable.

In factor analysis, this is the amount of variance a variable shares with all the other variables being considered. It is also the proportion of variance explained by the common factors.

It is the extent to which research results can be meaningfully compared.

are a type of scale where one object is compared with another and a relative measure of preference is obtained, eg do respondents prefer one or another soft drink? The main types of comparative scales are: paired comparison, rank order, constant sum and Q sort.

lt is a multi-attribute model in which one attribute compensates for another in the overall preference for an object or idea.

A group containing all events that do not occur in event A.

Interviews that have been completed.

The number of interviews completed per hour of interviewing. Factors influencing completion rate are accuracy of sample, study incidence, interview length, screener length, and cooperation rate (i.e. how many qualified respondents will actually complete the survey).

It is a form of projective technique where participants are asked to complete an incomplete situation.

A form of projective technique where participants are asked to complete an incomplete situation.

are questions containing words that are unfamiliar to respondents.

It is an index that combines a number of separate variables, e.g. education, income and occupation being used to form one overall measure of social class.

It is an approach to attitude measurement where the overall preference for an object is obtained by summing the evaluative rating of each attribute multiplied by the importance of that attribute.

Compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, is the mean annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year. CAGR is a term used when investment advisors tout their market savvy and funds promote their returns.

Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) refers to survey data collection by an in-person interviewer (i.e. face-to-face interviewing) who uses a computer to administer the questionnaire to the respondent and captures the answers onto the computer.

Computer assisted self-interviewing (CASI) is a technique for survey data collection in which the respondent uses a computer to complete the survey questionnaire without an interviewer administering it to the respondent.

computer-aided telephone interviewing is interview where the responses are keyed directly into a computer and administration of the interview is managed by a specifically designed programme. The programme checks for invalid responses and will not accept responses outside prescribed limits, hence subsequent editing and keying in of data is avoided.

In Interview where respondents complete a web site (or HTML) survey and some computer software, presents each question only after the previous question has been completed. Subsequent questions can be tailored to previous question answers, enabling sophisticated routing plans to be used in these surveys.

A geometric study area with a common center.

It is a description of a proposed product or service consisting of attributes and benefits.

It is a board with a written description of a product idea or positioning, often accompanied by an illustration that is shown to respondents.

The brief summary to describe a new product or service.

It is a brief written description of a new product or service idea.

Concept testing is defined as a research method that involves asking customers questions about your concepts and ideas for a product or service before actually launching it. 

It is the investigation of potential consumers’ reactions to a proposed product or service.

Presents the concept mapping technique as a tool in marketing research. The advantage of this technique lies in the development of qualitative research techniques like focus groups, by structuring results in an objective form; through representing the ideas expressed on a perceptual map.

are a summary of the research findings.

involves the use of highly structured techniques (such as questionnaires with closed questions) with statistically representative samples in order to prove or disprove hypotheses.

It is when two variables occur or vary together. It is one of the conditions that has to be met in order to infer a causal relationship.

It is the degree to which two different measuring systems produce correlating results. It is often used to determine the validity of new measuring techniques, by comparing them with established techniques.

It is the probability of a research outcome occurring if a state or condition was to exist.

It is the minimum probability of not rejecting a true null hypothesis (committing a Type I error) and is equal to one minus the significance level.

It is a range of values centred on the sample estimate that is known to contain the true value with a given degree of confidence (usually 95%).

A confidence interval is the margin of error that a researcher would experience if they could ask a particular research question, say, of every member of the target population and receive the same answer back that the members of the sample gave in the survey.

It is a percentage (usually 95%) that reflects the degree of certainty that the true value lies within the confidence interval. It is the minimum probability of not rejecting a true null hypothesis (committing a Type I error) and is equal to one minus the significance level.

are the two values from each end of a confidence interval.

refers to the act of not divulging two types of information in a research study. First, confidentiality is maintained when study information such as client name, brand name, purpose of the research, concepts and/or products (except as directed by the study instructions) is only provided to those who have a need to know. Confidentiality also refers to maintaining the privacy of information collected from or about any individual respondent.

The result of an independent and an extraneous variable indistinguishably affecting a dependent variable.

A confounding variable, in simple terms, refers to a variable that is not accounted for in an experiment. It acts as an external influence that can swiftly change the effect of both dependent and independent research variables; often producing results that differ extremely from what is the case.

It is a research technique that aims to describe how consumers make complex decisions by assuming the decisions are based on a number of factors considered jointly (hence the name) and they trade off some factors for others. The technique requires participants to choose a limited number of attributes from a selection, thereby providing an indication of the importance attached to particular attributes.

Conjoint analysis definition: Conjoint analysis is defined as a survey-based advanced market research analysis method that attempts to understand how people make complex choices. ... It evaluates products or services in a way no other method can.

It is the set of alternatives that potential consumers would consider when buying a product or service.

involves identifying completed questionnaires with data that are out of the permissible range, logically inconsistent or have extreme values. Data that is out of the range of the coding scheme is inadmissible.

A group made up of primary metropolitan statistical areas (PMSA), examples include Minneapolis-St. Paul. CMSAs can be subdivided into metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

 constant sum scale is a type of question used in a market research survey in which respondents are required to divide a specific number of points or percents as part of a total sum.

A type of comparative scale where respondents are asked to allocate a fixed amount (or constant sum) of points, dollars, or anything among a set of objects according to a criterion.

Constitutive definition: defines a construct with other constructs, e.g. "weight" by saying that it is "heaviness." Operational definition: assigns meaning to a construct or a variable by specifying the activities or "operations" necessary to measure it.

When a concept is created or used for special scientific purposes, concepts are called constructs.

In its simplest conceptualization, construct validity is the extent to which a construct measure (Circle C) accurately measures the construct it is intended to measure (Circle A).

It is the ultimate user of a product or service.

Consumer behavior is the study of customers and organizations to determine how they select and use products and services: How consumers choose from various alternatives.

It is a study that aims to measure the tendency of consumers to confuse the company that makes a particular brand with another company, or to confuse one brand with another.

A qualitative method in which participants are asked to express their feelings or perceptions about a product by drawing it.

Consumer spending is the total money spent on final goods and services by individuals and households for personal use and enjoyment in an economy.

The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE or CEX) is a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) household survey that collects information on the buying habits of U.S. consumers. The program consists of two components — the Interview Survey and the Diary Survey — each with its own sample.

The consumer orientation is modern marketing philosophy that guides the practicing managers to carry out marketing efforts in a manner that result into maximum consumer satisfaction. 

It is a group of selected research participants who have agreed to provide pre-designated information at regular specified intervals over an extended period of time. The information may be on purchasing, media consumption or life-style activities.

Consumer Price Index is representative of the consumption expenditure within the economy and is the weighted average of the prices of goods and services.

It is a study that aim to determine consumers' opinion of the quality of goods and services offered by a business. They can include qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

It is an investigation of the behaviour, preferences, attitudes or opinions of a target group sample, collected through a questionnaire.

A household represented by an individual, related families, or unrelated roommates that make consumer purchasing decisions together.

It is an interviewer's interaction with a potential respondent to determine eligibility for participation in a marketing research study.

Contact rate measures the proportion of eligible cases in the sampling pool in which a member of a sampled household was contacted.

A sample group that possesses an individual or group that does not represent the population.

It is an analysis technique where written material is broken down into meaningful units using carefully designed rules.

Content integration or content collaboration refers to the process of connecting content within a repository and using in a different way. 

It is the difference between an actual frequency and an expected frequency in a table.

It is a cross-tabulation table that contains a cell for every combination of categories of the two variables.

It is that from a measurement scale where it is permissible to calculate intermediate values.

lt is a consumer panel that involves participation from the same respondents repeatedly over time. This contrasts with an ad hoc panel, where a pre-recruited group of willing respondents are used as and when they are required.

It is a type of non-comparative scale that offers respondents a form of continuum (such as a line) on which to provide a rating of an object according to a criterion.

It is any research that involves the regular, on-going collection of data, e.g. consumer panels and epos data.

Continuous variables are variables that can take on any value within a range.

It is the observation of behaviour in an artificial setting.

Two study groups are comprised of members from a similar population. One study group will interact with a stimulus while the second study group will not receive that stimulus. The first group is the test group, and the second group is the control group.

It is a group of respondents that receives the normal (or no) treatment and provides a basis of comparison to the test or experimental group that receives the test or experimental treatment.

It is a type of research experiment where one group of stores receives a certain treatment (test stores) and another group receives no treatment (control stores). Sales are then measured for each group over an extended period of time to measure the effect of the treatment.

Replacing current subjects in a study with a different subject that is consistent with the parameters of the initial subject.

It is a type of non-probability sample where the units have been selected because they are convenient for the researcher (which may not be the optimum sample for the research project).

It is the ability of a measurement scale to correlate (or converge) with other measures of the same variable.

It is a computer file that is secretly added to the hard disk of someone who visits a web site that sends them. Their purpose is to track web site visitors, however the use of cookies in marketing research is not approved by ESOMAR.

The cooperation rate is the ratio of all cases interviewed out of all eligible units ever contacted.

It is an advertising research measure of a respondent's ability to remember a particular message, slogan or theme, etc from a commercial.

It is a method of determining the degree of understanding, impact, awareness, and believability that an ad may generate. Respondents are shown the ad, then they are questioned about their opinions.

An internal department that conducts research in order to sustain and improve their company's marketing effectiveness.

It is the existence of a relationship between two variables (which may or may not be a causal relationship - correlation on its own does not infer causality).

Correlation analysis is a method of statistical evaluation used to study the strength of a relationship between two, numerically measured, continuous variables (e.g. height and weight).

The correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of the strength of the relationship between the relative movements of two variables. The values range between -1.0 and 1.0. A calculated number is greater than 1.0 or less than -1.0 means that there was an error in the correlation measurement.

It is a perceptual mapping technique that is based on data where respondents are asked to identify only the attributes that relate to (or correspond with) the subject of the study.

The price value of completing an interview in a survey research project. Determined by dividing the total budget for a project by the number of completed interviews.

A trade organisation for those who are actively involved or concerned with marketing and opinion research.

It is a technique that is used to increase respondents’ willingness to answer questions honestly. Questions are prefaced with statements that attempt to justify an answer that may go against social group norms, e.g. “recent surveys have indicated that the majority of people have difficulty saving every month”.

It is the extent of a relationship between two variables, whereby a change in one variable implies a change in the other.

It is a metric independent variable (i.e. based on data that can be analyzed such as that from an interval or a ratio scale).

It is the proportion (usually expressed as a percentage) of a population of interest that has been exposed to a particular advertisement

It is the number of interviews completed per hour of interviewing. Factors influencing CPH are: accuracy of sample, study incidence, interview length, screener length and co-operation rate.

It is a type of qualitative research that is used to formulate advertising. It can work at three stages in the advertising development process (i) Defining the strategy - i.e. what should the advertising be saying? (ii) Defining the execution - i.e. how should it be said? (iii) Testing a chosen execution.

It is the general term to describe how well scores on one measure (i.e., a predictor) predict scores on another measure of interest (i.e., the criterion).

Criterion variables are used in regression analysis. A criterion variable is another name for a dependent variable.

Respondents might be disqualified for the survey research based upon their industry of employment. It is typical that the research study excludes those participants that are employed in the industry related to the research subject matter.

It is the collection and analysis of data from different countries (or cultural units) that compares the findings from different countries.

The cross elasticity of demand is an economic concept that measures the responsiveness in the quantity demanded of one good when the price for another good changes.

It is a research design that involves the collection of data from a sample only once.

It is a table that shows the frequency and/or percentage of respondents who gave various answers to a question in a survey, and which simultaneously shows these answers for various sub-groups of respondents.

It is a test of validity for a regression model that involves using comparable data to check the validity of an original estimation.

It is the total sum of learned beliefs, values and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behaviour of members of a particular society.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of households conducted by the U.S. Census regarding employment. The CPS is used to produce monthly statistics on workforce participation, employment, and unemployment that are closely watched by business, investors, and policy makers.

Market research that is tailored to a specific client's needs.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is the process of managing interactions with existing as well as past and potential customers. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.

Customer satisfaction research is that area of marketing research, customer intelligence, and customer analytics which focuses on customers' perceptions with their shopping or purchase experience.

are research facts that are based on respondents’ answers to questions.

Data cleaning involves the detection and removal (or correction) of errors and inconsistencies in a data set or database due to the corruption or inaccurate entry of the data. Incomplete, inaccurate or irrelevant data is identified and then either replaced, modified or deleted.

It is the gathering of information (figures, words or responses) that describes some situation from which conclusions can be drawn.

It is an enterprise or agency that supplies trained interviewers for clients and receives payment for services delivered. The service is responsible for hiring and training of interviewers, executing a client's job exactly as specified, editing and validating each interviewer's completed assignment.

It is any device that is used to gather information from respondents, eg questionnaires, video recorders, tape recorders.

It is a complete set of responses in a given study

It is the act of inputting data into a database.

Data mining is a process used by companies to turn raw data into useful information.

It is the counting and tabulation of raw facts (ie data) into a form that is suitable for future use. This term is usually associated with computer tabulations.

National and international laws that cover the appropriate and required methods to be used in protecting data privacy. Organizations also have guidelines to be followed for data privacy, in which companies must adhere to the guidelines in order to be associated with the organization (see ESOMAR and ARF).

It is a set of instructions for editing and coding the questionnaire and specifies how the data should be evaluated for inconsistencies, skipped questions, etc, and then verified.

The United States Census Bureau's monthly newsletter.

A data warehouse is a relational database formed to analyze and perform query processing. Warehouse stores data retrieved from historical transactions; however, it also contains data from various other sources. 

Databases are organised pools of data used to store, manage and retrieve information.

The database software market consists of sales of database software which are used to develop, modify and maintain database records and files.

It is a standard measure of the impact of a TV commercial where respondents’ recollection of a commercial is tested the day after they are exposed to it.

The concept of daytime populations refers to the number of people, including workers, who are present in a city or town during normal business hours.

a time or date before which assignment must be done or finished.

It is the removal of brand names, packaging or other material that would enable research participants to identify a brand.

It is the presentation of research findings to clients.

Debriefing is a report of a mission or project or the information so obtained. It is a structured process following an exercise or event that reviews the actions taken.

The data collected by the decennial census are used to determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.

It is where the marketing researchers are spread throughout an organisation and are not located together.

The deductive approach involves beginning with a theory, developing hypotheses from that theory, and then collecting and analyzing data to test those hypotheses.

Deduplication, or deduping for short, is the process of removing identical entries from two or more data sets such as mailing lists. Also known as merge and purge, deduping can be done for a lot of reasons.

It refers to the number of ways in which values could be assigned within a system. For example a table of observations with p rows and q columns has (p-1)(q-1) degrees of freedom. (In a sample of size n grouped into k intervals, there are always (k-1) degrees of freedom, because if (k-1) frequencies are specified, the other is determined by the total size n.)

The typical deliberative opinion poll takes a random, representative sample of citizens and engages them in deliberation on current issues or proposed policy changes through small-group discussions and conversations with competing experts to create more informed and reflective public opinion.

It is an approach to forecasting where a group of people produce separate forecasts and then each member is given information about the other forecasts and asked to revise their original estimate. The objective of the approach is to converge forecast estimates

The Delphi method is a forecasting process framework based on the results of multiple rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. Several rounds of questionnaires are sent out to the group of experts, and the anonymous responses are aggregated and shared with the group after each round.

are the responses given when respondents attempt to guess the purpose of the questions being asked. Demand artefacts can be the result of experimental conditions.

Corruption of the research when the respondents assume to know or actually know the research agenda. This can occur when the research sponsor is revealed to the respondents.

It is based on the age, gender, life-cycle stage, income and occupation of consumers.

Demographic analysis is the study of a population based on factors such as age, race, and sex. Demographic data refers to socio-economic information expressed statistically, also including employment, education, income, marriage rates, birth and death rates and more factors.

The changing number of births, deaths, diseases, etc. in a community over a period of time; the scientific study of these changes.

It is diagram that shows a hierarchy and the relation of subsets in a structure. It branches like a tree and is usually read downwards from the main trunk.

The number of things or people in a place in relation to its area.

It is a non-consequential approach to evaluating ethics, whereby the degree of ethicalness depends on the intentions behind the decisions rather than the outcomes or actions that result.

are types of multivariate analysis techniques that are used when one or more of the variables can be identified as dependent variables and the remaining variables can be identified as independent.

It is when one variable is influenced to an extent by another variable.

usually denoted as y, is a variable that is influenced to some extent by one or more other (independent) variables.

An in depth interview is a loosely structured interview. It allows freedom for both the interviewer and the interviewee to explore additional points and change.

The describing function method attempts to predict characteristics of those oscillations (e.g., their fundamental frequency) by assuming that the slow system acts like a low-pass or bandpass filter that concentrates all energy around a single frequency.

It is a form of conclusive research that aims to describe a product or market or identify associations among variables.

Descriptive research is defined as a research method that describes the characteristics of the population or phenomenon studied.

The design allows researchers to hone in on research methods that are suitable for the subject matter and set up their studies up for success.

Design controls designate the application of a formal methodology to the conduct of product development activities.

A designated market area (DMA), also referred to as a media market, is a region of the United States that is used to define television and radio markets.

It is the systematic examination of all available secondary data in the context of a particular marketing research problem.

It is the difference between the mean and an observed value.

It is an in-depth interview involving an interviewer and a participant (ie two people only). It is also referred to as a "one-on-one".

The diagnostic function is where data or actions of a target market are explained.

It is a log where facts are recorded relating to a respondent's experiences with a subject or product. Diaries can also be a record of regular purchases or viewing habits and they are often given to respondents when they receive a product to use at home..

It is a type of consumer panel where participants record activities or events in a diary.

are questions with only two alternatives, eg agree/disagree or yes/no.

Dig Insights provides contextual market research and analysis and delivers clear answers to complex business problems.

Digital signature is a mathematical technique with encoded and electronic stamp of verification on digital documents such as PDF files, word files and online legal contract papers .

The process of changing from analog to digital format.

 Interviews that are conducted entirely on a computer (questions are asked and responses are accepted).

It is when behaviour or events are observed while something is happening.

It is a question that directs the respondent to make a comparison between two objects, eg "which of these two products do you prefer?"

It is a question to research participants about their own behaviour (as opposed to an indirect question that asks them about the behaviour of other people).

are ways of asking people directly for information, such as personal or telephone interviews and mail surveys.

A directory database contains user accounts and security information for the domain.

Study results that reveal the proportion of respondents that claim that they would not buy a product even after trying that product.

It is the accepted abbreviation to indicate that a phone number has been disconnected, usually noted on the dialling report by the interviewer.

It is that from a measurement scale consisting of a number of separate values where intermediate values are not permissible, eg the number of cars per household.

A quantitative variable that has a set amount of possibilities as opposed to continuous variables which have an infinite set. An example would be the number of individuals in a family.

Discretionary income is the amount of an individual's income that is left for spending, investing, or saving after paying taxes and paying for personal necessities, such as food, shelter, and clothing. 

It is an analysis technique where the dependent variable is non-metric (i.e. nominal or ordinal in nature) and the independent variables are metric (i.e. interval or ratio in nature).

The value that is placed in front of the independent variable and describes the level of affect that the variable carries.

A value that is assigned to an object which then determines which group the object will belong to.

Discriminant validity is demonstrated by evidence that measures of constructs that theoretically should not be highly related to each other are, in fact, not found to be highly correlated to each other.

It is an outline of the subjects to be discussed during group discussions and/or in-depth interviews.

A discussion question that is truly great is challenging and inspires students to think critically and respond with well thought out answers. These questions are a framework for creating prompts that encourage inquiry, challenge students to think bigger and connect the classroom to real world ideas and events.

It is the observation of behaviour without participants’ knowledge.

It is any form of questioning where respondents are unaware of the true purpose of the questions

Disk-By-Mail (DBM): Self-administered surveys using a computer-based questionnaire mailed to participants on a computer disk.

Provided by the client to help the respondent picture or understand the product/ideas under discussion.

Disposable income includes earnings plus unemployment benefits, plus income from capital, including rental equivalent income of the main residence of the household.

The result of an attempt to reach or contact a potential respondent.

Disproportionate allocation to strata sampling involves dividing the population of interest into mutually exclusive and exhaustive strata and selecting elements (e.g. households or persons) from each stratum.

It is a type of probability sample where the probability of a unit being selected from a stratum is not proportional to the number of units in the strata. This sampling approach is used when there are strata in the population of interest that are quite small but very important and they may not be adequately represented in a survey if other sampling approaches are used.

It is an answer to a question that makes the respondent ineligible to participate in the research project.

It is a frequency or percentage table showing how a set of respondents is divided into various categories, eg percent who bought 1-5 times, 6-10 times, 11+ times.

It is a check and recording of the availability of specific items in stores.

It is the abbreviation recorded when a respondent lacks the knowledge to provide an answer to a question.

Door-to-door market research interviewing is a form of qualitative research whereby a respondent is asked questions on their doorstep, face-to-face. Door to-door market research may be used for several reasons. 

It is a survey where the interviews are conducted in pre-selected areas involving knocking on the doors of homes to find qualified respondents.

It is a product test where both the researcher administering the test and the participants are unaware of the complete identity of the products being tested.

It is a phenomenon or an empirical law where brands with lower markets shares suffer both from low purchases and low brand loyalty. 

Double sampling is a two-phase method of sampling for an experiment, research project, or inspection. An initial sampling run is followed by preliminary analysis, after which another sample is taken and more analysis is run.

are those that ask two questions at the same time. They can confuse respondents and answers to such questions are uninterpretable, because it is not possible to determine to which question the answer refers.

Respondents that leave the survey prior to termination or survey completion.

A dropout rate in surveys is the percentage of respondents who do not complete a survey due to the length, lack of interest, technical difficulties, or poor design.

It is a group discussion with two moderators, each moderator having a different role, eg one to ensure the smooth running of the group and the other to discuss or explain key issues.

are a way of respecifying categorical variables in data analysis by giving them either of two values (eg 0 or 1).

Duplicate Number Validation: A service in which the names and telephone numbers of focus group recruits are submitted to a company in advance of the groups.

Qualitative research where two participants are being interviewed by a single interviewer.

Excess spread is the surplus difference between the interest received by an asset-based security's issuer and the interest paid to the holder.

An e-tailer is a retailer that primarily uses the Internet as a medium for customers to shop for goods and/or services provided. 

It is the analysis of economic systems containing supply and demand data using statistical models.

 The edit instruction creates the formatted output by filtering the data through the mask.

It involves examining each completed questionnaire to ensure that the proper sequence of questions has been asked, the answers are clear and consistent and they have been correctly marked.

Usually denoted as y, a variable that is influenced to some extent by one or more other (independent) variables.

Efficiency signifies a peak level of performance that uses the least amount of inputs to achieve the highest amount of output. 

Elasticity is a measure of a variable's sensitivity to a change in another variable, most commonly this sensitivity is the change in price relative to changes in other factors.

Electro-encephalo-graphy literally means writing of the electric activity of the brain. It is an imaging technique using electrodes placed on the scalp, which captures, amplifies and records the electric signals emitted by neurons in the brain.

Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers through the use of information technology (IT). eCRM processes include data collection, data aggregation, and customer interaction.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) refers to transaction of business documents in a standard electronic format between business partners.

Electronic data processing (EDP) can refer to the use of automated methods to process commercial data.

Element sampling, or direct element sampling, is a sampling method whereby every unit (i.e. person, organisation, group, company etc.) has an equal chance of being selected to be included in the research sample.

are specified characteristics that potential participants must possess in order to be involved in a particular research project.

It is a person who meets certain criteria set for a particular study and thus qualifies to be included in the study. Respondents may be qualified on characteristics such as age, income, brand used etc.

are those people whose children have left or are about to leave the family home.

Enabling techniques allow participants to say more in response to a question than they would spontaneously - sometimes also allowing the respondent to project opinions that may be considered shameful or negative through using an imaginary person or situation.

It is a phenomenon where many survey responses fall into just a few categories at the end of a measurement scale.

Areas that are defined by the Census and generally contain 500 inhabitants.

It is electronic point of sale data and it measures sales of products as they are being paid for by consumers. Error see total error.

EPSEM refers to an equal probability of selection method. It is not a specific sampling method such as systematic sampling, stratified sampling, or multi-stage sampling.

A testing method using two similar instruments to obtain the same or very similar measurements of a single object.

In marketing and survey research, sampling error occurs because we measure components of a sample of the population instead of the whole population.

Computer programs that accept instructions from the user to check for logical errors in the data.

Any variation that is not known to be caused by regression.

It is the world association of research professionals. Founded in 1948 as the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research - ESOMAR unites 4,000 members in 100 countries, both users and providers of opinion and marketing research.

The most important guidelines for researchers using the Internet are those provided by ESOMAR and ARF. These rules include guidance on providing Privacy Policies, of the special rules for interviewing children, and the need to avoid spam. The guidelines can be downloaded from ESOMAR.

A value that is projected to a population’s parameter after examining a statistical sample.

Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that involves trying to understand how people live their lives. 

Evaluation research is the systematic assessment of the worth or merit of time, money, effort and resources spent in order to achieve a goal.

A sample’s subset. Events that are simple contain only a single outcome as a result of that event. An example would be in rolling a die, only a single outcome is allowed, this set of outcomes consists of six simple events (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

a small number of brands that become acceptable alternatives in a buyer's purchase decision.

An exchange is a marketplace where securities, commodities, derivatives and other financial instruments are traded.

are interviews with business people or experts within a particular field. Executive interviews are often used where the majority of knowledge of a subject is held by a minority of people.

It is a document that summarises all the sections of a market research report.

Anything that is on display during a qualitative discussion with respondents.

Printed cards, pictures, statements, actual products or advertisements given or shown to a respondent during the course of an interview, and usually relating to specific questions within the questionnaire.

in a cross-tabulation is the number of objects one would expect to find after multiplying the probabilities of the row and the column in the table (which may be different to the observed value).

It is a survey involving participants who have knowledge of a particular situation.

Qualitative research that allows clients to observe and hear consumer’s thoughts and opinions regarding the client’s product or service.

It is the process of manipulating one or more independent variables and measuring their effect on one or more dependent variables, while controlling for external variables.

It is a set of experimental procedures specifying: the test units, sampling procedures, independent variables, dependent variables and how external variables are to be controlled.

The result that occurs to the dependent variable after the treatment variable has been altered.

It is the error caused by the conditions of the experiment itself and it creates uncertainty that the observed effects may not be due to the manipulation of the independent variable.

are the different conditions created by manipulating the independent variable.

The experimental unit is the entity a researcher wants to make inferences about (in the population) based on the sample (in the experiment).

are the objects or people who are part of the experiment.

It is a form of exploratory research that involves discussing a research problem with someone (or a group of people) with experience on a particular subject.

Exploratory focus groups are a form of exploratory research. They are common as they help to discover where people stand on an issue and there are enough people within the exploratory focus group to gain a variety of opinions in a short space of time.

refers to the initial investigation of a problem that uses unstructured techniques (such as group discussions or in-depth interviews) in order to develop hypotheses and/or understand a problem further.

It is a statistical technique that calculates a moving average where the most recent data are given a different weight to earlier data.

A qualitative technique in which the moderator asks the participants to illustrate their feelings toward a particular product or service by creating a picture.

It is a group discussion that has been designed to last around 3-4 hours (compared with the usual time of around an hour and a half).

A home use test involves participants evaluating products in their own homes, or more generally, in a natural usage environment. The purpose of the test is to make an evaluation of a product after more experience with it than just some initial use.

are existing data that have already been collected by other organisations.

refers to a personal perception experienced by the consumer, such as hunger, thirst, and so on. External stimuli include outside influences such as advertising or word-of-mouth.

It is the extent to which experimental results can be projected to a population of interest.

are factors that are not manipulated as part of an experiment, but they may exert some influence on the dependent variable under study.

Extraneous variables are any variables that you are not intentionally studying in your experiment or test.

It involves the use of various mechanical devices to record participants’ eye movements when they are looking at some form of stimulus (such as a press advert in a newspaper).

It is a statistical test of the equality of the variances of two populations.

A statistical probability test measuring a calculated value’s ability to occur due to chance.

Face validity is the extent to which a test is subjectively viewed as covering the concept it purports to measure. It refers to the transparency or relevance of a test as it appears to test participants.

It is a statement that is objectively true and can be verified.

It is an underlying construct defined by a linear combination of variables.

It is a form of multivariate analysis that takes a large number of variables or objects and aims to identify a small number of factors that explain the interrelations among the variables or objects.

It is the correlation (or regression weight) of a variable with a factor.

Factor loadings are part of the outcome from factor analysis, which serves as a data reduction method designed to explain the correlations between observed variables using a smaller number of factors.

It is a type of statistical experimental design where units are assigned to groups that represent all possible combinations of the independent variables of interest.

are those who are mainly involved with conducting marketing research and have limited contact with research clients.

False accuracy results from a situation where a set of data gives the impression of being accurate, when in actual fact only a small degree of accuracy is present.

Officially defined by the Census Bureau as two or more persons that live together in one household that are related by birth, marriage, or adoption.

The woman most responsible for maintaining the household. May or may not be the primary wage earner.

Fertility rate, average number of children born to women during their reproductive years. For the population in a given area to remain stable, an overall total fertility rate of 2.1 is needed, assuming no immigration or emigration occurs.

It is the physical location where the interviewing takes place.

The person who is responsible for selecting, hiring, and training interviewers. He or she is also responsible for the data collection phase of the survey and following the agreed instructions.

It is one that is conducted in a natural setting (where the external validity is usually higher than the internal validity).

Research conducted in the actual setting environment (i.e. outside of the laboratory).

It refers to the interviewers and supervisors who are involved in data collection.

Companies that act as subcontractors to collect data, format questionnaires, and screen write for market research firms.

The process of collecting survey data.

It is the person who is responsible for selecting, hiring and training interviewers. He or she is also responsible for the data collection phase of the survey and following the agreed instructions.

It is a general term that refers to any data gathering process.

It is a question in a questionnaire to ensure that respondents meet the required criteria for a subsequent question (or questions) in a survey.

A complete description of the research for the client after the research has been conducted.

are information that answer a research question.

The finite population correction (fpc) factor is used to adjust a variance estimate for an estimated mean or total, so that this variance only applies to the portion of the population that is not in the sample.

It is a code in which the number of records for each respondent is the same and the same data appear in all the same columns for all respondents.

A projective qualitative technique. Respondents are shown pictures of people and settings and asked to interpret those pictures in relation to a topic. By using the same pictures over and over again, normative data can be created to enrich the analysis of responses.

It is the repeated observation of the same sample of respondents over a period of time.

It is a type of qualitative research that consists of an informal discussion of a particular topic with a small number of selected participants (usually 8-12). The discussion is guided by a skilled moderator who does not influence the outcome, but ensures that all the subject areas are discussed by the group and the views of the participants are as clear as possible. The ideal number of participants depends on the subject matter being discussed, eg complex subjects may be better discussed with fewer participants - possibly 4-6.

A central location in which focus groups are held. Conference rooms are connected to observation rooms by a two-way mirror so that researchers can observe the respondent’s words and actions. 

A focus group is a market research method that brings together 6-10 people in a room to provide feedback regarding a product, service, concept, or marketing campaign. Focus group participants are recruited based on their purchase history, demographics, psychographics, or behavior and typically do not know each other.

A trained moderator leads a 30-90-minute discussion within the group that is designed to gather helpful information.

It is a qualitative press advertising test where the advertising is placed in a folder with competitive advertising (and editorial extracts) and respondents are asked to page through it.

It is when research participants are exposed to some advertising in a contrived way (such as in a hall test or a focus group) as opposed to an on-air test where participants are see the advertising in a natural setting (such as in their own homes).

It is a scale that does not allow a neutral or no opinion choice.

An estimate on future occurrences based on past performance data. 

Forecasting is the use of historic data to determine the direction of future trends.

A type of nonsampling error in a survey caused by a sampling frame (i.e., a list) that is not a perfect representation of the population or universe. 

It is the average number of times an advert has been exposed to a specified television audience or universe .

It is a representation of the number of counts of objects or responses, usually in the form of a table or graph.

Fresh participants are naturally curious, enthusiastic, and are keen on discussing the subject of their interest.

A systematic bias caused by some respondents tending to agree with whatever is presented to them.

It is a type of depth interview where there are two respondents (instead of the usual one). Friendship pair interviewing is often used for research with children and young people (where they know each other) in order to avoid respondents being intimidated and biasing their responses accordingly.

It is a measure of how readily a brand name or concept comes to respondent' minds. It is the first answer to questions such as unaided brand awareness.

It is fund raising under the guise of research and it is one of the reasons why potential participants in market research projects are reluctant to take part.

A focus group comprised of 8-10 respondents. Mini-groups consist of less than 8 participants.

A company hired by a manufacturer or service company to design and manage the implementation of a research project, as well as analyze and interpret the data. 

It is a company that is hired to design, manage and implement a research project, as well as analyse and interpret the data. The company may collect the data themselves or hire a data collection company for this phase of a project.

A full-text database or a complete-text database is a database that contains the complete text of books, dissertations, journals, magazines, newspapers or other kinds of textual documents.

It is a way of ordering questions in a questionnaire so that general questions are asked before specific questions. This ordering avoids the responses to specific questions biasing the answers to general questions.

It is the difference between pre-treatment and post-treatment measurements.

It is a device that measures changes in the electrical resistance of the skin (due to perspiration).

It is the extent to which inferences can be drawn about the population of interest based on the results of some research.

are 18-29 year old post baby-boomers.

Geocoding is the process where it converts address into spatial data and associates the exact geographical coordinates for that address.

It is based on a combination of demographics (age, gender, life-cycle stage and occupation) with geographical area.

It refers to a range of methods used for classifying and characterizing neighborhoods or localities based on the principal that residents living near each other are likely to have similar demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics.

It is the study of the population and its characteristics, divided according to regions on a geographical basis. 

It is a branch of market research that assigns the attributes of small areas – usually neighbourhoods – to the consumers who live within them and, based on this assignment, divides the consumer marketplace into meaningful segments that are locatable and reachable

An organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data, and personnel designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information.

Subdividing a list based on geographic or political subdivisions.

A market site in the shape of a concentric circle or polygon that is to be analyzed.

It is a statistical test of non-parametric data to determine whether the results from research are consistent with the expected results from a particular hypothesis. Examples are: Chi Square goodness of fit and Kolmogorov Smirnov test.

Graphic Rating Scale: Graphic rating scale indicates the answer options on a scale of 1-3, 1-5, etc.

Graphic continuums anchored by two extremes presented to respondents for evaluation of a concept or object.

It is a sum of money customarily given by a client or customer to certain service sector workers for the service they have performed, in addition to the basic price of the service.

A graphic provided to focus group respondents in conceptual mapping and attitudinal scaling exercises.

A means of testing more than one variable at a time.

It is the individual’s total pay from his or her employer before taxes or other deductions. 

GRP stands for Gross Rating Point. A standard measure in advertising, it measures advertising impact. You calculate it as a percent of the target market reached multiplied by the exposure frequency. 

A focus group is a market research method that brings together 6-10 people in a room to provide feedback regarding a product, service, concept, or marketing campaign.

Group dynamics or group process describes the way in which any group of humans interacts and develops as a group, and the relationship between the group and the individuals within it.

It is a type bias that occurs in face-to-face group discussions where some participants moderate their opinions in order to go along with a majority view of the rest of the group. The result of a group effect is that a consensus may not be representative of all the opinions present in the group.

A qualitative research technique involving a discussion with a group of respondents, led by a moderator. Otherwise known as focus groups, group discussions, panels, and group depth interviews.

It refers to the computer software that is used to run online group discussions.

It is a key factor to be considered when calculating the development of a specific product in a particular market.

Individuals are requested to guess the outcome of the research results. Those predictions are then compared to the actual results of the survey to assess how closely perceptions match reality.

It is where research participants are invited to a central location to participate in some (usually quantitative) market research.

It is a form of response bias where a respondent carries an overall generalised positive or negative impression from one specific characteristic to the next, e.g. if a respondent considers a product to be excellent, then he or she is likely to rate the product highly on taste, appearance and texture etc.

It is the simplest type of tabulation possible, consisting of a manual count of the answers to certain questions on the questionnaire.

are Printed cards, pictures, statements, actual products, or advertisements given or shown to a respondent during the course of an interview, and usually relating to specific questions within the questionnaire.

A way of tallying or counting by accumulating identical lines into groups of five. Each mark or line represents one respondent or item.

It is that member of the household who is responsible for the household having that accommodation, either by owning, renting or having it rent-free. Where two or more people share this responsibility, the researcher should specify who to include in the study.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge.

It is a scale that indicates the extent of respondents' overall liking or disliking for something, eg a product they tasted or a concept they viewed.

Heteroscedasticity means unequal scatter. In regression analysis, we talk about heteroscedasticity in the context of the residuals or error term. 

It is a technique used during depth interviews that aims to identify significant personal views that would otherwise not be revealed by respondents using a direct approach.

It is a marketing behavioural response model consisting of stages through which a buyer is presumed to go, including: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, intention to buy and purchase.

It is a vertical bar chart where the height of the bars represents the data.

It is Changes that occur between the beginning and end of an experiment.

occurs in experiments when an unexpected (but significant) effect occurs that has an impact on the dependent variable being measured.

It is a test that aims to assess participants’ reaction to a product or concept as a whole (in contrast to an atomistic test that examines reactions to the individual elements).

It is a survey where an interviewer enters a participant’s home to take an inventory of specific products present at that time.

It involves participants evaluating products in their own homes, or more generally, in a natural usage environment. The purpose of the test is to make an evaluation of a product after more experience with it than just some initial use.

The group consists of people with the same or very similar.

Homoscedasticity suggests equal levels of variability between quantitative dependent variables across a range of independent variables that are either continuous or categorical. 

The payment provided to survey respondents or focus group participants.

is the person whose major responsibility is the comfort of clients, guests and respondents at a focus group or central location test.

referred to as a qualitative assistant, is an individual who is present for assistance at focus group discussions.

Delivery of goods or literature to the consumer's front door or mailbox.

It includes some intersection of keywords relating to residency requirements, common food consumption, and intermingling of income or production decisions.

A householder is a person in whose name the housing unit is rented or owned. 

A housing unit is a single unit within a larger structure that can be used by an individual or household to eat, sleep, and live. 

A questionnaire that is based on a web site. Potential respondents are invited to participate in the survey (by a banner advert or other message) and then they are given a link to a satellite site where they complete a questionnaire.

humanistic inquiry in marketing research usually would be applied to social units, social processes, or social products in which human beings would serve as the primary data source.

It is an unproven statement that aims to describe a relationship or phenomenon that is relevant to a business.

A hypothesis test examines two mutually exclusive claims about a parameter to determine which is best supported by the sample data. The parameter is usually the mean or proportion of some population variable of importance to the marketer. ... The alternative or research hypothesis (HA) is the opposite of the null.

It is a statistical procedure used to compare a sample mean to a specified value or to compare a pair of sample means.

The code of conduct of ESOMAR and sets out the rights and responsibilities of those involved in marketing and social research.

The group about whom the researcher wants to know more and from whom a sample will be drawn.

lists details such as the name and address of participants in a market research project whereby they can be identified.

Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens.

are alternatives in a question that are not expressed openly. Such alternatives may have lower chance of being selected and therefore the data may be biased.

It is when all respondents are assumed to have the same level of knowledge on a subject. Questions with implicit assumptions can lead to instrument error and/or respondent error.

It is the population as suggested by the sample, ie it is that part of the population of interest that was available for the research. When a convenience sample is used or where there is sampling frame error, the implied population could be significantly different to the population of interest (or the ideal population).

It is a substitute for a missing response that is based on the pattern of other responses from a survey respondent

It is a type of qualitative research involving an unstructured personal interview with a single respondent, conducted by a highly skilled interviewer. The purpose of in-depth interviews is to understand the underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes and feelings of respondents on a particular subject.

It is where participants are asked survey questions face-to-face in their own homes.

a company conducts a study within its own business structure and internal resources.

It is research that is conducted by the staff in a client company (rather than by an agency).

It is where participants are asked survey questions face-to-face in the street.

It is where respondents are unable to answer a particular question. This may be because they have not understood the question, they do not have the information the question requires, they cannot remember the circumstances to which the question refers or they are unable to articulate certain types of responses.

It is a reward given to participants or businesses for taking the time and trouble to co-operate in a marketing research study

It is the proportion of respondents contacted in a survey who qualify for the survey

Income is money what an individual or business receives in exchange for providing labor, producing a good or service, or through investing capital.

are samples that are not linked experimentally and the measurement of one sample has no effect on the others.

It is a variable that exerts some influence on another (dependent) variable. Research experiments usually involve some manipulation of independent variables and measurement of dependent variables to investigate the relationship between them

It is a variable that is determined by dividing one measurement by another, and it is usually expressed as a percentage. Indices can be used to show variations over time, by comparing subsequent measurements of a variable with an initial measurement (an index of 100 indicates no change). Indices can also show the relative incidence of a particular characteristic in two samples, by dividing the percentage of one sample by the other, indices of 120 and over or 80 and below generally indicate above-average and below-average skews respectively.

It is one where the true purpose of a research project is disguised. Indirect approaches are used when revealing the true purpose of the research would bias the responses given by participants.

It is an observation technique where some record of past behaviour is used to deduce what happened during an event, eg looking at packaging usage in a fast food restaurant to understand what flavoured drinks sell the most.

It is a question to research participants that asks them to consider the behaviour of other people instead of their own. The purpose of indirect questions is to avoid bias caused by social group norms and the best light phenomenon.

Inductive research is a bottom-up approach that moves from the specific to the general.

It is the analysis of data to test a specific hypothesis.

It involves the analysis and interpretation of data to describe something about a market.

It is the principle that researchers should try to avoid both uninformed and misinformed participation by subjects in research.

It occurs when a respondent refuses to participate in a survey at the interviewer's initial introductory statement.

It is a type of non-sampling error caused by the survey instrument (or questionnaire) itself, such as unclear wording, asking respondents for information they are unable to supply or the instrument being changed in some way during the course of the research.

It is the ideal sample for a particular research project (which may be different to the resulting sample).

It is the effect of all the factors working together, which is greater than the sum of the separate effects.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy.

Interactive interviewing is a collaborative communication process occurring between researchers and respondents in small group settings.

Pre-test manipulation interaction bias is present when the pre-testing in an experiment heightens participants’ sensitivity and makes them behave in a systematically different way during the experiment that prevents the results being generalised to a population of interest (i.e. it reduces external validity).

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a computer-based technology that enables computer systems to detect voice and touch tones using landlines or mobile phones.

A qualitative market research method where consumers are stopped whilst interacting with a brand – whether that be in a store, shopping centre or online - and then interviewed. The timing of the 'intercept' depends on the research objectives.

It is a type of central location interviewing where respondents are approached (or intercepted) at random in high traffic locations such as grocery stores or shopping malls. The main part of the interview can take place either on the mall floor or in another location (usually nearby).

are types of multivariate analysis techniques that are used where no distinction is made as to which variables are dependent or independent.

It is when variables each influence each other to some degree.

are the numbers of interviews required with participants having several pre-defined characteristics such as age, life-cycle stage and income level.

Internal consistency reliability estimates how much total test scores would vary if slightly different items were used. Researchers usually want to measure constructs rather than particular items. 

Internal database is any collection of business data compiled using the internal networks. Internal databases have data regarding information on market and consumer behavior in an electronic form.

internal marketing is the promotion of a company's vision, goals, culture, and mission statement within the organization. 

are data that have already been generated and/or collected by a business during its normal course of activity.

It is a measure of the accuracy of an experiment in terms of the degree to which changes in the dependent variable can be attributed to manipulations of the independent variable.

It is a measure of variability and it is the range between the upper and lower quartiles (i.e. the middle 50% of a distribution) and it is equal to the difference between the 75th and the 25th percentile.

It is a method of statistical analysis involving tracking a long-term period before and after a point of intervention to assess the intervention's effects.

Taking a given number of units equally selected over the full population of study. The nth number interval is derived by dividing the total number of units by the sample number desired.

Interval estimates aim at estimating a parameter using a range of values rather than a single number. 

It is a scale where equal intervals in the scale correspond to equal changes in the characteristic being measured, eg temperature scales (Celsius/Fahrenheit). Differences between objects can be analysed statistically (which is not possible with nominal or ordinal scales).

It is the exchange of information between an interviewer and a respondent.

The person who is interviewed. No matter what type of survey is being conducted, the person being interviewed is always called the respondent.

It is a term used in a general sense relating to the process of drawing information from a respondent.

It is a distortion of response related to the person questioning informants in research. The interviewer's expectations or opinions may interfere with their objectivity or interviewees may react differently to their personality or social background.

It is when interviewers knowingly do not follow their instructions.

It is a type of non-sampling error caused by mistakes made by the interviewer. These may include influencing the respondent in some way, asking questions in the wrong order, or using slightly different phrasing (or tone of voice) than other interviewers. It can include intentional errors such as cheating and fraudulent data entry.

Written directions instructing how to conduct the interview.

The enterprise or agency that supplies trained interviewers for clients and receives payment for services delivered. The service is responsible for hiring and training of interviewers, executing a client's job exactly as specified, editing, and validating each interviewer's completed assignment.

It is the breakdown of data into individual countries (or cultural units) and analysis within each individual country.

It is a way of ordering questions in a questionnaire where the specific questions are asked before the general questions. The approach can be useful where respondents do not have strong feelings or a general view on a subject.

'Invisible processing' occurs when you obtain personal data from somewhere other than directly from the individual themselves, and you don't provide them with the privacy information required by Article 14.

Involvement devices typically are tokens or stamps that are used with the marketing material. Publisher's Clearing House is a good example employing this marketing theory.

It is a type of non-comparative scale where each choice category has some form of description (as opposed to a semantic differential scale, where only the extreme categories are labelled).

It is a type of non-probability sample where the selection of units is based on the judgment of the researcher.

A jump page may be a pop-up window or animation page directing the Internet user to a product or service.

It is a qualitative research technique that aims to describe how potential consumers perceive products. Participants are presented with three attributes and they are asked to think of ways in which two are similar to each other but different from the third.

key informant refers to the person with whom an interview about a particular organization, social program, problem, or interest group is conducted.

key verifying is a process whereby two individuals input identical data to prepare it for processing and analysis.

It is a method used by interviewers to record answers to open-ended questions where only the important words and phrases are recorded.

The process of punching holes in a card by a machine for data processing.

Keyword research is the process of uncovering the keywords your target market uses when conducting searches.

knowledge management implies with process of organizational marketing is associated with the specific goal of knowledge.

It is a non-parametric goodness-of-fit test that compares the cumulative distribution function for a variable with a specified distribution, based on one sample.

The Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) test is one of many goodness-of-fit tests that assess whether univariate data have a hypothesized continuous probability distribution.

It is a non-parametric statistical test to determine whether two distributions are the same. The test takes into account differences in means, dispersion and skewness.

It is a measure of the relative peakedness or flatness of a distribution curve compared with a normal distribution. A positive Kurtosis value indicates that the distribution is more peaked than a normal distribution. A negative Kurtosis value indicates that the distribution is flatter than a normal distribution.

labor force participation refers to the number of individuals who are available to work in a labor market.

Labour force participation rate is defined as the section of working population in the age group of 16-64 in the economy currently employed or seeking employment. 

It is one that is conducted in an artificial setting (where the internal validity is usually higher than the external validity).

It is a simulated market-place situation for new products where consumers are exposed to advertising and visit an experimental store where they may buy products under controlled conditions. Through follow-up interviews, focus groups and purchase patterns, the market shares for new products can be predicted.

It is a technique for conducting depth interviews where questions progress from product characteristics to user characteristics

An instance when a consumer comes across an online banner ad, then visits the advertised website later because they had seen it earlier. It is only a latent click through if the consumer does not click directly on the banner ad. Also referred to as a "view through".

It is a type of statistical experimental design where the aim is to remove the error associated with variations in two non-interacting external variables in order to understand the effect of each variable in addition to the effect of manipulating an independent variable. Experimental units are allocated in such a way that variations in experimental treatments occur once in each row or column (in a table of treatments).

It is one that suggests an answer by the way in which the question is worded.

Phases of the research project in which respondents will participate.

This is a demand that new software and operating systems can read or convert old data and will work with the new technology.

Used especially by advertising agencies to elicit consumer language for the products in question.

It is the time it takes to ask the questions and record the answers in a survey. This time should include any time required to taste products or review concepts etc. Screening time should be shown separately so that accurate completion rates can be calculated

The maximum probability of rejecting a true null hypothesis (or committing a type I error), equal to one minus the confidence level.

It is a term that originally referred to the attitudes, interests and opinions of research participants, but it can be used to refer to differences in behaviour that relate to social values.

Lifestyle market research is a tool to help understand and create customer and/or consumer profiles. Oftentimes, lifestyle market research gathers information on hobbies, activities, interests, and opinions from respondents

Consumer behaviors that can be attributed to a certain population segment's lifestyle. This includes interests, ownership, and hobbies.

It is a type of categorical, non-comparative scale that determines respondents’ levels of agreement to a series of statements relating to an attitude being measured.

It is a chart where a series of data points are connected by a continuous line.

It is a type of regression analysis between variables that are believed to have a linear relationship.

It is a term used in market research which speaks to how respondents are influenced to perceive or select specific responses based on the order they are shown in the survey.

Rotating answer lists in a survey means the first respondent completing the survey is presented with the first answer list, the second respondent with the alternative, the third with the first answer list again and so on. In this way half of respondents see each version of the answer list.

A list of people with a certain set of demographic information to fulfill a targeted market in marketing research.

A the telephone survey of the public can include only telephone households in its sampling frame. 

It is a review of all available secondary data sources on a particular subject.

Loaded questions are questions written in a way that forces the respondent into an answer that doesn't accurately reflect his or her opinion or situation.

are research projects that aim to identify the best position (usually for a retail outlet).

It is a statistical technique used by marketers to assess the scope of the customer. A preference regression is performed on the survey data.

A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, symbol, or stylized name used to identify a company, organization, product, or brand. 

It contains 26 additional population questions and 20 additional housing questions than what the short form contains.

It is a type of research design where a fixed sample of population units is measured repeatedly.

An observational study that employs continuous or repeated measures to follow particular individuals and observe the same set of variables over a prolonged period.

Mobile commerce, also known as m-commerce or mcommerce, is the use of wireless handheld devices like cellphones and tablets to conduct commercial transactions online, including the purchase and sale of products, online banking, and paying bills. The use of m-commerce activity is on the rise.

Machine-readable data is data (or metadata) in a format that can be easily processed by a computer. 

A macro environment is the condition that exists in the economy as a whole, rather than in a particular sector or region.

It refers to how product, price, place, and promotion—the four Ps of marketing—create demand for goods and services, and thus influence what products or services are produced and sold.

A type of consumer panel where participants have agreed to complete a limited number of mail surveys each year. 

Mail panels can be local or national in scope.

Questionnaires can be mailed out to a sample of the population, enabling the researcher to connect with a wide range of people.

A survey where respondents are asked to complete a questionnaire (unaided) and return it to the sender either by post or e-mail. 

The amount of surveys sent to respondents. Monitor the server capacity when sending out survey invitations.

an experiment has a systematic effect on the main experimental results, regardless of what happens between the measurements.

The man most responsible for maintaining the household. May or may not be the primary wage earner.

A mall intercept interview is a research method in which mall visitors are stopped for conducting an interview.

A type of central location interviewing where respondents are approached (or intercepted) in high traffic locations such as grocery stores or shopping malls. 

The Mann–Whitney U Test is a popular test for comparing two independent samples. It is a nonparametric test, as the analysis is undertaken on the rank order of the scores and so does not require the assumptions of a parametric test. ... The logic of the test can be seen by an example.

Marginal refers to the focus on the cost or benefit of the next unit or individual, for example, the cost to produce one more widget or the profit earned by adding one more worker. 

business or commercial activity; the amount of buying or selling of a particular type of goods.

Market research is the process of determining the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. Market research allows a company to discover the target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in the product or service.

The Market Research Society (MRS) is the world's leading research association where data, insight and evidence matters.

The Australian Market and Social Research Society Limited (AMSRS) is a professional membership body which represents approximately 2,100 market research professionals who are committed to strengthening the standards and awareness of both market and social research in Australia.

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a target market into smaller, more defined categories

Market share is the percent of total sales in an industry generated by a particular company. Market share is calculated by taking the company's sales over the period and dividing it by the total sales of the industry over the same period.

The effects of a new product's advertising, price changes, and more can be measured with controlled variables.

The Market Test is an experiment conducted before the commercialization (launch) of a new product to find out the facts about the product .

It is a tool used by the companies to check the viability of their new product or a marketing campaign before it is being launched in the market on a large scale.

The function that links the consumers, customers, and public to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.

It is preoccupied with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product as a solution to the customer's problem (needs).

A system used to manipulate a collection of data to interpret and explore potential business scenarios in order to make management decisions.

The Marketing Information System refers to the systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, storage and dissemination of the market information, from both the internal and external sources to the marketers on a regular, continuous basis.

It is designed to support marketing decision making.

A marketing mix includes multiple areas of focus as part of a comprehensive marketing plan. The term often refers to a common classification that began as the four Ps: product, price, placement, and promotion.

Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. 

The Marketing Research Association (MRA) was a non-profit, membership trade association, incorporated in New York state.

It refers to a business's overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services.

It is a stochastic model used to model randomly changing systems. It is assumed that future states depend only on the current state, not on the events that occurred before it.

The term matching refers to the procedure of finding for a sample unit other units in the sample that are closest in terms of observable characteristics.

A technique to chart the perceptions and preferences a consumer has regarding a product using a visual representation such as a map or graph.

Changes in experimental subjects that take place during an experiment that may affect their responses to the experimental variables.

error in experimental subjects that take place during an experiment.

The mean is a simple average gained by adding together the sum of all the responses to a question, and dividing them by the number of responses.

It provides a statistic that allows for researchers to make such claims. MSE simply refers to the mean of the squared difference between the predicted parameter and the observed parameter.

Measures of location describe the central tendency of the data. They include the mean, median, and mode.

Measurement is the process of observing and recording the observations that are collected as part of a research effort. 

Measurement error is then the difference between the value of a characteristic provided by the respondent and the true (but unknown) value of that characteristic.

It is a device that assigns numbers to objects, events or people according to a set of rules.

It occurs in experiments when there are changes in the dependent variable that are caused by taking measurements at different times.

Measures of central tendency tell researchers where the center value lies in the distribution of data. It is common to hear people describe measures of central tendency as “the average” score or point in a particular group because it describes what is typical, normal, usual, or representative.

It describes the central tendency of the data. They include the mean, median and mode.

skewness and kurtosis as numerical measures of the shape of data. 

Measures of variability (or dispersion) are those that indicate the spread of a distribution. Examples of measures of variability are: range, interquartile range, variance, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation.

When some form of mechanical device records the behavior of interest, e.g. a people-meter recording who watches what TV programs.

Media is the plural of medium. Magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and billboards are referred to as advertising media.

It defines television audiences.

Research survey that segments the people based on what television programs they watch, radio they listen and magazines they read. 

The research method examines the impact of advertising through various media.

The median is a method of gaining an 'average' from a set of data. First, the data must be arranged in terms of increasing magnitude, and then the middle value is selected.

A recorded account of the exact process and times used to conduct a humanistic inquiry. Biases or distortions need to be especially noted.

A description of the way in which the data is collected for part or all of a research project.

Metric data is what most people mean when they talk about 'numbers', the sorts of numbers we collect when we measure something.१

A metric scale measures quantitative characteristics or variables. The term metric scale summarizes interval scales, ratio scales and absolute scales.

It is the formal definition of a region that consists of a city and surrounding communities that are linked by social and economic factors, as established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Census records of individual respondents stripped of their identifying information.

A microsite is a brand-specific website (or a single web page) that companies use to promote their individual products, events, or campaigns.

The respondent decides not to complete the interview and will cooperate no further.

It refers to the shifting of customers from one segment to the other.

mini group discussion consists of 4-5 respondents and applied foremost for proficient interviews and/or B2B research, to provide the respondent a sufficient opportunity to express their opinions.

Mini groups are similar to a focus group only smaller they can contain between 2 and 5 people. Mini groups are a qualitative research method. They may be used when the topic area is difficult and may need to be explained to respondents more clearly.

Employing various research techniques for one research project. This can be a time consuming and costly technique.

A focus group comprised of male and female members.

The opportunity that one has to change residence by means of geographic movement.

It is a measure of central tendency that identifies the most frequently occurring value in a set of values.

Models explain how things work. Any explanation of how a market works is, by definition, a model. We cannot estimate anything without models.

Where a group of pre-recruited research participants are all in email contact with a facilitator and the facilitator emails questions to them on a particular subject. 

It is someone who leads (but does not influence the outcome of) group discussions and/or in-depth interviews.

It is a document created to conduct a research session. The content of a guide will vary depending on the type of session it's made for. Some are scripts with step-by-step instructions, while others consist of topics and questions.

A monadic test is where you show research participants one product or concept in isolation.

A study or part of a study in which the respondent evaluates only one stimulus on its own merits, rather than comparing it to other test stimuli. The stimulus can be a product, concept, advertisement, etc.

It is a quality control measure that may involve observing, auditing and checking the interviewing to ensure that the required procedures are followed and to give feedback and instruction to the interviewers. Monitoring is one means of validating or giving assurance that. data is collected from qualified respondents who are interviewed under prescribed conditions. Monitoring can be done in person for face-to-face interviews or by phone for telephone interviews.

A type of categorical, non-comparative scale that is similar to a semantic differential scale except that instead of having two opposing adjectives, there is only one adjective in between a sequence of positive and negative categories.

A Mood Board is a collage of images that managers use to illustrate an idea, an inspiration of style. 

Mortality refers to death as a study endpoint or outcome.

It occurs in experiments when changes in the dependent variable are caused by experimental units no longer being part of the experiment.

It is a term used to refer to a selection of qualitative research methods that were designed to probe consumers' minds in order to discover the subconscious or latent reasons and goals underlying everyday consumption and purchasing behaviors.

A moving average is used to 'smooth' the data and remove the variations produced by seasons, trade cycles and random variations. 

Marketing Research Core Body Knowledge.

It is focused on major industry trends and topics. Multiple companies fund, influence, focus, and receive the research results, enabling them to obtain business-critical information at a fraction of the cost of conducting the study on their own

Respondents are allowed to give a number of responses to one question.

It is a statistical technique that allows researchers to find and explore underlying themes, or dimensions, in order to explain similarities or dissimilarities (i.e. distances) between investigated datasets.

It is designed to measure the respondent's attitude towards more than one attribute related to the stimulus object. It is a rating scale comprising of multiple items, where each item is a single question or a statement that needs to be evaluated.

It is defined as a sampling method that divides the population into groups (or clusters) for conducting research.

Forms of statistical analysis that are used where there are two or more dependent variables to be analyzed simultaneously.

It is a statistical phenomenon in multiple linear regression analysis where two (or more) independent or predictor variables are highly correlated with each other, or intercorrelated.

It is an alternative to factor analysis. It can detect meaningful underlying dimensions, allowing the researcher to explain observed similarities or dissimilarities between the investigated objects.

When more than one answer is acceptable for the same question.

Multiple choice questions are fundamental survey questions which provide respondents with multiple answer options. 

A type of research design where two or more samples are drawn from a population of interest, each sample being only drawn once.

More than one response is recorded per question for each respondent.

Regression analysis is a common technique in market research that helps the analyst understand the relationship of independent variables to a dependent variable. More specifically it focuses on how the dependent variable changes in relation to changes in independent variables.

The respondents are expected to select one or more than one option from the multiple answer options.

A type of quasi-experimental design where a series of periodic measurements is taken from two groups of test units (an experimental group and a control).

The experimental group is exposed to treatment and then another series of periodic measurements is taken from both groups.

Multivariate' means 'many variables' and in the context of marketing it usually means analysing multiple variables from customer records to get a deeper understanding of the customer base.

when only one response option can be true for a single respondent.

Categories are mutually exclusive when objects can be placed into one category and no other.

It is a technique commonly used by retailers, market research and consumer watchdogs to measure the quality of customer service in bricks-and-mortar environments and to collect information about products and service delivery.

It is a method used by marketing research companies and organizations that wish to measure the quality of sales and service, job performance, regulatory compliance, or to gather specific information about a market or competitors, including products and services.

is the accepted abbreviation to indicate that the respondent is not at home, there is no answer to the doorbell or the telephone.

is the accepted abbreviation to indicate no response to a question because the respondent refused to reply, the question did not apply or it was skipped for some reason.

are the characteristics of the country where a research project is being conducted.

It is the observation of behaviour in a natural setting.

A nested sample is a series of stages in which people from each new sample are selected from a prior segment of sample.

The network effect is a phenomenon whereby increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service. The Internet is an example of the network effect.

A neural network is a collection of interconnected simple processing elements. Every connection in a neural network has a weight attached to it.

The field of neuromarketing—sometimes known as consumer neuroscience—studies the brain to predict and potentially even manipulate consumer behavior and decision making.

is usually the mean of all responses to a question and it can be used as a substitute for a missing response.

Niche marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on a unique target market.

The Nixie Rate measures the amount of survey invitations that are returned to the sender because the respondent's address is incorrect.

A focus group participant who agrees to come to a session and is confirmed the night before, but nonetheless does not show up for the session. Focus group facilities compensate for no-shows by overrecruiting two to four people for each focus group.

Anything that interferes with the measurement of a marketing research variable. For example, competitive activity creates "noise" in the marketplace that makes it difficult for a manufacturer to understand the results of his own marketing actions.

is a type of face-to-face group discussion that is designed to minimise the group effect (where participants moderate their opinions and go along with a majority view). Participants are asked to consider a subject and then discuss it with one other member (or a small number of members) of the group before presenting it to the whole group

Nominal grouping is a highly structured technique designed to keep personal interaction at a minimum level during the process of new idea generation while maximizing the individual contribution of each respondent.

is a scale where the numbers act only as data labels (eg 0=male, 1=female or a social security number). The only analysis that can be performed is to observe how frequently each of the scale members occurs in the survey.

Answer choices or answer scales with more positive answer choices than negative answer choices, or vice versa.

A measurement made in isolation without reference to other items, things, or people. The term Monadic has similar a meaning.

is one where each object is measured independently of the other objects in the same test and absolute results are obtained.

A household made up of a person living alone or living with nonrelatives, as defined by the Census Bureau.

is a correlation measure for two non-metric variables that relies on rankings to compute the correlation.

is data that cannot be analysed statistically, such as that from a nominal or ordinal scale

is a perceptual mapping technique that is based on an analysis of non-metric data such as rank ordering.

is a test that involves non-metric data (ie data that comes from nominal or ordinal scales).

is a sample in which the selection of units is based on factors other than random chance, eg convenience, prior experience or the judgement of the researcher. Examples of non-probability samples are: convenience, judgmental, quota and snowball.

Events and occurrences with unequal probabilities of occurrence. In contrast, random events and occurrences have equal probabilities of occurrence.

A sample in which the selection of units is based on factors other than random chance, e.g. convenience, prior experience, or the judgement of the researcher.

Nonresponse refers to the people or households who are sampled but from whom data are not gathered, or to other elements (e.g. cars coming off an assembly line; books in a library) that are being sampled but for which data are not gathered.

is the variation between the true mean values of the original sample list (people who are sent survey invites) and the true mean values of the net sample (actual respondents).

It is a type of non-sampling error caused by some sub-groups of the sample responding less than the rest of the sample.

It is any error caused by factors other than sampling error. Examples of non-sampling error are: selection bias. population mis-specification error, sampling frame error, processing error, respondent error, non-response error, instrument error, interviewer error and surrogate error.

It is the standardised or hypothesised value against which a sample statistic is compared.

It is a symmetrical bell-shaped statistical distribution where the mean, the median and the mode all have the same value.

are established baselines to compare your data against. It allows you to determine if the results are above or below par.

It is the accepted abbreviation to indicate that the respondent is not at home, there is no answer to the doorbell or the telephone.

Process of choosing every "nth" name as an interval of "N" on a list, and using those subjects throughout the study. Also called an interval.

It is a statement to be tested that is usually expressed in a negative (or null) way and suggests that no difference or effect is expected. If the statement is disproved, then the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted.

A database comprised of raw survey data over a wide range of topics that has not yet been analyzed.

It is a type of scale where the intervals are represented by numbers (as opposed to pictures or words).

 is a statement of purpose that outlines a specific result that a person aims to achieve within a specific time frame and with available resources.

Observation is a market research technique in which highly trained researchers generally watch how people or consumers behave and interact in the market under natural conditions.

refers to changes in the behaviour or events under study that are caused by the observation process itself. Personal observation is usually more likely to have observation bias than mechanical observation.

 It is designed to give precisely detailed and actual information on what consumers do as they interact in a given market niche.

An observation room, oftentimes referred to as a viewing room, is used in a focus group facility for purposes of qualitative market research. Observation rooms allow researchers and clients to sit and watch focus groups or in-depth interviews through a one-way mirror.

It is a research study where data is collected by watching consumer behaviour or events taking place.

in a cross-tabulation is the number of objects identified by research (which may be different to the expected value).

It is the impression created, either explicitly or implicitly, of the types of occasion for which a brand is perceived to be most appropriate

Census definitions covering whether or not a housing unit is lived in or occupied.

An omnibus survey is a method of quantitative marketing research where data on a wide variety of subjects is collected during the same interview. An omnibus survey generally uses a stratified sample and can be conducted either by mail, telephone, or Internet.

is a periodic study that asks questions on a number of unrelated subjects. The results may be completely or partially syndicated among clients.

An omnibus survey is a method of quantitative marketing research where data on a wide variety of subjects is collected during the same interview.

Research participants are exposed to some advertising in a natural setting, such as their own homes.

The impact of television and radio measured after the program has gone on the air.

It is a type of pre-experimental design where a single group of test units is measured, exposed to an experimental treatment and then measured again.

A one-group pretest-posttest design is a quasi- experimental research design in which the same dependent variable is measured in one group of participants before (pretest) and after (posttest) a treatment is administered.

A qualitative interview involving only a moderator and a single respondent.

The one-on-one interview serves as a complement to the focus group and offers an interesting analytical methodology for collecting qualitative data about the purchasing experience and for better understanding what motivates consumers.

A type of qualitative research involving an unstructured personal interview with a single respondent, conducted by a highly skilled interviewer. The purpose of in-depth interviews is to understand the underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings of respondents on a particular subject.

It is a type of pre-experimental design where a single group of test units is exposed to an experimental treatment and a single measurement is taken afterwards

It is a form of a leading question that presents only one aspect of an issue being considered by respondents

It is a sampling procedure that involves collecting data from all available units in selected sub-groups of a population of interest.

It is a test where the null hypothesis is expressed directionally, e.g. the proportion having a characteristic is more than x%. One-tailed tests are more popular than two-tailed tests because the directional result makes the findings more actionable.

A one-way table is the tabular equivalent of a bar chart. Like a bar chart, a one-way table displays categorical data in the form of frequency counts and/or relative frequencies . Below, the bar chart and the one-way table display the same data.

It is a sheet of glass which, when viewed from one side, appears to be a normal mirror and when viewed from the other side, is transparent. It is used in Marketing Research to observe respondents without their being constantly reminded that they are being watched, although they have to be advised by the researcher that they are being observed. A one-way mirror is often used in focus group discussions.

is where a number of pre-recruited research participants are in simultaneous electronic contact (via a PC) and they are discussing a particular subject. The discussion is guided by a moderator and the participants are unable to see each other, therefore no visual signals can be communicated although anonymity can be assured

The tracking of a consumer's online activities over time – including the searches the consumer has conducted, the Web pages visited, and the content viewed – in order to .

are questions that do not have a set of anticipated responses listed on the questionnaires. The interviewer records the respondent's verbatim response. When the survey is interviewer-administered, the respondent is encouraged to respond completely and freely with the use of probing and clarifying techniques. These questions may also be self-administered.

An instance where people know they are being studied by observers.

An organization promoting open standards in market research.

Open-ended questions are free-form survey questions that allow respondents to answer in open text format so that they can answer based on their complete knowledge, feeling, and understanding.

are the questions at the beginning of a questionnaire and they should be interesting, simple and non-threatening to gain the confidence and co-operation of respondents.

An operational definition is how we (the. researcher) decide to measure our the variables.

is the verbal expression of an attitude and is not directly verifiable by research data

It is a study that collects views of the public on matters of broad interest.

refers to an advertising campaign and the number of exposures or opportunities which a particular audience has to see a specific advert.

Opt-in marketing is a form of permission marketing in which there is a formal opt-in process for receiving follow-up communication, offers, etc.

refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information.

is the technology used to distinguish printed or handwritten text characters within digital images of physical documents like scanned paper documents.

Optical scanners and digitizers are non-contact metrology systems which and which makes use of white light or laser-based scanning technique. 

is the allocation of sample units to strata so as to maximise the statistical efficiency of the survey.

Optimal allocation is a procedure for dividing the sample among the strata in a stratified sample survey. ... A sample survey collects data from a population in order to estimate population characteristics.

occurs when respondents tend to favour objects because of their position in a list or sequence. The objects at the beginning and at the end of a list can be remembered more than those occurring in the middle. Usual practice is to rotate a list to eliminate this type of bias.

is a scale where the numbers assigned represent relative amounts of the characteristic being measured, eg first or second in a ranking. The distances between intervals in an ordinal scale are usually not equal - ie the difference between the values of first and second is not the same as the difference between third and fourth in a ranking.

A type of categorical, non-comparative scale with two opposing adjectives separated by a sequence of unlabelled categories, e.g. Good 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Poor.

The respondent decides not to complete the interview and will cooperate no further. Also referred to as outed.

are extremely small or extremely large values in a set, compared with the mean of all values in the set.

An outlier, as the term suggests, means an observation in a sample lying outside of the "bulk" of the sample data. ... The outliers that have the most impact come from sample units that have a large sample value coupled with a large sampling weight.

Process of relocating from a particular location in a given country to a different area within that same country.

It is a phenomenon where research participants make claims that are not factually correct. There are many reasons for this behaviour including; best light phenomenon and social group norms.

The act of inviting more people to participate in a focus group than the study actually allows compensating for people who are planning on attending but do not.

It is a test that measures consumer reactions to a package or label.

Packaging testing gives your target audience several packaging designs and asks them to provide feedback on each one.

The paired comparison technique is a research design that yields interval-level scaled scores that are created from ratings made by each respondent for all possible pairs of items under consideration.

is a study or part of a study in which respondents compare two or more test stimuli (e.g. products, concepts or labels etc) according to some criterion such as preference.

is a type of comparative scale where respondents are presented with two alternatives and they are asked to choose which they prefer (according to a criterion).

is defined as one researcher interviewing two people together.

Depth interviews that are conducted with two respondents simultaneously. This technique is often employed with a child that is interviewed with a friend to lessen the apprehension of the interview situation.

is a treatment of survey data where only the completed questions are analysed, ie partially complete responses are not excluded from the analysis.

is the collection of data from different countries (or cultural units) and analysis of the aggregated data.

is defined as a group of research participants, selected for market research studies.

is a form of systematic error that occurs when panel participants change their behaviour (that is being observed) as a result of being part of the panel.

A general term used to describe a pre-selected group of homogeneous people used more than once over a period of time to collect information.

it identifies a brands strengths & weaknesses – guiding strategic planning, brand activation & growth.  Pantry Check is the type of research where our field researchers enter a respondent’s home and take an inventory of all the products in house that the respondent has claimed to be present at that time.

The Pen-and-Paper Personal Interview (PAPI) method describes any survey where the initial dataset is collected using pen-and-paper rather than electronic devices. 

It contains information about the primary data collection process (e.g. survey duration, interim status of a case, navigational errors in a survey questionnaire). Paradata can provide a means of additional control over or understanding of the quality of the primary data (the responses to the survey questions).

It is a summary measure used to describe a group of people or objects that is based on data from all units in the group.

It is a test that involves metric data (ie data from interval or ratio scales that can be analysed statistically).

Measurements of the original population distribution.

A quantitative guide to answering what's you part-worth comes from conjoint analysis, which tells firms how much consumers are willing to spend for each feature they're considering adding to their brand.

It is a statistic that is calculated to measure the association between two variables after controlling (or adjusting) for the effects of one or more additional variables.

It is a general term covering anyone who is involved in a research study and not just someone who is interviewed, eg in an observation study or a group discussion.

it's a methodology which often takes place without the “participants” awareness and as the name suggests, without them having to actively do anything towards the research.

Some researchers may exclude respondents that have participated in research studies of the same topic or that have participated in research studies during a particular time frame.

A statistic that is calculated to determine whether a linear relationship exists between two metric variables and it takes values between -1 and +1 (depending on the degree of the relationship).

The Pearson coefficient is a type of correlation coefficient that represents the relationship between two variables that are measured on the same interval or ratio scale. The Pearson coefficient is a measure of the strength of the association between two continuous variables.

It is the proportion (usually expressed as a percentage) of a population of interest that has accepted a product or an idea in some way.

Penetration analysis requires identifying the product or service focus of the market research, which establishes the scope of the research. 

It is an electronic device attached to a TV set that monitors which programmes are watched by whom.

The ability to document a participant’s reading material as well as their eye reaction at the same time by using a machine.

Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.

A percentile is a statistic that gives the relative standing of a numerical data point when compared to all other data points in a distribution.

Perceptual mapping is a visual representation of where a brand, product, or service stands among competitors.

It is a cyclical variation in a characteristic being measured. Periodicity can lead to a bias in systematic sampling when the period of the cycle coincides with the sampling interval being used.

In marketing research, this is the process of only contacting people who have previously agreed to be contacted. This group could include people who have not disagreed to be contacted.

Personal Income refers to an individual's total earnings from wages, investment enterprises, and other ventures. It is the sum of all the incomes received by all the individuals or households during a given period.

the technique for gathering information through face-to-face contact with individuals.

It is when human beings record the behaviour of interest or events taking place.

is a projective technique where participants are asked to ascribe “personality-type” traits or characteristics to an object or idea.

is any data that could potentially be used to identify a particular person.

is a copy testing measure intended to indicate the motivating ability of an ad, by subtracting the proportion of respondents choosing the test brand prior to ad exposure (or in an unexposed control group) from the proportion choosing it after exposure. It is the net shift in brand choice from unexposed to exposed.

PGS stands for Primary Grocery Shopper. 

The respondent is contacted by phone initially and then sent a lengthy questionnaire through the mail. 

A study used where respondents are given pictures of several types of people and are then asked to associate people with the products or services that they might use.

Maintaining the consistency of extraneous variables throughout a study so as to prevent these variables from affecting the outcome.

It is a type of graph that uses pictures or symbols to display the data

It is a type of scale where the intervals are represented by a sequence of pictures or diagrams, eg smiling faces (as opposed to numbers or words).

It is research in which multiple clients share the cost of conducting research.

It is used in segmentation product usage, and attitudinal, motivational, and other types of market research studies.

Pilot testing is a rehearsal of your research study, allowing you to test your research approach with a small number of test participants before you conduct your main study.

A study where a participant is given a product to use and test in a PMSA (primary metropolitan statistical area).

a product placement test asks consumers to try products in their own homes.

It is a type of non-probability sample where the sample is chosen because it appears plausible that sample units are representative of the population of interest, although there is no evidence to support this assumption.

This process adds one to a randomly selected phone number from a directory. This includes unlisted numbers in the sample.

A point estimator is a statistic used to estimate the value of an unknown parameter of a population. It uses sample data when calculating a single statistic that will be the best estimate of the unknown parameter of the population.

A point of purchase (POP) is a term used by marketers and retailers when planning the placement of consumer products, such as product displays strategically placed in a grocery store aisle or advertised in a weekly flyer.

A point of sale (POS) is a place where a customer executes the payment for goods or services and where sales taxes may become payable.

Used by government agencies, officials, candidates, and political parties to determine the opinion of the electorates.

A poll is a survey gathering opinions from the respondents. Polls are often used during political elections to gauge voter sentiment about one candidate over the other.

Pop-up retail is a retail store (a "pop-up shop") that is opened temporarily to take advantage of a faddish trend or seasonal demand.

It is a questionnaire that appears on the screen of a web site visitor. The term can also be used to refer to an invitation to participate in a survey. Pop-up surveys are usually triggered by a mechanism of some form, eg after a pre-defined period of time, or after so many visitors to a web page.

A population, or universe, is the entire set of people data or things that is the subject of exploration.

The peak of a population distribution that contains equal amounts distributed both above and below it.

The Population Distribution is a form of a probability distribution that measures the frequency with which the items or variables that make up the population are drawn or expected to be drawn for a given research study.

It is a type of non-sampling error caused by incorrectly defining the population of interest for a survey and either excluding or including certain types of respondents, eg limiting a survey to previous consumers of a product (and not asking the views of those who have not tried it).

It is the group about whom the researcher wants to know more and from whom a sample will be drawn.

The population pyramid represents the breakdown of the population by gender and age at a given point in time.

A population specification error occurs when researchers don't know precisely who to survey.

The Standard Deviation of this distribution of sample means is the Standard Error of each individual sample mean.

A web interface for users to login and access information pertaining to their accounts. Services offered in portals often include news, links, email, and entertainment possibilities.

It caused by respondents' tendency to opt. for alternatives in certain positions (e.g., the first few mentioned) regardless of their. content. Researchers seem to have overlooked this conclusion, possibly because they.

Positioning refers to the ability to influence consumer perception. Competitive advantages allow a company to achieve regarding a brand or product relative to competitors. 

Post hoc segmentation utilizes information collected in consumer surveys or other sources, such as customer transaction records, to classify consumers into groups that are relatively homogenous and distinct from one another.

It is an evaluation of advertising after it has been run in the media.

It is a type of true experimental design where test units are randomly allocated to an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group is exposed to a treatment and both groups are measured afterwards.

A postal survey is a quantitative data collection method in which paper questionnaires are sent by post to potential participants, the paper questionnaires are completed by the participants themselves (i.e. self-administered), and returned by post to the survey organisation. 

Poverty means that the income level from employment is so low that basic human needs can't be met.

It is the probability that a hypothesis testing procedure will lead to a rejection of a null hypothesis that is false. The power is one minus the probability of committing a Type II error, i.e. 1-â.

Precoded questions refer to survey items for which response categories may be identified and defined exhaustively, or very nearly so, prior to data collection activities.

are numbers printed on a questionnaire for data entry and tabulation purposes. For closed-ended questions, the numbers can be circled as the answer.

It is the assignment of codes (coding) before the fieldwork of a survey is carried out. Predictive Validity is the degree to which a measured marketing phenomenon at one point in time is able to predict another marketing phenomenon at a future point in time.

It is an experimental design where randomization procedures are not used to control for external variables. Examples of pre-experimental designs are: one-shot case study, one group pre-test/post-test, and a static group

When the pre-testing in an experiment has a systematic effect on the main experimental results, regardless of what happens between the measurements.

Consumers or business professionals are contacted either by telephone, mail, or in person and invited to participate in a study scheduled for a future date and time, if qualified.

An interview located at a convenient location in which participants that have been contacted and qualified prior to the interview go.

are consumers or business professionals who are contacted (by telephone, mail or in person etc) and invited to participate in a research study scheduled for a future date and time, provided they qualify. People who agree and are eligible are often compensated for their participation in the research.

A sample is defined as a smaller set of data that a researcher chooses or selects from a larger population by using a pre-defined selection method. 

is a young person aged around 8/9 to 12, who does not consider themselves to be a child, but they are not yet a teenager.

can be used to refer to two different activities. A pre-test is where a questionnaire is tested on a (statistically) small sample of respondents before a full-scale study, in order to identify any problems such as unclear wording or the questionnaire taking too long to administer.

is a type of true experimental design where test units are randomly allocated to an experimental group and a control group. Both groups are measured before and after the experimental group is exposed to a treatment.

is present when the pre-testing in an experiment heightens participants’ sensitivity and makes them behave in a systematically different way during the experiment that prevents the results being generalised to a population of interest (ie it reduces external validity).

is when the questionnaire is tried on a (statistically) small group of respondents to identify any unforeseen problems such as the wording or flow of the questions.

is when the pre-testing in an experiment has a systematic effect on the main experimental results, regardless of what happens between the measurements.

The result of a study conducted to obtain a snapshot or reading of current conditions prior to some change in market conditions or the introduction of some test conditions.

Relates to accuracy in sampling and consistency in repeated sampling. If data seems to be widely scattered and would be difficult to duplicate, there would be a lack of precision due to the high standard error.

is a measure of the spread of a confidence interval. The narrower the interval, the higher the level of precision

A predictive dialer is an outbound calling system that automatically dials from a list of telephone numbers, much like autodialers or robot dialers.

The predictive function of marketing research allows data to be used to predict or forecast the results of a marketing decision or consumer action.

Predictive validity is the extent to which the test score for IQ predicts how well researchers conduct market research.

The predictor variable provides information on an associated dependent variable regarding a particular outcome.

Preference is when you choose a specific company's product or service when you have other, equally priced and available options.

Behavioral Targeting (also known as preference marketing, behavioral  advertising, behavioral marketing, or online profiling) is defined by the  FTC as “the tracking of a consumer’s online activities over time –  including the searches the consumer has conducted, the Web pages  visited, and the content viewed – in order to deliver advertising  targeted to the individual consumer’s interests.”

It is a test where research participants are asked to compare a number of products or services and express their preferences.I

The gathering and studying of data relating to consumer preferences, purchasing power, etc., especially prior to introducing a product.

It is a desktop- or cloud-based application that allows the user to present information to an audience using a sequence of multimedia formats, such as images, video, audio and text.

It is research that aims to determine how demand for a product or service will vary with changes in price.

are data that are collected specifically for a current research project.

A PMSA con- sists of a large urbanized county or a cluster of counties (cities and towns in New England) that demonstrate strong internal economic and social links in addition to close ties with the central core of the larger area.

It is the person responsible for 50% or more of the household grocery purchases.

Primary research is research you conduct yourself (or hire someone to do for you.) It involves going directly to a source – usually customers and prospective customers in your target market – to ask questions and gather information.

Primary sampling unit refers to Sampling units that are selected in the first (primary) stage of a multi-stage sample ultimately aimed at selecting individual elements.

A privacy policy is a statement or legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data.

The probability density function (PDF) is a statistical expression that defines a probability distribution (the likelihood of an outcome) for a discrete random variable (e.g., a stock or ETF) as opposed to a continuous random variable.

A probability distribution is a statistical function that describes all the possible values and likelihoods that a random variable can take within a given range.

The numerical value representing the likelihood of an event occurring. The value will be between one and zero, with one occurring every time and zero never occurring. 

The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, 0 indicates the impossibility of the event and 1 indicates certainty. 

It is an approach used in cluster sampling where the clusters have widely differing numbers of units in them. Clusters are selected with a probability proportional to the number of units in them. The units within each selected cluster are then sampled with a probability inversely proportional to the number of units so that the probability of selecting each unit from the selected clusters is equal

It is a sample where all units in the population of interest have a known and non-zero chance of being selected. Examples of probability samples are simple random, Systematic, Stratified and Cluster.

It is the asking of additional questions to encourage a respondent to enlarge on a particular answer or opinion so that their answer can be further understood by the researcher.

The probit model is a statistical probability model with two categories in the dependent variable.

It is a type of non-sampling error caused during the processing of the data. Examples include the incorrect entry of data and incorrect assignment of values.

A group of products that offer similar benefits can be referred to as product categories.

A pretest of a particular product with a consumer group before the product is placed in the market.

It is the impression created about the characteristics of a product or service. These may be perceived or real attributes and they can be conveyed through communications, packaging or personal experience.

It is a statistic that is calculated to determine whether a linear relationship exists between two metric variables and it takes values between -1 and +1 (depending on the degree of the relationship). A negative value indicates that the variables move in opposite directions and a positive value indicates that they move in the same direction.

Retail and wholesale data that a company collects, packages, and sells to many firms.

Product placement is the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non- commercial settings, that is, a product plug generated via the fusion of advertising and entertainment.

is referring to two types of tests: a home-use test, where participants evaluate products in their own homes or in a natural usage context. It can also refer to a test where products are placed on retail shelves to observe the rate of sale.

Product Positioning Research is carried out to understand the position of a product or a brand in comparison to a competitor can also be used to measure perceptions of a brand or product compared to a competitor, this ensures they can be effectively positioned in a target market.

is used to measure the impact of price changes on demand of a product and to determine the optimal price for new products.

Tests designed to determine how target consumers would react to early editions of new products.

The Professional Researcher Certification program (PRC) is designed to recognize the qualifications and expertise of marketing and opinion research professionals. 

is one who regularly attends group discussions, whose views may well not be typical of the intended respondents.

is a general term that covers the description of a population of interest (or a sub-group) according to certain characteristics. For example a demographic profile describes consumers in terms of their age, gender, life-cycle stage and occupation.

is a method of providing detailed information about a target market, and helping businesses to gain an in-depth insight into their customers, so they understand their market much better.

Programmatic research is defined by an over-arching project research theme that focuses on a key educational issue, problem, phenomena or outcome, along with a number of themes – specific research studies that address important aspects or components of the issue, problem, phenomena or outcome.

It is a continuous process of collecting and analyzing information about the market, products, customers, as well as competitors in order to determine which steps can lead to the success of the organization.

The Market Research Project Director is responsible for the overall execution of the fieldwork surrounding a research initiative.

Projectability addresses whether the result of your study means anything beyond the people who participated in the research.

is the amount of revenue a company expects to earn at some point in the future.

Projective techniques are indirect methods used in qualitative research. These techniques allow researchers to tap into consumers' deep motivations, beliefs, attitudes and values.

are a form of disguised questioning that encourage participants to attribute their feelings, beliefs or motivations to another person, object or situation. Examples of projective techniques are word association, sentence completion and thematic apperception tests.

Projective techniques allow respondents to project their subjective or true opinions and beliefs onto other people or even objects. 

is any material that is shown to participants in research projects.

is the percentage of respondents who claim to have seen something (eg a brand or an advert) after having been shown some form of stimulus material.

is where respondents are made aware of the possible answers to questions by an interviewer either reading them out or showing some material during the research.

A study that is sampled with a proportion that is maintained between the sample and the size of the stratum and the size of the stratum compared to the size of the population.

Proportional sampling is a method of sampling in which the investigator divides a finite population into subpopulations and then applies random sampling techniques to each subpopulation.

is a type of probability sample where the probability of a unit being selected from a stratum is proportional to the number of units in the stratum.

is an outline (usually in writing) of how marketing research data could be collected and used to solve a specific problem. Proposals are normally written by research suppliers and they usually are divided into the following sections: background, objectives, methodology, costing and timings.

Proprietary Research is defined as that for which users request confidentiality of proposal, data and results for a certain period of time.

are research techniques that are considered to be the intellectual property of a research supplier.

A prototype is a representation of a product idea, whether it is a simple model you put together yourself, a 3D print out or a highly refined version produced by a prototyping firm. Several prototypes are likely to be built, assessed and tested before a product comes to market.

is research that is carried out for reasons other than to reduce the risk in a resource-allocation decision.

is a projective technique where participants are asked to attach abstract notions such as colours, shapes or symbols to objects.

are quantified psychological profiles of individuals, based on their attitudes and behaviour.

is a device used to measure the dilation of a participant’s pupil in response to a visual stimulus.

A way of measuring a participant's intention to buy a particular product.

A way of measuring a participant's intention to buy a particular product.

are a measure of respondents’ attitudes towards buying a particular product or service.

A group of selected research participants who have agreed to provide pre-designated information at regular specified intervals over an extended period of time. 

The Purpose of Market Research is to Satisfy Customers In essence, it could be argued that customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of market research. Satisfied customers are happy ones because their needs have been met.

Purposive sampling is an intentional selection of informants based on their ability to elucidate a specific theme, concept, or phenomenon.

A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters' views under the guise of conducting an opinion poll.

is a type of comparative scale where respondents are asked to sort between 60- 90 objects (usually) into piles according to some criteria. It is a useful technique for sorting relatively large numbers of objects quite quickly.

is the systematic study of participant viewpoints. 

The distance between the first and third sample quartiles. A formal Quality Assurance Department is essential to the consistent accuracy of research surveys.

Qualitative Research Consultants Association

is where a respondent is eligible to participate in the research study, but for some reason refuses or is unable to complete the study.

Respondents who have knowledge or experience of the subject matter are considered to be qualified survey respondents.

Qualifying Market Research Questions, which also might be known as screening questions, are used in market research to identify a potential respondent that can proceed with the research interview or survey.

Research conducted that cannot be quantified or analyzed quantitatively. Qualitative data requires subjective analysis as it is not collected empirically. Focus groups, interviews, and open-ended questions are all forms of qualitative research.

The individual responsible for greeting the focus participants as they arrive at the facility and for preparing the room. 

Qualitative research is about finding out not just what people think, but why they think it. It's about getting people to talk about their opinions so you can understand their motivations and feelings. Face-to-face interviews and group discussions are the best way to get this kind of in-depth feedback.

It involves the use of unstructured exploratory techniques (such as group discussions and in-depth interviews) that are based on statistically small samples in order to understand a problem further.

to classify data with respect to certain characteristics and make decisions about which elements are most similar and most different.

refers to a set of procedures to ensure that interviewers follow the instructions provided by the sampling plan

involves the collection of (statistically) large samples of quantitative data and usually some form of statistical analysis. Quantitative research is often used to substantiate the findings from qualitative research.

A result that cannot be quantified but rather belongs to a category or classification. Marital status, sex, and occupation are examples.

A quartile is a statistical term that describes a division of observations into four defined intervals based on the values of the data and how they compare to the entire set of observations.

It is a type of experimental design that applies some but not all of the procedures of a true experiment and lacks full experimental control. Examples of quasi-experimental designs are time series and multiple time series.

A query is a question or phrase used to gain and validate information. Digital marketing uses a query to refer to the string of words entered into a search engine's search box.

a structured technique for collecting data consisting of a series of questions. Questionnaires can be self-completion or administered by an interviewer, they can be completed orally or in writing.

is the process of asking questions and recording the answers. A self-administered questionnaire is completed by the respondent and not administered by an interviewer.

are a set of four values that divide the total frequency into five equal parts.

is the total number of interviews to be completed by a data collection company. Quotas may also be defined by market, by product, by interviewer or by rotation etc.

is a type of non-probability sample where the required numbers of units with particular characteristics are specified.

is a form used to track completed interviews in a study. It is normally used by the supervisor.

race is uncritically addressed in academic marketing research.

is a part of the sampling technique in which each sample has an equal probability of being chosen.

is a method of reducing sampling frame error and involves the use of randomly generated numbers for a telephone survey, instead of relying on telephone directories or other lists of numbers that may exclude certain types of consumers.

is an error that affects measurements in an unpredictable way due to random chance changes or differences.

A sample chosen randomly is meant to be an unbiased representation of the total population.

is a part of the sampling technique in which each sample has an equal probability of being chosen.

is the error caused by a particular sample not being representative of the population of interest due to random variation.

A random variable is a variable whose value is unknown or a function that assigns values to each of an experiment's outcomes.

involves the use of random chance to assign experimental units to different treatments.

is a type of statistical experimental design where units are blocked (or grouped) on the basis of one external variable to ensure that the experimental and control group are matched on that variable.

randomization is the process of choosing subjects at random to be part of all groups to include all characteristics in each group.

is a measure of variability that is the difference between the largest and the smallest value in a set of values.

is a type of comparative scale where respondents are presented with a set of objects and they are asked to rank them first, second, third etc according to a criterion. Each rank is only used once.

is defined as a survey question type, that allows respondents to rearrange and rank multiple-choice options in a specific order.

A ranking scale is a close-ended scale that allows respondents to evaluate multiple row items in relation to one column item or a question in a ranking survey and then rank the row items. It is the scale used by market researchers to ask ranking questions.

Ranking is a question response format used when a researcher is interested in establishing some type of priority among a set of objects, whether they be policies, attributes, organizations, individuals, or some other topic or property of interest.

Rapport refers to the degree of comfort in the interactions between the researcher and research participants. For participant observation, rapport refers to the quality of the relationships that the researcher makes at the field-site.

is defined as the percent of people in a sample.

is a procedure used to evaluate a concept, product, advertisement etc where respondents are asked to select one response from a scale to indicate the degree of their opinion.

Rating scale is defined as a closed-ended survey question used to represent respondent feedback in a comparative form for specific particular features/products/services.

Ratio Data is defined as quantitative data, having the same properties as interval data, with an equal and definitive ratio between each data and absolute “zero” being treated as a point of origin. In other words, there can be no negative numerical value in ratio data.

is a type of interval scale with a zero point, which represents an absence of the characteristic being measured. The data from ratio scales can be analysed statistically (which is not possible with data from nominal or ordinal scales).

refers to data before analysis or weighting.

A brief interview conducted with potential participants when they arrive at a focus group facility to ensure that they really qualify for the session.

is the proportion of a specified television audience or universe who have been contacted by an advert at least once.

is a type of experimental error where participants in an experiment change their normal behaviour as a direct result of the experimental conditions.

is the number of people who read a particular publication and it is not necessarily related to its circulation.

which seeks to capture how people respond to experiences and interactions with a given brand, all in real-time.

A repeat telephone call to a potential respondent to see if they can participate in a survey.

is a type of post-test that investigates respondents’ ability to recall something they may have read, heard or seen. Recall measurements can be taken without or with the benefit of some form of stimulus material - see spontaneous and prompted awareness.

Recall test is testing the reach and effectiveness of the advertisement where a person is asked to recall advertising messages the person remembers. 

are suggested courses of action or an assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of particular courses of action

It is used to refer to the multiple attempts that often must be made to make contact with a sampled element, such as a household or person, in order to gain cooperation and gather data and achieve good response rates.

refers to two group discussions with the same participants that are separated by a period of time.

The person responsible for recruiting participants for a focus group or the person administering a questionnaire.

is the inviting of selected participants (who meet specific eligibility criteria) to take part in a research project. The work is undertaken by a field recruiter (often just referred to as a recruiter).

The process by which respondents or participants are screened and selected against certain criteria, then persuaded to take part in qualitative market research.

is a word-of-mouth initiative designed by a company to incentivize existing customers to introduce their family, friends and contacts to become new customers.

is a nonprobability sampling technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances.

is the percentage of contact people who decline to co-operate with the research study.

refers to respondents who will not participate in a research project. Refusals are tracked at various stages within a research project - see initial refusals and qualified refusals.

is the analysis of the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. Its purpose is to determine whether a relationship exists and the strength of the relationship. It is also used to determine the mathematical relationship between the variables, predict the values of the dependent variable and control other independent variables when evaluating the effect of one or more independent variables.

The regression coefficient expresses the functional relationship among the response (explained, dependent) variable and one or more explanatory (predictor, independent) variables.

is a statistical phenomenon that occurs whenever you have a nonrandom sample from a population and two measures that are imperfectly correlated. The figure shows the regression to the mean phenomenon.

which will lead you to reject the null hypothesis, or the acceptance region, where you provisionally accept the null hypothesis.

is a copy testing measure that is intended to quantify a commercial's attention-getting ability. Respondents are interviewed (usually by phone) within a specific period after exposure to the advertising medium and they are asked questions to determine the proportion of people who watched a programme and remembered seeing the particular commercial.

Multiple samples taken from the same sample group where each sample from a particular participant influences later samples taken from that same participant.

Relationship marketing is a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns that emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction rather than sales transactions.

is a term used to describe whether or not some advertising or a brand proposition shares some fundamental values with a particular group of consumers.

is the extent to which a research process can be repeated and produce consistent results (ie it is free from random error).

the percentage of your current customer base that has come back to to shop again: a metric which is influenced by your efforts at customer retention and is a pretty good measure of loyalty, often taken into account by marketers to evaluate performance.

A product-testing procedure in which respondents are asked to choose between two products, and then repeat the task with an identical pair of products.

refers to the range of different brands used by consumers.

It can be obtained upon repeating the study.

is a sample that contains units in the same proportion as the population of interest.

A request for proposal (RFP) is a business document that announces and provides details about a project, as well as solicits bids from contractors who will help complete the project.

A research brief is a statement from the sponsor setting out the objectives and background to the case in sufficient detail to enable the researcher to plan an appropriate study.

is the framework for conducting a market research project that specifies how information will be collected and analysed to answer the questions at hand.

is a general term that suggests the research itself may be contributing to a change in the data.

a company to discover the target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in the product or service.

Research proposals are vital for outlining both. They also explain the potential returns or results a study can yield. Ideally, the proposal should convince outside readers while informing research and development teams.

These are the design characteristics of the proposed research.

Any individual or organisation carrying out, or acting as a consultant on, a market research project, including those working in client organisations. 

is the difference between an observed and a predicted value.

is the difference between the observed value and the estimated value of the quantity of interest.

is the person who is interviewed by a researcher.

is a type of non-sampling error caused by respondents intentionally or unintentionally providing incorrect answers to research questions. Possible sources of respondent error can be: inability error, best light phenomenon, social group norms or selection bias.

is when respondents’ are disinclined to continue participating in a research project and it can lead to invalid responses (usually towards the end of the research project).

A reward given to participants or businesses for taking the time and trouble to cooperate in a marketing research study.

is data from an individual respondent.

A reply or answer to a question or statement on the questionnaire.

Response bias is a general term for a wide range of cognitive biases that influence the responses of participants away from an accurate or truthful response.

is the speed with which a respondent provides an answer.

is the percentage of all attempted interviews that are completed.

is a systematic tendency of respondents to select particular categories of responses regardless of the content of the questions.

is the sample that has been achieved in a particular research project (which may be different to the intended sample).

These are also known as incentives. Respondents are provided with an incentive to participate in the research study. Managing the research survey incentives is essential for survey research.

Research Industry Coalition

Research Industry Leaders' Forum

is a projective technique where participants are asked to play the role or assume the behaviour of someone else.

is the process of asking questions or showing material to respondents in a different order for every interview according to a set of instructions. This process minimises the risk of order bias (ie respondents favouring objects because of their position in a list).

A well-defined command instructing the researcher on what is and what is not an acceptable way to act or perform within a research study.

The Rust Belt is a region of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States that has been experiencing industrial decline starting around 1980.

is a means of segmenting a population of interest using life-cycle stage, income and occupation variables. The logic behind this segmentation systems is that as people pass through life, their aspirations and behavior patterns (including consumption of goods and services) also change.

Sales Waves are respondent contacts that take place immediately upon the conclusion of a Marketing Research interview or in successive waves thereafter.

Salience refers to the degree to which a topic or event resonates with a prospective respondent or sample member.

is a sub-group of the population of interest that has been selected for study.

is the efficiency and the effectiveness of the sampling approach at reaching the units specified in the research brief.

is a description of the ideal (or the intended) sample for a research project.

Sample Distribution measures the frequency with which the number of subjects that make up the sample is actually drawn for a given research study.

The description of the characteristics that define a particular population from which a sample is taken.

occurs in experiments when a bias is introduced into the way in which experimental units are assigned to groups.

is the number of sample units to be included in the sample.

A sample space is a list of all possible outcomes for an experiment.

an individual member of the sample.

Sampling is a process used in statistical analysis in which a predetermined number of observations are taken from a larger population.

A normally distributed graph showing combined proportion frequencies from many samples within a single population.

A normally distributed graph showing combined mean frequencies from many samples within a single population.

A probability distribution displaying probabilities of all possible variables that might occur with repeated sampling.

is the error in a survey caused by using a sample to estimate the value of a parameter in the population.

A sampling fraction simply indicates the overall fraction of population units that ended up in the sample, regardless of how they came to be selected. Some surveys will use different sampling fractions for different parts of the population (strata).

is a list of the population of interest that is used to draw the sample in a survey, eg a telephone directory or a list of members of a profession.

is a type of non-sampling error in a survey caused by a sampling frame containing either more or less of a particular type of potential respondent, compared with the population of interest.

are a set of instructions given to interviewers concerning the selection of participants for a research project. These instructions must be followed exactly to ensure accurate respondent selection.

is the size of the step between selected units in systematic sampling.

 A sampling plan is a term widely used in research studies that provide an outline on the basis of which research is conducted. It tells which category is to be surveyed, what should be the sample size and how the respondents should be chosen out of the population.

A Sampling unit is one of the units selected for the purpose of sampling. Each unit being regarded as individual and indivisible when the selection is made.

It is when sample units can be included more than once in the sample.

is when sample units cannot be included more than once in the sample.

is a survey where as many members as possible of a population of interest are contacted.

are measurement devices that allow respondents to report the degree of their opinions. Scales are usually in the form of statements or numbers. Pictures may also be used - see pictorial scale.

is the extent to which a scale is valid and reliable, ie free from bias and random error.

is the degree to which a scale is free from random error and can reproduce consistent results.

is the manipulation of scale variables to ensure comparability with other scales and enable comparisons to be made. The most frequently used scale transformation procedure is standardisation.

is whether a scale measures what it is intended to measure. A scale may be biased by the way in which a question is worded and therefore the results it produces are not valid.

Scaled-response questions are questions that have a predefined answer list with options that are incrementally related to each other with the purpose of measuring the intensity to which a respondent feels toward or about something.

A technique used for participants to measure an object based on set characteristics. Scales are close-ended questions that require one of the offered responses as the respondent’s answer.

is the data recorded by bar-code scanners.

is a type of consumer panel where participants use a bar-code scanner to record purchases.

is a plot of the values of two variables for all the cases or observations. Score is a numerical value assigned to a response or an observation.

A plot of the values of two variables for all the cases or observations.

A numerical value assigned to a response or an observation.

A screener is a series of qualifying questions to determine if the respondent fits specific criteria to participate in a research study. Screeners are conducted over the phone and online.

is the procedure of asking specific questions to determine whether respondents are eligible to participate in a particular research study. This is done at the very beginning of an interview.

are the questions at the beginning of an interview or questionnaire to ensure that a potential respondent is eligible for the survey

Respondents who do not meet the demographic or usage criteria to permit them to take part in a survey.

are data that have already been collected and published for another research project (other than the one at hand). There are two types of secondary data: internal and external secondary data.

Secondary research is a type of research that has already been compiled, gathered, organized and published by others. It includes reports and studies by government agencies, trade associations or other businesses in your industry.

Geographic areas represented by the first three digits of a zip code.

Security or confidentiality refers to the act of not divulging two types of information in a research study. First, confidentiality is maintained when study information such as client name, brand name, purpose of the research, concepts, and/or products (except as directed by the study instructions) is only provided to those who have a need to know. Confidentiality also refers to maintaining the privacy of any information collected from or about any individual respondent.

Security screening is one of the most important concerns for security at public places such as airports, railway stations and others. It is typically used to detect unlawful objects including metal objects, weapons, liquor products and others.

is a group of people who share one or more common characteristics, lumped together for marketing purposes.

is the process of dividing markets into groups of consumers who are similar to each other, but different to the consumers in other groups.

Procedure used to distinguish which records to investigate on means of targeted characteristics from a population.

is a type of non-sampling error where the sample units are selected for treatment in a particular way that produces a different profile to the population. Selection bias can be introduced by researchers and/or by respondents (putting themselves into groups to which they aspire to belong, but they do not currently belong).

An error that occurs in sampling when the researcher is pursuing sampling procedures that are either improper or incomplete.

Selective perception is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to hear in a message while ignoring opposing viewpoints.

Selective research is being done to test various decision alternatives such as new product testing, advertising testing, pre-test marketing, and test marketing.

is where a respondent completes a survey without the assistance or involvement of a researcher, eg a self-completion questionnaire sent through the mail.

is a survey that is designed to be completed by the respondent without the assistance of an interviewer.

A self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) refers to a questionnaire that has been designed specifically to be completed by a respondent without intervention of the researchers (e.g. an interviewer) collecting the data.

is where the true answer to a question does not reflect favourably on the respondent or it contravenes a social group norm. In order to avoid bias in the data, one should try to avoid putting respondents in self-effacing situations if possible.

is a type of non-sampling error that occurs when respondents who chose to participate in some research are systematically different to the intended sample. This type of bias is caused by some types of respondent replying to a survey invitation more than others.

A semantic differential scale is a survey or questionnaire rating scale that asks people to rate a product, company, brand, or any 'entity' within the frames of a multi-point rating option.

is a type of categorical, non-comparative scale with two opposing adjectives separated by a sequence of unlabelled categories, eg Good 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Poor.

An interview or questionnaire is semi-structured when many or all of the questions are open-ended, allowing the interviewer to clarify and probe the answers given by respondents.

It is the theory of signs and symbols in language and the meanings they convey. In research it is used to identify and evaluate the true meaning behind consumers' linguistic responses, to decode their cultural frames of reference and behaviours.

is the extent to which a research technique can identify differences between sub-groups of participants.

is a type of focus group where the same participants are convened several times over a period of time. The subsequent discussions may or may not be on the same subject.

is an examination of some or all aspects of products that are perceived by the five senses.

A technique used to stimulate participants where the researcher begins a sentence or story and has the respondent finish the thought in their own words. This allows creativity to flow in the mind of the participant in ways that might not have surfaced on their own.

is a projective technique where participants are asked to complete a number of incomplete sentences that are provided by the researcher.

Sequence bias is defined as prejudice or favor shown to a thing, person, or group in market research due to it's particular order in a list.

two or more products or ideas are each evaluated on their own, one after the other. The sequence is usually rotated to minimise order bias (ie respondents favouring an object or idea because of its position in a list).

is where the sample units are drawn one by one or in groups and the results of the drawing at any stage decide whether sampling is to continue.

respondents see two or more concepts in an isolated environment. The concepts are presented in a random order to avoid order bias. Each concept is followed by the same series of questions to determine each of the concepts' in-depth insights.

A sex ratio is simply how many men there are in a group or community, compared with how many women there are.

is the extent to which a particular brand will be thought of in relation to a specific product category.

is the percentage of all promotion in a specific product category that is accounted for by a particular brand.

The ability to study a particular product and have information available for the product such as how many stores carry it, the number of facings, special displays, and the prices associated with the particular product.

An observed mapping that establishes the patterns used by shopper’s footsteps within a store.

Everyone receives the short form questions. This means more data are collected, but without imposing a burden on the whole population.

are a type of prompt material in the form of cards with images that are shown to participants in research studies.

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes were developed by the federal government to classify US businesses by their type of activity.

sigmoid or s-curve as a metaphor for describing the dynamics of change. We first encountered the s-curve as a description of a possible growth trajectory whereby populations become established, begin to flourish and the numbers increase rapidly until they reach some limit.

Records completed at the end of a study so that a facility has an accurate account of which respondents participated so that the facility keeps track of how they need to compensate the individuals.

is the maximum probability of rejecting a true null hypothesis (or committing a type I error) and it is equal to one minus the confidence level.

is an analysis of sample data to determine whether the data supports a hypothesis about the population from which it was drawn.

is simple and straightforward, defined as: "the probability that a measured difference between two statistics is the result of a real difference in the tested variations and not the result of chance.

Simple correlation is a measure used to determine the strength and the direction of the relationship between two variables, X and Y. A simple correlation coefficient can range from –1 to 1.

is a type of probability sample where all units in a population of interest have an equal, known and non-zero chance of being selected.

A setup used to test the success of a product’s sales, potential through trial and use, in an artificial market setting that imitates the true conditions of the marketplace.

is a type of laboratory experiment that aims to imitate real life, where respondents are selected, interviewed and then observed making or discussing their purchases. Simulated test markets can lead to mathematical models used to forecast factors such as awareness, trial, sales volumes, impact on other products etc.

is a model composed of mathematical and logical relationships designed to represent an actual system and indicate how the real system would react in various circumstances.

is a type of research design where one sample is drawn from the population of interest only once.

is one that asks respondents for only one answer.

A question that asks respondents for only one answer.

is data on a variety of behavioural habits from consumers in the same households, such as TV watching, reading and shopping habits.

A lack of research so that results are dependent on a single statistic.

Assessing a geographical location by the demographic and economic characteristics that it contains, as a process of determining whether the area yields a market that will cater to the offered good or service.

is part of the marketing planning process that deals with understanding the environment and the market, (by identifying opportunities and threats) and assessing a firm's competitive position (by identifying its strengths and weaknesses).

In a set of data,If the curve is shifted to the left or to the right, it is said to be skewed.

refers to the symmetry of a distribution. A skewed distribution is one where the mean, the median and the mode have different values, whereas in a symmetrical distribution they all have the same value.

is a question used to guide an interviewer through a survey to different questions (ie skipping some questions), depending on the answers given.

is a type of pictorial scale that consists of a balanced series of facial expressions that are often used in children’s research to obtain satisfaction ratings

is the process of removing fluctuations in an ordered series of data.

Snowball sampling or chain-referral sampling is defined as a non-probability sampling technique in which the samples have traits that are rare to find.

is a type of non-probability sampling where initial respondents are selected at random and subsequent respondents are then selected by referrals or information from the earlier respondents.

A method of dividing a population of interest into groups usually based on income and occupation of the head of household, although other variables can also be used.

is the tendency for respondents to give answers that are socially desirable or acceptable, that may not be accurate.

Social Grade is the 'common currency' social classification (the 'ABC1' system) used by the advertising industry and employed throughout marketing, advertising and market research.

are expected overt modes of behaviour that constitute culturally acceptable ways of behaving in specific situations. Participants in market research projects may well bias their responses in order to conform to expected behaviour.

are statistics that describe social rather than economic variables (eg birth rate, life expectancy at birth and doctors per thousand of the population).

Social indicators are statistical time series that are "used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change".

are a method of dividing a population of interest into groups usually based on income and occupation of the head of household, although other variables can also be used. The ESOMAR social grades (A, B, C1, C2, D, E1, E2 & E3) are based on the terminal education age and occupation of the main income earner.

is information that is based on the occupation and income level of the head of household.

The Solomon four-group design is a research design that attempts to take into account the influence of pretesting on subsequent posttest results.

is a type of true experimental design where test units are randomly allocated to two experimental groups and two control groups. One of the experimental groups and one of the control groups is measured. Both experimental groups are then exposed to a treatment. Afterwards both experimental and control groups are measured. Six measurements are taken in all and the design aims to account for pre-testing bias and pre-test manipulation interaction bias.

measures the degree of association of ordinal-level data by examining the ratio of the sum of the squared differences in the ranks of the paired data values to the number of variable pairs.

Conduct competitive/industry/market trend research in assigned areas using appropriate specialized data sources.

Firms that complete specific parts of the research for several corporate clients. Examples of provided services are data processing or statistical analysis.

is a document that businesses put together prior to launching a product's advertising and marketing plan.

A respondent who completes the survey in a fraction of the time they should have. Therefore, it is believed that they could not have possibly read and answered all the questions properly in the time taken.

is a procedure where a sample is divided into two halves and each receives a slightly different questionnaire.

is a technique in advertising research that involves placing an advertisement in one form in half of the copies of a given publication and in another form in the other half. The purpose is to compare the relative effectiveness of the two forms of advertisement.

The split-half method assesses the internal consistency of a test, such as psychometric tests and questionnaires. There, it measures the extent to which all parts of the test contribute equally to what is being measured.

The sponsor of a survey is responsible for funding part or all of the sampling and data collection activities and typically has first or exclusive rights to the data.

Sponsorships are the financial or in-kind support of activities. Businesses often sponsor events, trade shows, groups, or charity causes to reach specific business goals and increase their competitive advantage.

is a measure of how many respondents can quote a brand name without any assistance on behalf of the interviewer.

is when two variables appear to change together but there is no causal relationship between them.

Stability is the degree of similarity between segments obtained from different algorithms and different samples of the population.

is a measure of variability (or dispersion) of a distribution and it is equal to the square root of the variance.

is a measure of the amount of sampling error present and it is equal to the standard deviation.

The standard error of the mean quantifies how much variation is expected to be present in the sample means that would be computed from each and every possible sample, of a given size, taken from the population.

is a means of classifying businesses based on the products or services they provide

The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) are four-digit codes that categorize the industries that companies belong to while organizing the industries by their business activities.

a region that consists of a city and surrounding communities that are linked by social and economic factors, as established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Normal distribution, also known as the Gaussian distribution, is a probability distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean. In graph form, normal distribution will appear as a bell curve.

is a scale transformation procedure that involves manipulating data from different types of scales so that they can then be compared. It consists of subtracting the sample mean from each score and dividing by the standard deviation.

is a type of categorical, non-comparative scale that is similar to a semantic differential scale except that instead of having two opposing adjectives, there is only one adjective in between a sequence of positive and negative categories. Respondents indicate how relevant each single characteristic is to an object in question.

The initial number chosen when utilizing an Nth sampling interval.

A central location that organizes all of the state’s data (a planning agency, university, or library) that the U.S. Census Bureau utilizes for training, assistance, and consultation purposes.

is a type of pre-experimental design where there are two groups; an experimental group and a control group. The test units are not assigned randomly between both groups. The experimental group is exposed to a treatment and afterwards, both groups are measured.

A group that has experienced some treatment is compared with one that has not. Observed differences between the two groups are assumed to be a result of the treatment.

Statistics is the gathering and interpreting of data and it is a science.

Statistical control refers to the technique of separating out the effect of one particular independent variable from the effects of the remaining variables on the dependent variable in a multivariate analysis.

is a type of experimental design that allows for the statistical analysis and control of external variables. Examples of statistical design are: randomised blocks, Latin square and factorial design.

involves a comparison of the sampling errors generated by different sampling procedures. A statistically efficient sampling procedure is one that produces fewer sampling errors for the same sample size than other procedures.

Statistical inference is the process through which the researcher has to deduce or infer facts about the target population from which the sample is drawn .

refers to whether some research results genuinely reflect a population of interest in some way or whether the results could occur by chance. Statistical significance is determined by comparing the research results with the values defined by the confidence interval.

Measures of significance applied to collected data using a probability sample. This determines if the null hypothesis might be rejected and there is a degree of reliable difference between the two data sets.

Stimuli are any materials used in a market research study with the aim of inducing a reaction from respondents.

A stochastic oscillator is a momentum indicator comparing a particular closing price of a security to a range of its prices over a certain period of time.

is one where there is an element of random variation.

are a set of boards that illustrate the main points of a proposed TV commercial, details of dialogue and sound effects are also included.

is a projective technique where participants are asked to provide the conclusion to a number of incomplete stories provided by the researcher.

Strata' is a characteristic of stratified sampling method in which the entire population is divided into several homogeneous groups and a simple random sampling technique is applied on each of these groups.

In a strategic partnership the partners remain independent; share the benefits from, risks in and control over joint actions; and make ongoing contributions in strategic areas.

Stratified random sampling is a method of sampling that involves the division of a population into smaller sub-groups known as strata.

is a type of probability sample where the units in a population of interest are divided into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive strata and a (proportionate or disproportionate) random sample is drawn from each stratum.

is a set of line charts where the data are successively aggregated over the series. The magnitudes of each variable are represented by the areas between the line charts.

A measure used in telephone surveys, similar to response rate.

is a form of observation study where the behaviour of interest and the method of observation are clearly specified in advance of the study. Usually expressed as the number of interviews made as a proportion of people contacted, thus higher than response rate.

A relational data language that provides a consistent, English keyword-oriented set of facilities for query, data definition, data manipulation and data control. It is a programmed interface to relational database management systems (RDBMSs).

A questionnaire that already includes fixed answers. The interviewer reads the question and answers and records which answer the respondent selected.

The respondent must choose from predetermined responses provided on the questionnaire.

is a row heading in banner format tabulations. It is usual practice to have the dependent variables as stubs

is a sample of a sample, which may or may not be selected using the same approach as the original sample.

a functional subdivision of a building or part of a building. b : a subdivision of a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit a sub-block of data.

The item that the study is being performed on. 

Subjective questions aim to measure a respondent's feelings, attitudes and perceptions of something.

is sales under the guise of research and it is one of the reasons why potential participants in market research projects are reluctant to take part.

The regression sum of squares describes how well a regression model represents the modeled data. A higher regression sum of squares indicates that the model does not fit the data well.

The South and West regions of the United States defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Exact directions written for the field service so that each survey will be conducted the same way.

is a type of non-sampling error where someone other that the intended respondent participates in the research and this produces a systematic difference between the resulting sample and the intended sample.

An error formed by an inconsistency between the information sought by the researcher and the information that is needed to solve a problem.

is a statement of purpose that outlines a specific result that a person aims to achieve within a specific time frame and with available resources.

is the survey research and analysis of the market for a particular product/service which includes the investigation into customer inclinations.

involve a (statistically) large number of interviews with respondents, using pre-designed questionnaires.

Synchronous online focus groups are a qualitative research tool to gather information from individuals via the Internet. However unlike traditional focus groups, online groups offer the advantage of bringing participants together regardless of their geographic location.

is where the findings and costs of a research project are shared (partially or fully) among a number of clients.

is a business service that provides overall market insights, assisting clients with market strategy and brand positioning. ... A firm can specialise in research for one industry and others may cover multiple industries.

is a type of brain storming where the participants are from a variety of different backgrounds are asked to solve a specific problem. The approach is intended to increase the creativity of ideas produced.

is an error that affects measurements in a consistent way.

is a type of probability sample where every nth unit is included in the sample from a list of the population of interest. The value of n is calculated by dividing the number of units in the population of interest by the required sample size.

Systematic error, or bias, results from mistakes or problems in the research design or from flaws in the execution of the sample design. 

is a symmetrical bell-shaped distribution that is used for testing samples smaller than 30.

is a statistical test that compares a sample mean with a hypothesised mean for a population of interest. The test is appropriate for small sample sizes (less than 30) or when the population variance is unknown. The test is also designed for comparing the differences between two means.

All commerce that occurs through interactive television.

The T distribution, also known as the Student's t-distribution, is a type of probability distribution that is similar to the normal distribution with its bell shape but has heavier tails. 

A device to show ads, packages, etc., for brief intervals of time (1/10 of a second, 1/100 of a second, etc.). ... Similar to the term Target Audience, but includes all marketing activities (not just media advertising).

A t-test is a type of inferential statistic used to determine if there is a significant difference between the means of two groups, which may be related in certain features.

Tabulating or calculating collected survey responses. The tabulations or calculations are can completed by computer or manually.

is the process of counting the various responses to each question asked in a survey.

are specialist suppliers of research data and simple analysis.

A plan that details the column and row headings in the cross-tabulations that are produced from the data.

Digits appearing in a completely random order within a table.

is a frequency count of each question’s answers.

is a device that allows a participant to look at some stimulus material (eg packaging or a brand name) for a predefined brief period of time. The aim is to investigate the stand out and/or recognisability of the material under investigation.

can tell you a wealth of information that you may not get if you access each participant individually and in person.

is a form used by each interviewer on a job to track the results of each contact made for a study, whether by phone or in person. This form can also be referred to as a "call record sheet", "contract record", "dialling records" or a "tick sheet". A new tally should be used every day of a job by each interviewer.

A target audience is defined as a group of people having common interests, demographics, and behavior. Market researchers need to collect feedback from the consumers of certain products and services.

The target population for a survey is the entire set of units for which the survey data are to be used to make inferences.

is where participants evaluate the taste of a product, either on its own or compared with other products. Taste tests are often conducted "blind" where brand names, packaging and other identifying items are removed. Taste tests are usually conducted at a central location, although they can be carried out in participants' homes.

is a consequential approach to evaluating ethics whereby the degree of ethicalness depends on the outcomes or actions that result from the decisions (rather than the decisions themselves).

Areas defined by codes in telephone numbers (the first six digits of a phone number).

A focus group conducted through a telephone conference call. Usually 7-10 individuals are involved including a moderator that leads the discussion about a predetermined topic.

is where participants are asked survey questions over the telephone. Telephone interviewing is usually conducted from a central telephone interviewing facility.

A group of individuals that respond to surveys via the telephone.

A telephone survey is one of the survey methods used in collecting data either from the general population or from a specific target population.

is when respondents misremember when an event occurred, usually by stating that it occurred more recently than it really did.

is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content.

One TVR represents 1% of a specified television audience or universe seeing an advert at least once. (At extremes, television ratings can be made from either many people seeing an advert only once, or just a few people seeing an advert many times.)

is when a variable X (or a change in X) must occur before the variable Y (or a change in Y) is observed and it is one of the three conditions that have to be met to infer a causal relationship.

There must be an appropriate time order of the events. The "cause" must happen before the "effect." Sometimes there may be a strong correlation between two variables, but we cannot say with any certainty that one is the dependent variable and the other is the independent variable.

An area where residents may be seasonal. Examples include commuters, tourists, snowbirds, etc.

is when an interview is stopped before completion. This may occur for one of three reasons: (1) The respondent gives a non-qualifying response and the interviewer is instructed to TERMINATE AND TALLY. (2) The interviewer decides to stop the interview because of a language problem or disability on the part of the respondent. (3) The respondent refuses to complete the entire survey

is the number of eligible respondents who do not complete an interview once started.

to check the viability of their new product or a marketing campaign before it is being launched in the market on a large scale.

is a type of controlled experiment conducted in a carefully selected geographical area to understand the impact of a marketing programme on the sales or profits of a product or service.

The product being tested.

is a measure (derived from a formula) of how close the sample has come to the null hypothesis.

is a method of estimating the reliability of a test by repeating the measurement using the same scaling device under conditions that are judged to be similar.

A result that is due to the research process as opposed to the experimental variable.

A mathematical test to determine if the findings in an experiment were due to influences of one or multiple variables on a dependent variable or merely by chance.

is an advertising testing procedure where participants are exposed to test and control commercials in the context of a TV programme or a film.

is a projective technique where participants are presented with one or more pictures or cartoons that depict a situation. They are asked to suggest what will happen or what one character may be saying or thinking in response to another character or a situation.

A thematic map shows the spatial distribution of one or more specific data themes for selected geographic areas.

Theory-Construction Diary: A journal that documents in detail the thoughts, premises, hypotheses, and revisions in the thinking of a humanistic researcher.

is a projective technique where participants are presented with a situation and are asked to suggest the feelings and attitudes of other people to the situation.

The third-person technique, more than any other projective technique, is used to elicit deep seated feelings and opinions held by respondents, that might be perceived as reflecting negatively upon the individual.

A tick is a measure of the minimum upward or downward movement in the price of a security. A tick can also refer to the change in the price of a security from one trade to the next trade.

Time series analysis is a statistical technique to analyze the pattern of data points taken over time to forecast the future. The major components or pattern that are analyzed through time series are: Trend. Increase or decrease in the series of data over longer a period.

is a type of quasi-experimental design where a series of periodic measurements is taken from one group of test units, followed by a treatment, then another series of measurements.

A time-use survey is a statistical survey which aims to report data on how, on average, people spend their time.

is the percentage of respondents who gave the highest or top score on a scale. Sometimes the top two or three scores may be aggregated to calculate a top boxes score.

refers to a brand or specific product being first in customers' minds when thinking of a particular industry or category.

this is an outline of key issues and areas of questioning used to guide a qualitative interview or group discussion.

The top line is a reference to gross figures reported by a company, such as sales or revenue. A company that increases its revenue or sales is said to be generating top-line growth.

is a brief summary of the main findings of a study.

is the difference between the true value of a parameter in the population and a value derived from a survey. Total error is the sum of the sampling and non-sampling errors in a survey.

 is a marketing technique to determine how well a consumer remembers an advertisement without any external help such as clues, or visuals.

Interviewer-administered telephone surveying in which the respondent uses the touch-tone buttons of his or her phone to provide answers.

is a method used with telephone surveys to enable the respondent to directly enter information using the keypad on his or her phone rather than speaking the information to an interviewer.

In trace analysis, data collection is based on physical traces, or evidence, of past behaviour. The respondents may leave these traces intentionally or unintentionally.

Tracking is the generic term for studies that provide measurement over time to update knowledge of brand and competitor performances.

is a study that provides periodic updating of company and competitor performances on criteria other than sales.

The geographical area that represents where a business’s customers are coming from. The size can vary greatly from a part of a city to an entire nation.

is a family of methods by which respondents' utilities for various product features (usually including price) are measured. ... In these cases, respondents are asked to consider alternatives and state a likelihood of purchase or preference for each alternative.

is the measurement of a flow of people or vehicles past a particular point and it can be used in observation studies.

A traffic count is a count of vehicular or pedestrian traffic, which is conducted along a particular road, path, or intersection. 

is audio data collected and converted into word format. It also allows for the precise organization of data that gives researchers pinpoint accuracy.

is audio data collected and converted into word format. Many different types of Market Research Transcriptions are available, some of which may not seem remarkable.

refers to the manipulation of one or more independent variables during an experiment.

Survey responses demonstarting the change of views and perceptions about a particular topic over time.

Triads involve three participants who may or may not know one another. Triads also offer researchers opportunities to test how group dynamics can influence purchasing behaviors.

The percentage of a target market (i.e., all adults who consume popcorn) who buy a product at least once.

is a focus group with three participants who each have differing viewpoints

is a type of blind test that involves three products where two are similar and the third is different. Participants are asked to test all three and indicate which two are similar to each other. The purpose of the test is to determine the degree to which participants can differentiate between the similar products and the different one.

A trimmed mean removes a small designated percentage of the largest and smallest values before calculating the average. 

is a type of experimental design where the researcher randomly assigns test units and treatments to the experimental groups. Examples of true experimental designs are: pre-test - post-test control group, post-test only control group and a Solomon four group, six-study design.

Travel and Tourism Research Association (ttra) is a non-profit association whose purpose is to enhance the quality, value, effectiveness and use of research in travel marketing, planning, and development.

TVRs or TV rating points are a way of sizing target audiences across both demographics and geography. 

A tween is vaguely defined as a prepubescent between the ages of 8 to 14, 9 to 12, or 8 to 12, depending on whom you believe.

A young person aged around 8/9 to 12, who does not consider themselves to be a child, but is not yet a teenager.

is a simple case of multi-stage sampling where a sample of units is drawn from selected sub-groups of a population of interest. (Whereas with one stage sampling, data is collected from all available units in the selected sub-groups.)

is the classification of a set of observations according to two criteria.

is a test where the null hypothesis is expressed in terms of a characteristic existing or not existing, eg a value is 50%. From the results of the test, it is not possible to. determine on which side of the test value the true answer lies, therefore directional (or one-tailed tests) are used more often.

Focus groups are often conducted behind one-way glass, where researchers can take note of what's going on. In these types of groups, the whole group watches another and comments on what they observe and hear. Dual moderator focus group.

is a mistake that is made when a researcher rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternative hypothesis, when the null hypothesis is correct

is a mistake that is made when a researcher accepts the null hypothesis and rejects the alternative hypothesis, when the null hypothesis is incorrect.

The term U-Commerce reflects the move to start to retail across multiple platforms, for example by combining E-commerce, T-commerce, and M-commerce.

A measure of the number of people who express knowledge of a brand or product without prompting (brand recall).

Unaided recall is a marketing technique to determine how well a consumer remembers an advertisement without any external help such as clues, or visuals.

is a scale where the number of favourable and unfavourable categories is not the same.

An unbiased statistic is a sample estimate of a population parameter whose sampling distribution has a mean that is equal to the parameter being estimated. 

are those that are worded so that they do not influence respondents’ opinions

This is a way of limiting the sampling error as a result of randomness only by deriving the samples from an unbiased source.

is the observation of behaviour or events with participants’ knowledge.

is a scale that allows a neutral or no opinion choice.

is used to describe a specific type of measurement scale. A unidimensional measurement scale has only one (“uni”) dimension.

The event containing all simple events for both event A and event B. The concept of union can be extended to more than two events.

Unipolar constructs are those that lend themselves strictly to an amount–either there is the maximum amount of the attitude or none of it.

The unit of analysis is the major entity that you are analyzing in your study. For instance, any of the following could be a unit of analysis in a study: individuals. groups.

Univariate analysis is a form of quantitative, statistical, evaluation. This method of analysis separately studies the findings regarding each variable in a data set, and therefore each individual variable is summarised on its own.

are forms of statistical analysis that are used where there is a single measure of each variable or where each variable is measured in isolation of other variables.

a universe is a population to be studied or measured. In economics a population to be measured is described as a "universe", and the measures which are generated are intended to reflect the behavior of that population.

is a form of observation study where the behaviours of interest and/or the method of observation are not clearly specified in advance of the study

This is a question that does not provoke or influence the answer of the respondent in any way.

are those that do not have any suggested alternatives and respondents answer in their own words.

Process of segmenting a market using data and analysis when no prior ideas are held about the number of segments, what they are, or how and why they are different.

is where respondents are reluctant to answer a particular question. This may be because too much effort is required, the situation or context is not seen as appropriate for disclosure, no legitimate purpose or need is seen for the information requested or the information is seen as sensitive.

An urban area, or built-up area, is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment.

Urban areas are defined by dense populations, the construction of multiple and often large buildings, monuments and other structures, and greater economic dependence on trade rather than agriculture or fishing.

is a qualitative market research technique in which participants evaluate a website, application, product, or prototype to test its ease and likelihood of use.

are research projects that aim to describe users (and non-users) of a product, together with their attitudes towards the product.

is the impression created, either explicitly or implicitly, about the type of person who is likely to be a user of a brand. User images can be defined demographically, by life stage, lifestyle or attitude.

is the worth or value of each level of each variable relative to the other levels.

is the subsequent re-contacting of respondents in a survey to check that the proper procedures have been followed, eg the respondent was qualified to be included in the survey, the responses recorded were accurate or even that the interview actually took place. Validation can be performed by the data collection company and/or the client, in person, by telephone or by mail.

is the extent to which a research process is accurate and reflects actual market conditions (ie it is free from systematic error).

is a psychographic segmentation system offered by the Stanford Research Institute.

Is the extent to which data points in a statistical distribution or data set diverge—vary—from the average value, as well as the extent to which these data points differ from each other.

is a property that takes on different values at different times.

is the transformation of data to create new variables (or modify existing variables) so that they are more consistent with the objectives of the study.

is a measure of variability (or dispersion) of a distribution and it is equal to the mean of the squared deviations of all values from the mean.

is a graphical method of representing operations on sets that is often used to illustrate probabilities.

is a technique used to understand respondents thought processes while they are performing a task or making a decision by asking them to think aloud.

are those that require respondents to indicate their position by selecting among orally identified categories.

is a reproduction of all of a respondent’s opinion of an object or concept word-for-word, without any omissions, abbreviations or interpretations by the interviewer.

A reproduction of all of a respondent’s opinions of an object or concept word-for-word, without any omissions, abbreviations, or interpretations by the interviewer.

This method ensures data entry accuracy by entering the data multiple times.

This is the process of dual data entry and comparing both data sets for anomalies.

The ability to conduct real time focus groups with participants situated at different physical locations using video technology.

is a venue for conducting group discussions or individual interviews that has a two-way mirror. The purpose of the mirror is to allow clients and other invited parties (advertising or design agencies) to observe without influencing the discussion taking place.

is a dedicated room in which researchers can sit and observe focus groups and depth interviews through a one way mirror.

Viral marketing refers to a technique in marketing a product or a service where users help in spreading the advertiser's message to other websites or the users create a scenario which can lead to multi-fold growth.

is a general term to cover any form of group discussion that is convened using electronic means and participants do not see each other. Examples of virtual groups are: online group discussions, moderated e-mail groups (MEGs) and chat rooms.

Computer generated artificial environment. Virtual market research is the latest advanced survey technology providing the respondent with sensory stimuli about the product or service being researched.

A technique that measures variations in the frequency of the human voice. Such frequency modulations are typically associated with various human emotions.

The average volume purchased per buyer over the period of an analysis.

is a single mailing or group of interviews conducted at about the same time. A research study or survey may consist of several waves.

Web bugs are often used by spammers to validate e-mail addresses. When a recipient opens an email message that includes a Web bug, information returned to the sender indicates that the message has been opened, which confirms that the email address is valid.

is a questionnaire that is based on a web site. Potential respondents are invited to participate in the survey (by a banner advert or other message) and then they are given a link to a satellite site where they complete a questionnaire. The survey is completed on line and respondents can be offered anonymity.

is a sample to which weighting has been applied.

is when the responses from some (or all) sub-groups are assigned a statistical weight to reflect the importance of the subgroup in the population of interest.

is a method of averaging that initially replaces the smallest and largest values with the observations closest to them. This is done to limit the effect of abnormal extreme values, or outliers, on the calculation.

is a form of projective technique where participants are presented with a list of words and, after each word, they are asked to say the first word that comes into their minds.

word association is a method of testing respondents' opinions and perceptions by giving them a word or phrase and requesting that they respond with the first word that comes in to their head when they hear or see it.

The process of promoting or marketing through human interaction. Customers share their opinions creating buzz. The Internet is a fantastic forum for this marketing technique. Blogs, readers, and discussion boards are popular online tools for generating buzz. A form of viral marketing.

The number of working or assigned residential telephone numbers as a proportion of the entire sample.

Focus group participants write their views on a topic during the session. This practice assists in getting participants to commit to their point of view before other participants can influence them.

A systematic bias caused by some respondents tending to agree with whatever is presented to them. Such a bias may be caused by either respondents or interviewers being overly friendly during interviews.

is a statistical test that is based on the standard normal distribution.

is the number of standard deviations a point on a distribution is away from the mean.

The United State Postal Service assigns regions or mailing districts with a Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) code. A standard ZIP code contains 5 digits (i.e. 98040), or a combination of 5 digits – 4 digits (i.e. 98040-4545).

Provides statistics and characteristics of a population located within a designated ZIP code. Age, sex, race, and total population size are just a few attributes a ZIP code demographic analysis can provide.