Market research glossary

A research methodology where participants are invited to attend a set location and asked for their opinions on a certain stimulus, for example, a new beverage.

Healthcare market research is dedicated to the healthcare sector. As regulations and norms can differ globally, it is important to recognise these differences when conducting multi-country research.

HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It was enacted into US law to safeguard patient privacy and establish strict standards for managing, transferring and securing health data in the USA.

A payment made to a market research participant to thank them for giving up their time to take part. The term honorarium is typically used in the context of research with B2B profiles and healthcare professionals. Many countries have rules on the disclosure of honoraria paid to healthcare professionals and acceptable levels of payment.

In quantitative research, refers to the probability that the finding from a sample could have occurred by chance. For example, suppose you have developed a new formulation for your product and want to find out if people prefer it to the current one by asking a random sample of 100 people to test both formulations. The null hypothesis would be that there is no preference for the new formulation and the alternative hypothesis would be that people do prefer the new formulation. Based on the number of people who preferred the new formulation in your sample, a statistical hypothesis test will tell you how likely it is that the null hypothesis is true and conversely, how likely it is that the alternative hypothesis is true. In qualitative research, hypothesis testing may refer to any kind of preliminary research to test out new ideas, which may then be explored in more detail through further qualitative or quantitative research.