Student Panel Launched
January 13 2005
A panel of UK students has been launched by new provider Opinionpanel. The Student Panel gives researchers access to 20,000 students across a profile reflecting the UK's total student population, analysed by over 100 different variables, and delivers full results within 3 days.
The panel, which took almost a year to establish, claims to be the only tool of its kind in reaching students across all universities and by all types. It filters out shared and multiple identities by working with universities' own security procedures for ensuring that students gain only a single 'ac.uk' email address. Students are incentivised with Amazon gift certificates.
In recent months Opinionpanel has produced a comprehensive review of student attitudes, choices and living conditions, published as The Student Report 2004 ( www.opinionpanel.co.uk/reports/the-student-report.pdf ).
With response rates typically above 60%, Opinionpanel provides two services for customised use by researchers.
- The Student Omnibus Survey reaches 1,000 students once a fortnight in which clients can place as many questions as they like.
- The Student Access Panel allows researchers to reach samples of different sizes and different profiles at any time.
Set up by Ben Marks, in association with Martin Collins, the former Chair of the Market Research Society and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Opinionpanel uses IT systems provided by Dutch supplier Nebu. Recruitment is through agreement with UCAS (the UK's central body for handling university applications) and word of mouth. Face to face recruitment on campus fills quota gaps making the panel nationally representative (in terms of gender, year and university type as defined by the Higher Education Statistics Agency [HESA]).
The UK's 1.5 million undergraduates have a £10 billion expendable income, potentially huge lifetime value and an assured future as tomorrow's opinion-formers, and they are constantly changing in number, ethnicity, class, attitudes and opinions. Researchers know they cannot afford to ignore students, but they are notoriously difficult to reach. Unorthodox working hours, frequent changes of address and long holidays have in the past made worthwhile research difficult and expensive.
According to Managing Director, Ben Marks, 'The Student Panel is an important evolution in the progress of online research. Because we're confident our panellists really are who they say they are we can treat them as real people, not just numbers - and that creates real dialogue'.
Research director Martin Collins notes, 'Surveys of the general population usually under-represent students severely. Specially recruited samples tend to be of poor quality (whoever happens to be around at the time, at a small number of institutions) or time-consuming and unduly expensive'.
Opinionpanel's home page is at
www.opinionpanel.co.uk
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
