Applied research is also interesting
The SRF got sufficient attention to attract several new research projects. Some also led to new fundamental research but others only were done as commercial projects. This does not mean that such projects were irrelevant. In general there were students who had to do some research in the context of their study and they participated in these projects. Here we will mention some of the commercial projects.
The decision process to choose a mortgage
A Dutch bank came to the SRF with the question if the SRF could do a study of the process that people go through selecting a mortgage to buy a house. The researchers of the bank thought that we had to confront the potential buyers with all the available possibilities and ask them how they made their choice.
Irmtraud explained them that decisions normally are not made in this way. In general people start with an option that is most familiar to them. If this option looks good enough they will accept it; if not, they will look for another possibility etc. It took some time to convince the researchers of the bank of this idea and when that was done, she had to develop a very complex computer assisted questionnaire that contained all possible options but started with the open question “where did you go for a first advise?” The answer was automatically coded and then further questions followed about that route. Mostly the respondents could finish the process in two or three steps but in principle all possible steps in all directions were available. Irmtraud worked this out. When the complex structured questionnaire was done Irmtraud organized the data collection and the result was reported.
The people behaved as the Nobel Prize winner, Herbert Simon, had suggested: they looked for a first satisficing solution and not an optimal one. This even holds for such an important financial decision which plays a role in one´s life for many years. Most of the time the final decision was made in a few steps but these steps could be vary for different people.
The decision process to choose a mortgage
A Dutch bank came to the SRF with the question if the SRF could do a study of the process that people go through selecting a mortgage to buy a house. The researchers of the bank thought that we had to confront the potential buyers with all the available possibilities and ask them how they made their choice.
Irmtraud explained them that decisions normally are not made in this way. In general people start with an option that is most familiar to them. If this option looks good enough they will accept it; if not, they will look for another possibility etc. It took some time to convince the researchers of the bank of this idea and when that was done, she had to develop a very complex computer assisted questionnaire that contained all possible options but started with the open question “where did you go for a first advise?” The answer was automatically coded and then further questions followed about that route. Mostly the respondents could finish the process in two or three steps but in principle all possible steps in all directions were available. Irmtraud worked this out. When the complex structured questionnaire was done Irmtraud organized the data collection and the result was reported.
The people behaved as the Nobel Prize winner, Herbert Simon, had suggested: they looked for a first satisficing solution and not an optimal one. This even holds for such an important financial decision which plays a role in one´s life for many years. Most of the time the final decision was made in a few steps but these steps could be vary for different people.
"A measure of Quality of life
Two people of the Erasmus Hospital (Rotterdam) contacted Willem with the question whether it would be possible to develop a quantitative measure for quality of life which could be used to compute the “number of years adjusted for quality” after a heart operation. They were thinking to use it as an index for "expected happy years after the heart operation" measured by the product of quality of live and number of years.
This was an interesting idea to work on and a nice project for the SRF, especially for Martin Verwey. He could use for this project the magnitude estimation procedure which we had developed before. He was responsible for the small SRF Telepanel and could test there the measurement procedures. A measure for quality of life under different conditions was developed and validated with success. When this was done a discussion started between the two medics who could use this result for his dissertation while we had developed the measure. They even threatened each other with juridical processes. We decided to publish the results in a statistical journal and not to continue this research with these medics even though we liked this research.
Two people of the Erasmus Hospital (Rotterdam) contacted Willem with the question whether it would be possible to develop a quantitative measure for quality of life which could be used to compute the “number of years adjusted for quality” after a heart operation. They were thinking to use it as an index for "expected happy years after the heart operation" measured by the product of quality of live and number of years.
This was an interesting idea to work on and a nice project for the SRF, especially for Martin Verwey. He could use for this project the magnitude estimation procedure which we had developed before. He was responsible for the small SRF Telepanel and could test there the measurement procedures. A measure for quality of life under different conditions was developed and validated with success. When this was done a discussion started between the two medics who could use this result for his dissertation while we had developed the measure. They even threatened each other with juridical processes. We decided to publish the results in a statistical journal and not to continue this research with these medics even though we liked this research.
Income and expenditures
As we have mentioned before the SWOKA wanted to use the Telepanel for the registration of the monthly income and regular expenditures of households. A computer assisted procedure for these variables was not yet developed. The development of a monthly registration of income had been developed by Martin Verwey together with Willem and Kees Mosselman. A striking result was that we observed much more change from one month to the next in these incomes than was expected.
In order to test whether there was indeed so much change in income, we suggested a procedure which stored the income of the last month which could be presented in the next month. The respondent just had to say yes or no whether their income remained the same or not. If the answer was no, the income was asked again. If the difference was larger than expected further questions followed. Marius de Pijper programmed this possibility in the program INTERV we had developed.
Even with these procedures, where the people could simply accept their previous income as remaining the same, the changes in income on monthly basis remained large which led to a publication in the ESOMAR journal "European Research".
As we have mentioned before the SWOKA wanted to use the Telepanel for the registration of the monthly income and regular expenditures of households. A computer assisted procedure for these variables was not yet developed. The development of a monthly registration of income had been developed by Martin Verwey together with Willem and Kees Mosselman. A striking result was that we observed much more change from one month to the next in these incomes than was expected.
In order to test whether there was indeed so much change in income, we suggested a procedure which stored the income of the last month which could be presented in the next month. The respondent just had to say yes or no whether their income remained the same or not. If the answer was no, the income was asked again. If the difference was larger than expected further questions followed. Marius de Pijper programmed this possibility in the program INTERV we had developed.
Even with these procedures, where the people could simply accept their previous income as remaining the same, the changes in income on monthly basis remained large which led to a publication in the ESOMAR journal "European Research".
Election research
In 1989 national elections took place in The Netherlands. Kees de Rooy and Kees Maas did research in order to report on a weekly basis about the uncertainty of the voters asking their most preferred party and if they were not yet hundred percent certain, which other party or parties they were considering. In this way one could determine a minimum and a maximum number of votes for all parties. It was interesting how uncertain a large proportion of the population was about their choice till the day before the elections. This research did not receive financial support but the SRF got a lot of attention by the weekly publications in a very popular advertising medium (Adformatie).
In 1989 national elections took place in The Netherlands. Kees de Rooy and Kees Maas did research in order to report on a weekly basis about the uncertainty of the voters asking their most preferred party and if they were not yet hundred percent certain, which other party or parties they were considering. In this way one could determine a minimum and a maximum number of votes for all parties. It was interesting how uncertain a large proportion of the population was about their choice till the day before the elections. This research did not receive financial support but the SRF got a lot of attention by the weekly publications in a very popular advertising medium (Adformatie).
The FNV-barometer
A last applied research project the SRF participated in was called the FNV- barometer. In this project my students worked together with Jelle Visser of sociology and Hanspeter Kriesi, the new professor in political science. The FNV was the largest trade union of the Netherlands. The membership of the trade unions in the Netherlands was rather small (around 25%) and the trade unions wanted to know why this was so. Therefore we asked the opinions of the people about the trade unions in general and their activities during the last period. The interesting result was that of all people who were new on the labor market more than 50% became member of the trade unions. On the other hand we observed that within a relative short time 50% of these new members left the trade unions again. It seems that the problem was not the recruitment of new members, most workers started with a positive opinion about the trade unions, but being members they did not see that their membership had a positive effect and therefore they left the unions quite quickly again.
A last applied research project the SRF participated in was called the FNV- barometer. In this project my students worked together with Jelle Visser of sociology and Hanspeter Kriesi, the new professor in political science. The FNV was the largest trade union of the Netherlands. The membership of the trade unions in the Netherlands was rather small (around 25%) and the trade unions wanted to know why this was so. Therefore we asked the opinions of the people about the trade unions in general and their activities during the last period. The interesting result was that of all people who were new on the labor market more than 50% became member of the trade unions. On the other hand we observed that within a relative short time 50% of these new members left the trade unions again. It seems that the problem was not the recruitment of new members, most workers started with a positive opinion about the trade unions, but being members they did not see that their membership had a positive effect and therefore they left the unions quite quickly again.
New methodological research
For the studies on income, expenditure and voting new procedures were developed to summarize responses from respondents which could be used in the next survey with the same respondents. Later the same procedure was also used to summarize and correct the so called "Household box", information which was asked on a yearly basis. To prevent too much work for the respondents, the information of last year was stored and was provided to the respondents to be checked. For the respondents these screens were very attractive because they prevented many boring questions while they think that we already should know this information.
Nowadays such a procedure is called “proactive dependent interviewing” (Eggs and Jäckle 2015) , we have presented these approaches under the name “Dynamic Summary and Correction Screens”. This procedure was included in a Sage book on computer assisted interviewing that was published in 1992. For a shorter summary I can refer to the SRF website https://www.sociometricresearchfoundation.com/tools-to-improve-measurement.html
It will be clear that there was enough work for the SRF and for the people working there, especially Irmtraud, Martin Verwey and Bas van den Putte. It was also nice that this research led to the development of instruments and software procedures which were new and relevant for survey research in the future. At the start of the SRF this was the role of the SRF we were hoping for.
For the studies on income, expenditure and voting new procedures were developed to summarize responses from respondents which could be used in the next survey with the same respondents. Later the same procedure was also used to summarize and correct the so called "Household box", information which was asked on a yearly basis. To prevent too much work for the respondents, the information of last year was stored and was provided to the respondents to be checked. For the respondents these screens were very attractive because they prevented many boring questions while they think that we already should know this information.
Nowadays such a procedure is called “proactive dependent interviewing” (Eggs and Jäckle 2015) , we have presented these approaches under the name “Dynamic Summary and Correction Screens”. This procedure was included in a Sage book on computer assisted interviewing that was published in 1992. For a shorter summary I can refer to the SRF website https://www.sociometricresearchfoundation.com/tools-to-improve-measurement.html
It will be clear that there was enough work for the SRF and for the people working there, especially Irmtraud, Martin Verwey and Bas van den Putte. It was also nice that this research led to the development of instruments and software procedures which were new and relevant for survey research in the future. At the start of the SRF this was the role of the SRF we were hoping for.