Now I am just waiting for my cheque to clear for my chartered status to be conferred, I am obviously too big for my boots to be collecting data myself, at least among the general public. To this end, we’ve contracted a market research company to conduct the data collection. We’re after about 400 people to answer about 40 questions, and then again a couple of weeks later. Obviously the chances of stumbling across 400 people who are sufficiently altruistic to complete it without inducement is unlikely, so we’re chipping participants £5 (it takes 10 minutes to complete, but the second questionnaire has to be completed in their home).
We’ve already piloted the study, and it takes an hour to get 10 participants off the street, on average. It’s miserable work tho’, so lets figure a day to get 40 people. At that rate, we’re looking a 10 days work, plus follow-up, which lets guess takes 10x as long. At that rate, it’s 110 days work. Add another 10 days for all the related admin, and it’s a maximum of 120 days work. If I employed psychology students, I could get it done for £6000, plus another £2000 for the inducement.
We’ve just handed over £25,000. Anyone want some old rope?