Four Ways to Make Research Truly Representative

The Black Lives Matter movement has brought issues of inclusion, representation, and equality right to the forefront of the political, economic, and societal consciousness – something not seen on this scale since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Quite rightly, individuals and organizations alike have taken stock and reassessed their own internal and external values when it comes to actively supporting true representation and cultural intelligence. Given the nature of its work to uncover the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of society, the research industry has a pressing responsibility to ensure it is doing everything it can to be truly representative and inclusive.

But what steps can the industry be taking to cultivate cultural intelligence and bring greater representation to the work it carries out?

 

1. Take the time to do some homework

As a baseline, research studies should always aim to recruit diverse participants from different walks of life and include representation from various ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. In addition to recruiting the right audience, you need to do your homework – particularly if looking to engage and draw insights from minorities or the socially disadvantaged.

As the old adage goes, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. Doing some of your own research will go a long way. Not only will it help you to uncover some initial influencing factors in your audience’s decision-making processes, but it’ll help to ensure that your research project is designed in a way that will help participants from diverse groups feel comfortable being open and honest with their responses to questions. Doing some initial groundwork will also help to ensure that you’re well equipped to best reach your audience, and may also uncover sensitive topics or lines of questioning for you to avoid.

It all starts with self-education. It’s by informing and developing our knowledge of injustices in society that organizations can become allies and give diverse groups a voice and a stake in the work that we do.

 

2. Avoid your preconceptions

In order to be effective, researchers need to put their implicit bias and preconceptions to one side and let the data, and the insights they generate from that data, do the talking.

In all research projects, each and every participant has their own way of communicating and articulating their answers. It’s the job of the researcher to help them do this as comfortably and efficiently as possible. Stereotypes about certain groups, or preconceptions of what ‘good’ or ‘bad’ responses are, should be left outside of the research lab. For example, English may not be the first language of some participants. As a result, providing them with a tool to speak freely in their native tongue would allow them to more easily communicate their thoughts and feelings when answering your questions. A tool like Medallia LivingLens would then automatically translate and analyze those responses for you. This ensures that language barriers don’t have you missing out on an opportunity to collect valuable data from all of your consumers.

 

3. Read between the lines

Many researchers look for key themes and mentions when analyzing the results and data from research projects. However, when working with diverse groups, it’s also worth thinking about the things they didn’t say in a research interview. It’s the ability to look into these negative spaces for insights that will set great research professionals apart from good ones.

We need to ask ourselves why certain things may not have been mentioned by participants, and whether this is as a result of how the research program was designed or due to an influencing cultural factor, and allow those insights to inform our decision making and program design in the future.

 

4. Take advantage of technology

Technology has a big role to play in helping us dive deeper into the vast insight that diverse groups can bring to our research projects. Remote video conferencing is certainly a technology that has been widely adopted this year, and one which can be advantageous for researchers.

Not only do remote video capture methods for interviews and ethnographies allow researchers to easily connect with individuals from a variety of groups – regardless of geographical barriers – it also gives them the opportunity to revisit interviews at a later date for further analysis. In having access to a recording, researchers are positioned to fully analyze a respondent’s answers and sentiment, eliminating the potential influence of the researcher’s own biases and misconceptions.

What’s more, the technology actually gives researchers the means to dive deep into datasets and pinpoint relevant content. The Medallia LivingLens platform, for example, was designed with a whole raft of analytics tools to help researchers identify key themes, patterns, and trends within their video content. For instance, sentiment and emotion can be captured and assessed at scale using the very latest in Emotive AI and machine learning technologies – helping researchers to assess whether a person’s response to a question is negative, positive, or neutral. This means that researchers can go well beyond what is being said and develop a more holistic picture of their respondents’ answers. Often, the data can reveal something the researcher may not have been aware of, or even knew to ask.

 

 

Giving a voice to all

This year has brought with it a lot of change, and as a result, brands have been steadily relying more and more on research and insights to advise them on a number of things, including product and service rollouts. In order to understand the best ways to reach and connect with the largest number of people, brands need to ensure that they’re including truly diverse perspectives in their research.

Having the awareness and desire to be proactive when it comes to developing cultural intelligence is vital for organizations to stay relevant in this brave new world – and it’s up to each and every research and insights professional to stay on top of this – whether through education, technology, or ideally, a combination of both.

 

Learn all of the ways Medallia is committed to diversity and inclusion at https://www.medallia.com/diversity/