Final Post

This week in class we focused on studying for the exam and preparing draft two of the final project. This is the last blog post for the semester. I looked at a couple of my classmates blogs to comment about. Many of them were very interesting and informative. The two blogs I looked at came from my classmates, Alyssa and Meagan. 


Alyssa blogged about quantitative research with a focus on the fast food industry. I thought the subject of her blog was prevalent to the events occurring in the media lately. The events include the discrepancies over California taking the toys out of happy meals. When I read Alyssa's blog I thought of the news stories about the current fast food scandal. Alyssa chose an article that explains quantitative research in the industry, "analysis is a marketing research function that shows how certain fast food restaurants compare with their competitors on sales, service and even product quality." Survey research is important when collecting customer feedback. Alyssa shares a website with useful tips on how to get people to fill out surveys. The article says to give people free food to fill out fast food surveys. What a great idea! I enjoyed Alyssa's blog filled with quality useful information. 


Meagan's blog was interesting because its had information about Christiano Rinaldo, a famous soccer player. After playing in this summer's World Cup, Rinaldo successfully completed an experiment to improve his game. Rinaldo realized the new ball had changed. Meagan used this change as the dependent variable in an experiment. What a creative way of thinking! I liked this post because it turned an everyday example into a learned experiment. Rinaldo experimented with his new ball, The Jabulani, to improve his shots. 

Experimental Research in PR

Experimental research is the topic of this week's class. We learn to conduct an experiment there must be a control group and an experimental group. The survey we took in class was used as a pretest and a posttest to an experiment on students ease in mathematics. I thought I was taking a survey about investor relations. The experiment was successful because everyone in the class didn't know they were placed into two different groups. No one knew the posttest surveys were different. The instructor didn't know who was in the control group or who was in the experimental group either. This is called a double blind study. Students gave truthful answers without knowledge of the true need for the experiment. The experiment successfully retrieved students' insight.

There are many experiments conducted within public relations. PR News blogs about The White Shirts Experiment conducted by Harvard University. Diane Schwartz from PR News blogs about this project that was shared with attendees of the Specialized Information Publishers Association at a conference she recently attended. Her enthusiasm about the experiment encourage others to watch the video.

The developers of the experiment are Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. The study uses social media to involve the audience in a fun experiment. The experiment involves the audience to watch a YouTube video in which six people pass a basketball around. There are three people in white shirts and three people in black shirts. While the audience watches, they are to count the number of passes made by the people in the white shirts. I encourage everyone to watch this video! Our class watched this video during an in-class presentation but if you haven't see it--watch it! Don't read on until you do!

Most people do not see the gorilla jumping around the middle of the people passing the basketball around. The experiment revels a couple qualities about people. People don't realize what is going on around them. Most people don't know how much they are missing until they watch this video. The gorilla is so obvious after you watch the video a second time. People are so caught up in the common responsibilities of everyday life that they fail to pay attention to surroundings.

Walking around the QU campus, I see many student robots texting on their cell phones failing to look up to see where they are going. It has come to my attention that people are so reliant on technology that it is making our culture like robots or zombies. This experiment proves that people are overlooking everyday experiences. I think this change in behavior has a lot to do with the increase of technology. People rely on smart phones to occupy and computers to network, research, and email. Most people are caught up in the many forms of technology and neglect the real world. Their concentration is on what is due immediately. In this competitive world today everything is immediate--one click of a mouse and the whole world is informed. It's no wonder most people in this experiment didn't see the gorilla!

Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris create a successful experiment yielding useful results. "This experiment has become one of the best known experiments in psychology," said Chabris and Simons. "It is described in most introductory textbooks and is featured in more than a dozen science museums. It has been used by everyone from preachers and teachers to corporate trainers and terrorist hunters, not to mention characters on the TV show C.S.I., to help explain what we see and what we don't see," explain Chabris and Simons. They came up with this experiment to explore the limits of human intuition. Successfully executed, The White Shirts Experiment points out people's reactions.

This experiment is useful to public relations practitioners. PR professionals use this information to grab attention of consumers. It is important to know changes in human behavior to bring awareness about companies or products. The enlightening experiment sets in reality. Schwartz blogs about the experiment, "So next time you’re at that cocktail party or in a meeting with key influencers, be on the lookout for the big, hairy, sometimes invisible 800-pound gorilla."

Survey Research

 This week's lecture discusses survey research, one of the most popular research methods in the public relations industry. Popular both in the academic world as well as in the professional world, surveys are often found in academic journals like PR Review to provide insight on a research topic. It is a cheap and easy way to analyze data and get responses right away. PR News is the information resource for news, research, analysis, business opportunities, market trends, etc. in PR and communications. Most of the articles I blog about from PR News base data from surveys.

PR Newswire features an article discussing an insurance survey. The article titled, State Farm Life Insurance Survey: Despite Importance, 74 Percent of Couples Rarely or Never Talk About Life Insurance, showcases people's thoughts about life insurance. The survey, conducted by KRC Research , shows most people find life insurance extremely important and a top priority. However a majority of people don't like talking about the subject.

I could see why most people would not want to talk about this issue. The survey says,"the key reasons for avoiding the topic include stress over daily economic pressures and concern that a partner might react negatively – especially in the event of a job loss."People avoid confrontation so the survey research method is the best way to find out these hidden opinions. 

If I was the public relations researcher for this topic, then survey research method would be the tool to use. Surveys are the best way to find out information that people fail to converse about. Similarly, it is beneficial to get a prospective from a large group of people.

State Farm Insurance struggles to get information out of consumers about life insurance. "This survey shows that, at a time when couples should be sitting down to discuss how to prepare for the unexpected, far too many remain silent," said Joe Monk, CEO of State Farm Life Insurance. However despite people's reluctance to speak about the issue, 62 % of men and women think life insurance is most important today due to the uncertainties of the recent economic downturn.

Overall, KRC Research chose wisely when selecting the survey research method. It is a wise decision to use survey research to explore thoughts and feelings when people don't want to talk about it. Most people in the survey said life insurance is an awkward conversation so using a survey to get more information is a safe bet. Surveys stick to being the most popular research method in the industry because it is the best means to find hidden feelings and responses.