Feedback from the coalface on repeat attendance

Researchers

Lucy Golding, Carne Martin:

'Consumers are more marketing literate than ever before, and it would be naïve to presume that someone who has not been to a group before will be less aware of the marketing process than someone who has. As experienced researchers we use our skills not just to report back, but to understand and interpret responses, and to work with respondents to generate ideas. Recruiting people who are genuinely interested in helping us do this is critical. It is, therefore, probably not an issue if a respondent has been to a group, say, once or twice before, as long as they fit the recruitment criteria.

It is a problem, however, if a respondent is regularly attending groups and/or is lying about who they are in order to do so. He or she may be jaded, cynical, overly negative, or at worst lie about what they really think. As an industry, our focus should be to tackle the problems of serial repeat attendance and fraud. One of the things we should be considering is whether an industry standard on attendance would assist with the former of these issues.'

Peter Dann, The Way Forward:

'There's no denying that repeat attendance is an issue, if only because it is one of those elements that can so easily be used by qual's detractors to question the credibility of the whole industry.

Generally, however, we don't mind seeing familiar faces in groups ­ they're more relaxed, more confident and, in most cases, I don't believe that their response is affected by repeat attendance. If you need virgin respondents, you should say so, and allow time to recruit them; but if you don't specify, you shouldn't complain.

It's that 1% that we should be concerned about. To go to that many groups, you have to lie a great deal. But I'm sure, as a result, that these people are simply not found in mainstream, well-recruited groups. And that's why I take issue with the presentation of the findings.'

Field personnel

Liz Sykes, Field Initiatives:

'Repeat attendance is always seen as a bad thing. How many times do field managers hear: "I'm sure I recognised some faces in that group and it made me worried about the recruitment"? Repeat attendance seems to spark off a gut reaction of panic and worry that something underhand is going on and that everyone is in on it except the researcher.

The reality is that areas get saturated very quickly as only a small proportion of the population are willing to take part in research, plus we are very strict on the types of people we recruit. In any area over 65s or Es would be under-researched.'