Our Approach

Our research studies are designed to meet specific client needs as described in formal briefs or informal discussions. Usually some aspect of the project will develop as we discuss how the findings will be used, which might affect the sampling strategy, the questionnaire development or the analysis and reporting.

Because of the scale of our resources for face-to-face interviewing and for telephone research, our reputation is dominated by the quantitative research we conduct.

However, we are one of the largest qualitative research agencies in Scotland and we have used focus groups to explore people’s attitudes to energy efficiency for Consumer Voice Scotland , reviewing the Social Work profession in Scotland, and understanding of Scotland’s electoral systems for the Electoral Commission. Sometimes, depth interviews are more suitable, as in our work among Civil Court Users.

The move to harmonising questions across the major surveys has lead to increased emphasis on testing questions to make sure respondents understand and react to them in the way researchers anticipate. Cognitive testing is a particular qualitative method which involves iterative changes to questions, resulting in recommended changes to wording, structure or ordering.

Most face-to-face interviewing involves direct input to hand held computers (CAPI), incorporating advanced programming to ensure routing and data validation during the interview. Similarly, telephone interviewing from our Edinburgh telephone centre uses CATI.