Student research projects and surveys on Gransnet

I have just noticed a topic called "https://www.gransnet.com/forums/media_research_requests . It mentions a £30 fee, and has zero threads.

Stardreamer If they look in the list of forums for a suitable one to put their survey onto, they would find one called "Product Tests and Surveys" Then when they selected "New thread" to start their post, they would read the following :-

"Please note: This topic is for your comments and feedback on Product Tests and Surveys being run by Gransnet. It is not the place to post (or ask for) comments on other products or to post your own surveys. If you do this, your comments may be deleted. If you'd like to run your own product test or survey, please email [email protected]. If you are an entrepreneur or start-up and would like to ask for some feedback, please visit our media requests topic here"

So it is possible for them to post a link to their survey, if they had gone about it sensibly in the first place and asked permission. It may then cost them something, of course, if they are doing it for commercial reasons. I know there used to be a £30 fee for some things.

Yet are they told? I honestly don't know StarDreamer but GNHQ would be able to clarify for you I expect. As previous posters have said, we've had several student surveys in the past and they've been conducted without issue so I don't think there's an embargo per se.

It did appear to come from Manchester University, but there was no sign-off from staff, which is usual if a student is speaking to the public.

It wasn't a well-designed questionnaire, particularly if part of a postgraduate degree. For example one of the first questions as asking people to rank order 9 categories in relation to how often they bought them online (food, furniture, sports equipment etc), and another asking for an average online spend. Someone like me who shops almost exclusively online couldn't possibly answer those questions with any degree of accuracy (which would invalidate the results) and there was no option to say that you never buy something like sports equipment.

It seemed to me to have come from an international student (or source) as the term 'seniors' is not commonly used in the UK, and the study seemed to be based on a view of older people's consumption patterns and IT abilities that don't really fit.

Chewbacca

It sounds as though they just didn't seek, or obtain, permission from GNHQ StarDreamer and so they zapped it. If they were legit, they can always reapply and follow the correct procedures though.

If they are politely informed rather than blamed "for".

Yet are they told?

I am on the YouGov panel and do surveys most weeks. You do get paid a small amount and it goes into my bank.

Recruiting people for student research surveys and projects in unis is quite common but you have to abide by ethical guidelines and data protection laws. So there is a lot of red tape nowadays.

When I was doing my Ph.D. (early 90s) I needed to recruit a lot of students for experiments. I didnt have the funds to pay them all but their names went into a prize raffle drawn by one of the profs.

I enjoy doing surveys (some at least - others are annoying so I give up) so I wouldn't mind doing a survey on Gransnet if it was for a genuine student project or other type of research - eg health based. I wonder is there a way potential surveys could be screened by Gransnet to see if they are for a commercial operation (in which case they would be charged), or for a non-commercial purpose?

It sounds as though they just didn't seek, or obtain, permission from GNHQ StarDreamer and so they zapped it. If they were legit, they can always reapply and follow the correct procedures though.

I notice that following the link one gets the following.

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Thread deleted

This thread has been deleted by GNHQ for breaking our forum guidelines.

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I am somewhat concerned that the word "for" seems to imply a ruling of wilful breaking.

It might have been a genuine case of not knowing.

And it's not taboo at all! Perfectly reasonable question to ask!

Hi StarDreamer if I remember correctly, businesses that wish to carry out a survey need to directly approach GNHQ to ask for permission and I think there's a fee for that. I've seen other student research questionnaires and, again, I fairly sure that they also need to have received permission to conduct it although I don't think there's any fee.