Thought I would join in, rather than just lurking in the backgound.

Today's goal - review pilot study results and check reliability of scales (done)
Tomorrow's goal - finish making amendments to online questionnaire and launch it to the world before packing for my trip to Madrid :-)

I would say Facebook is almost essential now for networking with over half the UK's Internet users accessing it weekly according to Mintel.

Having said that, I'd recommend reading up on all their privacy settings first as Facebook tends to default towards sharing everything with the world unless you specifically tell it otherwise and you need to be careful which applications you install as some publish your details elsewhere even though you might have kept them private on Facebook itself.

Congratulations!! Reading the success stories on here is tempting me towards a PHD, but have to finish my MBA dissertation first :-)

Hi LBaines,

Have you checked out the student discounts on Adobe Acrobat? I know even with 80% off its still quite expensive buts its hard to beat as a piece of software and might be a worthwhile investment.

Thanks Skig, you should be a professional proof reader! English was never my best subject at school.

Q15 is asking people about the barriers that might have prevented them buying local foods. I use statements like “I didn’t know local food was available” because my study might have just made them aware of local foods, so I was hoping wording the statement in this way would allow people to say they weren’t aware even if they now are. Does that make more sense, or do you still think this could be clearer?

I have tried to avoid asking questions that were quite personal which is why I grouped ages into ranges etc. Although I was surprised to learn during the pilot how few people are willing to reveal their postcode. I didn’t think it was that personal but the majority of people have either left it blank or entered “NA” so I guess that needs to be removed.

I think you are right about the compulsory or not compulsory debate ultimately coming down to personal preference. I am still leaning towards compulsory if only to save myself from having to filter out the incomplete results later.

I am measuring desire for local food using a multiple-item likert construct question which will produce continuous data, although I might group into people with low, medium and high desire to form categorical data (still undecided). I am measuring online channel preference in a similar way using a construct of items that I found in the literature which also produces a continuous variable.

I’ll need to read up on crosstabs tonight as I have never used it before, but from what you describe it sounds like it could work for me. You describe my research objective better than I do as that’s exactly what I am trying to do here, identify the consumers who have both the desire for local food and online channel preference before I then test which of the different online marketing techniques those consumers will engage with. In essence, I am eliminating those respondents who have no desire and won’t use the online channel from further analysis.

Sparkles – out of interest, what is your topic?

Hi,

I am struggling to figure out what to do with all the data my survey is collecting as part of my MBA dissertation and really need some advice as I have been going round in circles the last couple of weeks. The overall research objective is to examine whether there are opportunities for local food producers and retailers to embrace Web 2.0 (including social media) marketing techniques to market their key points of difference and overcome barriers to satisfying consumers increasing desires to purchase local foods.

I therefore thought my first research objective should be to check whether consumers with desire to purchase local foods have online channel preference as there would be no point local food producers and retailers using the online channel for marketing if it won’t reach those with desire for local foods.

But how do I test this? The two variables (desire for local food and online channel preference) are unrelated so I figure that rules out all the tests of difference and association. Is it enough to just use descriptive statistics and say x% of consumers with a desire to purchase local food would be willing to use the online channel, or is that not "academic enough"? Or can anyone think of a better way of analysing the data in this instance?

Any guidance or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks Skig, I appreciate not everyone has the time to complete the survey.

I have uploaded a pdf copy for those that are willing to provide feedback but don't have the time to complete the whole survey. You can access it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5384584/Pilot%20Survey%20v2.pdf

I am really undecided whether to switch off compulsory responses, on the one hand it catches questions that respondents have accidently missed but as you say it might result in people dropping off the survey altogether. Has anyone seen any academic research into this area as my search so far has proven fruitless.

I really appreciate all the help and feedback you guys are providing :-)

Thanks Ady, you have provided some great feedback which is much appreciated.

The actual survey will be targeting people that have a connection with Hampshire as my dissertation tutor wanted me to focus on a single region, although I suspect the findings could equally be applied to any other region.

My question about local food being in Hampshire or being from within a 30 mile radius is trying to identify how people define local food. There is a lot of confusion around the term local food and there is no single definition in the literature, which is why I force respondents to select a single answer as I want to find which definition they think bests describes local food.

I certainly need to add a homemaker option as that was an oversight on my part, and I'll make the other changes you suggest.

Thanks again.

Hi,

I am currently piloting my online questionnaire and I’d be eternally grateful if you could spare me 5-10 minutes (possibly less if you are quick!) to complete my online questionnaire and offer feedback as I have never designed a questionnaire before and have been struggling with this part of my MBA dissertation.

My research is examining opportunities for local food producers and retailers to embrace emerging Web 2.0 (including Social Media) marketing techniques to market their key points of difference and overcome barriers to satisfying consumers increasing desires to purchase local foods.

As this is the pilot study there are feedback questions at the bottom of each page where I would be grateful if you can not only report any issues you find but offer suggestions as to how you think the questionnaire could be improved. Alternatively you can post your feedback on the forum here.

You can access the questionnaire at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MarkLinsell

A massive thanks in advance if you can help,
Mark.