Overview
The Master of Science in Marketing Research (MSMR) program at MSU is designed to set students up for success when entering the market research industry.
The program focuses on the real-world application of knowledge and skills by partnering with private-sector leaders in market research. In 2022, the MSMR program adopted Recollective as part of their curriculum.
Gaining hands on experience using an online qualitative research tool like Recollective has helped students to develop a valuable skill set to offer prospective employers as they transition into their future careers.
Background
The MSMR program at MSU has been ranked one of the top market research master’s programs in both the U.S. and the world. The goal of the program is to provide students with both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience managing research projects.
As part of the University’s efforts to prioritize the real-world application of knowledge and skills within the program, they began searching for new innovative technologies to incorporate into the course curriculum.
Challenge
When looking at the curriculum taught in previous years, in-person qualitative research and online quantitative research tools were a prominent focus.
Over the course of the global pandemic, many qualitative researchers were forced to shift their work online and many of these researchers have continued to conduct their research online ever since. MSU was seeking to update and expand the program to accommodate these changing trends in research.
In order to keep the course curriculum up to date with current industry trends, MSU began searching for online qualitative tools that could enhance the program.
Solution
After considering a wide range of options within the qualitative research technology space, Recollective was selected as a partner to the program. Recollective stood out because of their product offering, which provided an all-in-one solution to online qualitative research.
The goal for both MSU and Recollective was to create a meaningful experience for the students to gain new skills within the platform and exposure to the process for running live online qualitative research studies.
Over time, Recollective’s partnership with MSU has evolved and the platform has become an integral component of multiple course offerings. This past semester, Recollective was fully integrated into the Emerging Research Design and Methods and Qualitative Research courses.
Throughout these courses, students were given a project brief for a Quick Service Restaurant, in which they were tasked with creating a qualitative research plan to support the company’s growth goals. Students had the opportunity to run a live research project in Recollective from start to finish which involved:
- Recruiting real participants from Echo Market Research
- Programming and moderating both asynchronous (i.e. a homework activity) and synchronous (i.e. in-depth interviews and focus groups) activities within Recollective
- Leveraging Recollective’s analysis and reporting features to distill meaningful insights from the study data
Recollective provided each student with access to their own Demo Site and took part in multiple platform training sessions with the students to ensure they were well equipped with the skills and capabilities to run their live projects.
In my future career, I will consider Recollective as a creative option for executing qualitative research projects. The flexibility and versatility that Recollective provides is one-of-a-kind. This can empower me, as a future researcher, to leverage the platform in a wide variety of applications, ultimately conducting multiple types of research within a single place. Such a resource provides a streamlined experience for somebody like myself to create the research application where everything would be integrated into one platform. However, the platform would also assist in streamlining the experience for participants to provide a fun and engaging event.
MSMR Student
Michigan State University
Outcome
Upon completion of the student’s assignments, it was clear that the students were excited about working with Recollective and the benefit they got from this experience.
Having the opportunity to work with a tool like Recollective allowed the students to develop a valuable skill set that will help them prepare for their future roles as market research professionals. After completing the assignment, students gained:
- Exposure to the full life cycle of a research project from recruiting, to writing a discussion guide, programming, and finally analyzing the data collected
- A deeper understanding of the Recollective’s capabilities and how the platform fits into the online qualitative research space
- Recognition of scenarios in which they can use a tool like Recollective in future research initiatives
As MSMR graduates move into the workforce, this unique hands-on experience will give them a competitive advantage. We are excited to see how these future researchers will continue to utilize these skills as they progress in their careers!
I originally connected with Recollective in order to provide our students with real-world experience with a great platform and technology for conducting effective qualitative research. However, Recollective goes further through the professionalism of their people, their solution-orientation, and their willingness to partner with and train our students. The team has invested many hours to tailor training and assignments that help our students gain critical skills as they become confident in working directly with real research participants. Our students value this capability – so much so that many of them highlight the experience on their resumes and in interviews as an example of how they can immediately contribute. The team at Recollective is a joy to work with and a key to our success.
Mike Mickunas
Professor of Market Research, MSU
If you have any questions about how your organization can launch a new service offering using Recollective, please reach out to researchservices@recollective.com.
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