12/12/2016
I have confirmed with Pam McCasland, an esthetician and owner of Skin Apeel Beauty Bar in Fountain Hills, that she can connect me with her clients as potential participants and that I can use Skin Apeel Beauty Bar as the location where I will conduct my study. In terms of figuring out specifically how to contact her clients and the available times to conduct the study, I will be meeting with her in early January. Ideally, I would like to conduct my study within the first or second week of February right after the second trimester ends, and I want to contact Pam's clientele with the consent form as soon as possible to ensure that I have enough participants secured.
If, for some reason, I do not get at least 50 participants from Pam's clientele, my mom also has a lot of contacts at CopperWynd Resort & Club who would be willing to participate in the study. Also worth noting, I am going to try my best to get participants of different ages, although many may end up being slightly older (~40-70), as that is the most common demographic in Fountain Hills and at these locations.
As for how I will analyze the data I obtain from the blind consumption test and the exit survey, I will be comparing the responses of each participant between the two forms (participants will write their participant number on each form so that responses will remain anonymous but I will be able to pair each participant's blind consumption ranking sheet to her exit survey). While I am not 100% certain of the specific criteria for determining whether or not a participant bases her choice on emotional or sensory responses, the closer the rankings are between the blind consumption and exit survey forms, the more likely the participant's makeup choices are based on sensory, as opposed to just emotional, responses to the products. Likely, for each participant, I will add up the category-specific 1-9 rankings to create a final score for each lip gloss on the blind consumption form. Then, I will note the order in which the participant preferred each product by ordering the lip glosses from highest ranked to lowest ranked. I will repeat the process for the exit survey, and I will make note if the order changed or remained the same. Regarding the general questions I include at the end of my exit survey asking participants to indicate whether they prefer to buy natural or unnatural makeup, I will take note of whether each participant's response to those questions aligns with their highest ranked choices in the blind consumption test (i.e. I will check whether or not those who said they prefer natural makeup actually liked Burt's Bees or Bare Escentuals most in the blind consumption test). Finally, I will need to somehow qualitatively analyze participant commentary in each of the ranking sections on both the blind consumption test form and the exit survey to search for trends (i.e. if a lot of participants indicate that they would expect Bare Escentuals lip gloss to be shiniest because it is a mineral makeup, I should take note of that. Or, if on the exit survey, a participant comments that she buys natural makeup because it is healthier for the skin, I should take note of that as an emotional reason to buy the product, as opposed to a sensory one).
I feel like I have a clear general idea of what I need to do to analyze my results, but in terms of formulating a clear-cut method of analysis, especially for the quantitative rankings, I could definitely use some advice!
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You sound like you have a great plan of action. It sounds like you will 100% get all your participants. How do you plan do take into account the age range 40-70 year olds? Your outline of what you need to do is very in depth and I think you fully understand what you have to do. You could probably look at the results sections of different makeup blind consumption tests to see how they organized their results from their surveys. Also, on their participant form are you going to have them write down their age because you may want to break up your results into age ranges in case there is a majority of one age range as you stated. I think your plan for the exit survey and comparing the results after the blind consumption with the exit survey is very solid. Good luck !
ReplyDeleteAudrey, while all of this is good, I want more of a schedule for you to make for yourself that includes deadlines and whatnot. For example, it'd be helpful for you to give yourself a date to collect materials, go to the space and figure out setup, an amount of participants you hope to do the experiment per week, an exact start and finish date and goal for the collection of data, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs for the analysis of data, after reviewing your proposal, I think the exit survey needs a little work in order for it to be useful in gauging people's emotional responses to natural/unnatural products. I think the analysis will be much easier once the exit survey is stronger.
You really have a clear and laid out plan! I agree with Catherine, that you need to take into account the age range for the older participants. Maybe you could even look here in BASIS to find teachers or students to increase your age range. I think that comparing the surveys will be most likely the best way to collect your data. However, how will you word the survey questions? Because the wording of a survey question can influence the responses of the participants. And since you are using only lip gloss, you may need to look adress why lip gloss represents other make-up types. Overall your timeline looks pretty good, and I am confident that your research will go without any large obstacles or hassles. I can't wait to see what your results are. Have fun, and good luck!
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