Market Research 15:38 Aug 3, 2011
I worked in Market Research for 14 years!
"Fieldwork" is the process of collecting the data e.g. interviewing members of the public in person, or by phone, or (in this case) getting the opinions of doctors.
Normally, the 'fieldwork' is carried out with random members of the public. However, if the research is targeted at a specific 'hard-to-get' group, it would be very expensive to carry out the fieldwork at random.
In these cases, research companies build a "PANEL", which is a list of Doctors (for example) who have taken part in research before and who have said that they would be willing to do so again. The researchers just have to call the phone numbers from the "panel" and try to arrange an appointment to conduct the interview. |