Research Methods Cheat Sheet

Copyright © 2016 Prime Decision
Research Methods Cheat Sheet
Know your EEG from your fMRI

Understanding behaviour
At Prime Decision we draw upon a wide range
of disciplines, including behavioural economics,
experimental psychology, market research,
behaviour change and neuroscience.
It can be useful to think about research methods
as focusing mainly on:
 Behaviour – what people are doing
 Body – what the body tells us
 Words – what people tell us

Research methods in this cheat sheet:
 Mapping
 Data analysis
 Experimentation
 Observation
 Missions
 Quantitative survey
 Depth interviews
 Focus groups
 Textual analysis
 Semiotics
 fMRI
 EEG
 Electrodermal activity
 fEMG
 Facial coding
 Eye tracking
 IAT
BEHAVIOUR BODY WORDS

Methods | Behaviour
Essentials:
 Mapping
 Data analysis
 Experimentation
Methods:
 Observation
 Missions

Essentials | Behaviour – Mapping
 Arguably mapping isn’t a research method. But it’s important to
flag before we get stuck in.
 Behaviour Mapping is an internal exercise that goes deeper
than standard customer journey mapping. It clarifies target
behaviours and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – what you
want to change – before you start research.
 If insights are not actionable in some way, what’s the point?

Essentials | Behaviour – Data Analysis
 Every method listed here will involve some kind of data
analysis, but the purest measures of behaviour often reside
within existing systems.
 Get clear on what you have at your disposal, in terms of
sources, systems and team capabilities. Perfect your questions
before briefing your analyst.
 Get resourceful before defining your research methods.

Essentials | Behaviour – Experimentation
 A great way to understand behaviour is to test what happens if
you make a change.
 Companies often research a behaviour or experience before
identifying changes to implement. However we can also
reframe every customer communication or campaign as
research opportunity.
 Instead of asking ‘did X work?’ define clear hypotheses upfront,
measure the impact and capture what you learn.

Methods | Behaviour – Observation
What does it measure?
 Behaviours in the relevant environment & culture, with minimal
interference from the researcher.
 Often called ethnography, using methods derived from anthropology
How does it work?
 Traditionally the researcher would position themselves within the target
environment – either overtly or covertly – and observe the habits and
behaviours of the group.
 Field notes, journals, and observational matrices are used to record
the data. In User Testing, for instance, data capture may also be direct.
 Digital platforms, video technology, Google Glass etc. help to remove
the researcher even further from the act of observation and ensures
cleaner, less biased data can be captured and analysed.

Methods | Behaviour – Observation
Pros:
 Directly measures observed behaviours, rather
than self-reported
 Close to the environment & moment of real
behaviours & decisions
Cons
 Recorded observations will only indicate
behaviour; don’t answer ‘why’.
 The act of observation can influence the
behaviour taking place.
 An individual researcher can inadvertently
introduce bias
Photograph by Michael Nichols, NGM Staff

Methods | Behaviour – Missions
 Behaviours, contexts & narratives in real time.
How does it work?
 Participants are recruited to complete a task and provide information
about the experience.
 The task could take a few minutes of undivided attention or small
chunks of attention over a period of weeks e.g.
 Record the details of a single lunch visit to a coffee shop
 Remotely observe the weekly home cleaning regime
 Document the experience of researching & switching energy provider
 Can be qualitative, quantitative or a combination of both. Real time
feedback is often supplemented with interviews to explore narratives.
 Often uses a technology platform (often via mobile) to manage
participants, schedule tasks & collate multimedia information. Remote
video is also possible e.g. Google Glass.

Methods | Behaviour – Missions
Pros:
 Less dependent on respondents’ ability to recall
information; can capture important contextual factors
that are unlikely to be remembered.
 Benefits of both observation & interview.
 Cheaper, more scalable & potentially less-intrusive
than in-person observation or accompanied shopping.
Cons
 Participants may not behave as naturally as they
would in real-life.
 Potentially more expensive than a straightforward
qualitative or quantitative research project.

Methods | Body
 fMRI
 EEG
 Electrodermal activity
 fEMG
 Facial coding
 Eye tracking
 IAT

Methods | Body – fMRI
 Identifies correlations between brain region activation and behavioural
responses i.e. pain, pleasure, risk etc.
How does it work?
 A powerful magnet and radio waves non-invasively produce multiple
images of the brain to show the level of blood oxygen across different
brain regions. Highly active brain regions are assumed to require more
oxygen than less active regions.
 When a study reports a brain region is linked with ‘x’ behaviour – what
it really means is that on average that brain region was more active,
across participants scanned, after activity from the rest of the brain had
been subtracted.

Methods | Body – fMRI
Pros:
 Good spatial resolution – can pinpoint brain areas
 Well-known and widely considered ‘scientific’
 Measures activation from deep brain structures i.e.
emotion, risk etc.
Cons:
 It does not read minds! It only demonstrates
activation correlated with behaviour – interpretation
needs to be cautious.
 Cannot infer mental states from activation – typically
fMRI needs a solid research foundation in order to
draw accurate inferences.
 Expensive; need a minimum of 20 participants to
gain decent results. Scanning plus analysis can
really start to add-up.

Methods | Body – EEG
 Subconscious brain activation that occurs in
response to stimuli.
How does it work?
 Electrodes, placed on the scalp, record the real-
time electrical activity of large populations of
simultaneously active neurons.
 NB. A neuron is a cell: the basic unit of the
nervous system. Neurons carry messages
between the brain and other parts of the body.
 Requires approx. 30 individuals minimum to gain
accurate insights (or 16 per group if running
different trials).

Methods | Body – EEG
Pros:
 Directly measures neuronal activity
 More freedom of movement – mobile EEG headsets
allow for more ecologically valid testing (but sacrifice
some fidelity)
 Temporal resolution of milliseconds!
Cons:
 Poor spatial resolution – cannot pin-point which section
of the brain is responsible for the signal
 Can’t pick up on activation from deeper brain structures
e.g. limbic system, basic pleasure, pain etc.

Methods | Body – Electrodermal Activity
 Our level of arousal during or after a task i.e. our
feeling of anger, stress, fear, excitement etc.
How does it work?
 The electrical conductance of our skin changes
depending on our state of autonomic activity, or
‘level of arousal’.
 In layman’s terms, measuring the EDA literally
tests how much your palms are sweating.
 Conductors, connected to a sensor, are attached
to the palm or fingers and used to measure
changes in the electrical voltage of our skin.
A graph of Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) skin conductance over a 27-minute period during an
experiment. Increased GSR indicates a heightened sympathetic nervous system arousal.

Methods | Body – Electrodermal Activity
Pros:
 Cheap, non-invasive & portable.
 Good implicit test of arousal.
Cons:
 Needs to be supported with other measures. The
test alone does not reveal the emotional cause of
the arousal.
 Requires a controlled environment i.e. the ambient
temperature of the room can interfere with the
measurement process.
 A minimum sample size of 100 is usually required
as the the autonomic system is highly variable.

Methods | Body – Facial Electromyography (fEMG)
 Facial EMG measures minute muscle
movements that reveal changes in
emotional state, such as happiness, anger,
and pain – depending on the sensitivity of
the equipment.
How does it work?
 Small electrodes are placed at two major
facial muscle groups: one is associated
with frowning and the other with smiling.
 These electrodes measure the electrical
impulses associated with movements of
these muscles.
a) Corugattor supercilli muscle b) Zygomaticus major muscle

Methods | Body – Facial Electromyography (fEMG)
Pros
 Easier to use than fMRI and EEG.
 More accurate measure of emotional expression
than visual observation tools.
 Capable of measuring subtle emotional states, as
responses can still be captured even when subjects
are instructed to avoid expressing emotions.
Cons
 Attaching electrodes to a participant’s face is
intrusive, and could potentially inhibit the full range
of normal facial movement.
 The face contains many more muscles than are
typically measured using facial EMG.

Methods | Body – Facial Coding
 Minute changes in the facial muscles that indicate
the brain’s emotional response to a stimuli i.e.
content, music etc.
How does it work?
 A camera records participants’ facial expressions in
real time.
 Software codes the captured muscle movements
into specific emotions second by second.

Methods | Body – Facial Coding
Pros:
 Directly measures emotional responses, rather than
relying on self-reported measures
 Less obtrusive than fEMG and takes into account a
wider number of facial muscles
 The prevalence of webcams means it can
unobtrusively be executed alongside online studies
– good value
Cons
 Data only indicates emotional responses; it does not
explain how & why
 The conclusions are only as good as the software
doing the analysis – which can vary in quality
Photograph © 2016 Mike LarremoreCopyright © 2016 Prime Decision

Methods | Body – Eye tracking
 Measures the point of gaze i.e. where, how and
when someone is looking. This is an objective
measurement of attention.
How does it work?
 Light, usually infrared, is bounced off the pupil of
the eye and measured by an optical sensor (such
as a video camera).
 Changes in reflections equate to eye movements.

Methods | Body – Eye tracking
Pros
 Can be used to create heat maps that indicate a
pattern of gaze such as on a website or
supermarket display
 Reveals what draws people’s attention – and what
they miss
Cons
 Accuracy is typically to the nearest cm
 Cannot measure peripheral vision
 Bulky headsets can impact on natural behaviour
 Gaze does not equate to understanding!

Methods | Body – Implicit Association Task (IAT)
Junk
food/
Bad
Healthy
food/
Good
Junk
food/
Good
Healthy
food/
Bad
 Subconscious attitudes and beliefs by testing
automatic associations held between different
concepts e.g. exploring consumers’ subconscious
perceptions of brands & products.
How does it work?
 Participants are asked to categorise a number of
targets. For instance, an apple would be presented
and the participant would have to choose the correct
categorisation (and ignore the evaluation) i.e. choose
between ‘Junk food/Bad’ or ‘Health food/Good’.
 Faster responses are interpreted as stronger
associations than slower pairings. For example, we
would say someone has an implicit preference for
junk food, if they are faster to categorize words when
Junk Food and Good share a response key, and
Healthy Food and Bad share a response key.

Methods | Body – Implicit Association Task (IAT)
Pros:
 Reliable, easy to administer & supported by a
large research history.
 Good value, can be done online.
 Task is robust, even if participants are familiar with
the methods.
Cons:
 Can only compare two opposing attributes at a
time as a relative measure, which may limit its
sensitivity to more nuanced responses.
 This is experimental psychology, not
neuroscience, so no sexy brain images.

Methods | Words
 Quantitative survey
 Qualitative depth interviews
 Qualitative focus groups
 Textual analysis
 Semiotics

`
Methods | Words – Quantitative Survey
 Knowledge, opinions & claimed behaviour
converted into numerical form
 Usually amongst a sample that is representative
of a wider group of interest e.g. adults aged 18-
50, recent product buyers
How does it work?
 Surveys are designed to probe a topic using open
& closed questions.
 Often done online, increasingly on mobile
devices, but face-to-face and telephone surveys
are also possible – whatever reaches the target
group most effectively.
 Topline analysis compares answers to dififerent
questions & different sub-groups. Deeper analysis
uses statistical techniques to reveal patterns in
the data.

Methods | Words – Quantitative Survey
Pros:
 Can be an efficient and less expensive way to gain responses from a large sample.
 Numbers allow evaluation, which is useful for testing ideas against each other,
sizing, statistical modelling etc.
 Easy to repeat amongst matched samples to measure change over time (e.g. brand
tracking) or recontact the same respondents (i.e. panel research).
 Questions can be designed to be overt or covert in nature.
Cons
 The data is only as good as the questions.
 It can be difficult to avoid priming certain responses.
 Respondents may be describing behaviours and thoughts that happened a long time
ago in a very different context, reducing the accuracy of their answers.

Methods | Words – Qualitative Depth Interviews
 The variety of knowledge, opinions & claimed behaviour
amongst a target group
How does it work?
 A one-to-one conversation between interviewer and respondent.
Usually recorded.
 Ideally face-to-face, but also possible by phone, online video or
even text chat
 Interviews ranges from highly structured sequences of open
questions to less structured free form conversations around a
given topic.
 Analysis ranges from detailed topic groupings to recursive
summarising where the summary of findings is refined and
challenged by each subsequent interview. Sometimes more than
one analyst may review the qualitative data to reduce bias.

Methods | Words – Qualitative Depth Interviews
Pros:
 A great way-in to new research topics where existing
knowledge is limited.
 Flexible form allows unexpected insights to emerge.
 The interview can take place close to the context of the
decisions & behaviours it seeks to understand e.g. in
the respondent’s kitchen, in a clothing store etc.
Cons
 Respondents may be describing behaviours and
thoughts that happened a long time ago in a very
different context, reducing their accuracy.
 Process and analysis can be resource and time
intensive.
 The interviewer can inadvertently introduce bias.

Methods | Words - Qualitative Focus Groups
 The variety of knowledge, opinions & claimed
behaviour amongst a target group.
 Interactions between members of that target group
e.g. consensus, friction, emerging ideas.
How does it work?
 A trained moderator facilitates a discussion
between 6-12 respondents, referring to a
discussion guide to steer the conversation.
 Usually recorded. Sometimes observed in a
viewing facility through a two-way mirror.
 Analysis ranges from detailed topic summaries
across focus groups to recursive summarising.

Methods | Words - Qualitative Focus Groups
Pros:
 Great for developing ideas as the group builds on its
own suggestions.
 Get clients and non-researchers closer to customers.
 Cheaper & faster than the equivalent number of one-to-
one depth interviews.
Cons
 An unusual experience for respondents, possibly a long
way from the behaviours and thoughts being explored.
 Can be prone to social & cognitive biases such as the
groupthink or conformity effect, so less suitable for
evaluating new ideas.
 Information is lost through the two-way glass; the
discussion feels very different in the room itself.

Methods | Words – Textual Analysis
 A data gathering process that describes and
interprets the content, structure and the
function of messages contained in text, i.e.
twitter, reviews etc.
How does it work?
 A wide range of methodologies exist, e.g.
Rhetorical Criticism, Content Analysis,
Interaction Analysis, Performance Studies etc.
 Choosing a method and the level of
complexity required by the analysis depends
largely on the question asked – ranging from
encoding word frequency into numerical data,
to in-depth emotional response extraction.

Methods | Words – Textual Analysis
Pros:
 Very flexible method: analysis can be personalised to
the question.
 Relatively cheap, depending on ease of data collection
 Can granularly analyse more nebulous forms of insight
such as social media comments and reviews.
 Can be used to explore potential implicit patterns within
explicit sources.
Cons:
 Danger of researcher bias towards interpretation.
 Difficult to validate conclusions due to methods being
highly dependent on the individual running the analysis.
 Can take a very long time.

Methods | Words – Semiotics
 Semiotics is the scientific study of the meaning and
cultural communication behind signs, symbols and codes.
 Goes beyond asking people questions and extrapolates
meanings from the contextual codes that influence a
culture’s beliefs, values, mindset and behaviours.
How does it work?
 Analysing and critiquing the levels of meaning in a piece
of content, and how they are being produced.
 Alternatively, can analyse the broader context to highlight
a range of potentially useful signs and codes.

Methods | Words – Semiotics
Pros:
 Anchors brands in the context of the culture.
 Can explore new business opportunities and generate
new brands, communications and messages.
 Explores explicit content in a subconscious way.
Cons:
 Interpretations are strictly subjective, and can suffer
from researcher bias if not managed correctly.
 A loosely defined critical practice, rather than a unified
analytical method. Methodology can vary widely
between practitioners

Behaviour Change | Why force it?
BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHT | ANALYSIS | STRATEGY | CHANGE
Questions? prime-decision.com

Research Methods Cheat Sheet

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