advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

warm-ups, transitions are used to let the respondent know that the format of
the questions will be changing. For example: “For the next series of questions,
you will be asked about your views of service and quality for various areas of
the stadium.” Sometimes, skip questions will be used as a part of this section.
A skip question is where the answer to that question will affect which question
to ask next. An example would be “Have you made a purchase from any merchandise
booth with the stadium during this season?” If the answer is yes, they
move on with the questionnaire; if the answer is no, the respondent would be
directed to skip a series of questions about merchandising and move onto the
next section.
As a rule, easier questions are placed earlier in the questionnaire, with complicated
questions appearing toward the end. The reason for this is that once you
have a respondent who has investing a period of time with the survey, the likelihood
of them just not completing the questionnaire because of a difficult question
is very low. Therefore, the sport marketing research uses the easy questions
as a hook, and once hooked the respondent is committed. Another way to
ensure that the respondent does not quit is to inform them that they are almost
finished, as there are usually a limited number of difficult questions. An example
of a complex question would be “Rate each of the following services on a scale
from 1 to 7.”
The last section of the questionnaire is classification and demographic questions.
In years past, these questions were found at the beginning of a questionnaire,
but studies have shown that asking for that information up front
discourage people from completing surveys because they did not want to give
personal information. Even if it was noted on the questionnaire that the section
was optional, the perception of this information being at the front was that it
was most important to the study. Therefore, now these questions appear at the
end. The respondent has already provided the sport marketing researcher with
information and now whether they wish to provide this information or not, the
research has the data. The demographic and classification information is important
to the research in order to do additional statistical analysis on the data, so
it is important to ask questions that allow for anonymity and confidentiality
should the respondent wish for that.
The next step in the questionnaire development process is pre-coding questions.
This information is utilized to help in data entry and dissemination. The
goal of pre-coding is to associate each possible response with a unique number
and/or letter. Numbers are preferred because there are more statistical analysis
programs that identify with numbers than with letters. The key is that the precoding
cannot interfere with the respondent answering questions by confusing
them. In fact, with the use of computer tabulation, most pre-coding is put into
the statistical software instead of on the actual survey, and as data is entered the
pre-coding will automatically be implemented.
The final step is to gain approval of the survey from the client. It is important
to remember that although the sport marketing researcher may be the expert in
the field, it is ultimately the client (i.e., the management of the sport organization)
who must approve the research tool. Often this process requires explanation
to the management, who may not understand the process.
60 ADVANCED THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SPORT MARKETING