Apart from Lucy, our distant relation who lived a few million years ago in the African Rift valley, I can’t think of any being as closely scrutinized as the reader. How can one track him down? How can one recognise and identify him? How can he be construed from bits and pieces collected by scores of field interviewers? A beginner would think that with a strict survey procedure, a properly built sample and professional interviewers, the reader can’t escape him. How innocent! A few years later, complaints from publishers dissatisfied with their audiences, or else conflicting tests and analyses, are likely to calm down his enthusiasm. The researcher ought to keep questioning his procedures and methodologies.
Symposium: 2003: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Session 3 - Methodological Issues
Authors: Marx, Jean-Louis
Organisations: AEPM
Topics: Model Bias, Readership Model, Validity