Today sees the launch of Understanding Society’s Innovation Panel Competition 2013.
Academics and researchers are invited to put forward ideas for experiments and tests to be incorporated on the Innovation Panel from Wave 7 onwards in the competition organised by the academic team behind the study at ISER.
Examples of previous successful proposals include:
- experimenting with procedures for using different modes of interviewing i.e. face-to-face, telephone or web-based
- experimenting with the ordering format or wording of questions to test whether this has an impact on what people say and how they say it
- asking questions that have not been asked before to see whether they work in the expected way
- content-related experiments e.g. to test whether providing certain information or changing the context of a question alters people’s decisions
Dr Annette Jäckle, Director of the Innovation Panel, said:
“The Innovation Panel is a sample of 1,500 households used by researchers as a test-bed for innovative ways of collecting data and for developing new areas of research. It helps develop leading edge survey methods and content that will ensure the ongoing success of Understanding Society and to generate important new knowledge.”
Our Innovation Panel Competition web page contains the full call for proposals, application form and background to the competition, while information about the Innovation Panel itself is readily available in our Innovation panel Guide.
Dr Jäckle added:
“Our judges are looking for top quality experiments and research proposals with good publication potential. The competition is an excellent way for researchers to get directly involved with influencing and developing Understanding Society, while developing their own research interests.”
Data collection for Wave 7 takes place in Spring 2014. The deadline for receipt of proposals is May 15, 2013.
You can listen to Annette talking about the Innovation Panel and the competition in our podcast series.