Concept testing: Monadic vs sequential monadic surveys

While conducting a market research study, it’s essential to choose the research method which best suits your objectives and produces the best results.

When you’re creating a survey for testing a concept, a product, or an ad campaign, there are three principal methodologies that you can use:

1. Comparison testing
2. Monadic testing
3. Sequential monadic testing

What is comparison concept testing?

In comparison tests, respondents compare multiple concepts as they are shown next to each other. The respondents can rank the concepts or directly select the best concept.

Pros of comparison concept testing

Comparison testing provides results that are easy to understand. There is a clear winner amongst the concepts since the respondents directly identify that they like a specific ad campaign better than the others or are willing to pay more for a particular product.

Cons of comparison concept testing

Although the results provided by a comparison test are easy to digest, they seldom offer real context about the true appeal of a concept. There might be a specific detail about an ad campaign or a particular feature of a product that made it more appealing to the respondents. Such details are essential while deciding whether to invest in a concept.

What is monadic concept testing?

In a monadic test, the target audience is broken down into multiple groups. Each group is presented with one of the concepts and asked questions about it. These questions ask the respondents’ opinions about the concept and which specific attributes and features they like or dislike.

Pros of monadic concept testing

The respondents are shown only one concept in isolation, independent of any external stimuli. Thus the respondents’ opinions about the concept are not impaired by any distractions or outside influences. The data collected is clean and can be used to validate the concept without any constraints.

Since the respondents are shown only one concept, you can get in-depth insights by asking more follow up questions while still keeping the survey relatively short.

Cons of monadic concept testing

Since the target audience needs to be broken down into multiple groups, you need a larger sample size, thus increasing your research cost. It becomes even more challenging when you want to research a niche market, and it isn’t easy to find enough respondents to create multiple groups.

To set up monadic concept testing with QuestionPro, view our help-file on survey blocks monadic testing.

What is sequential monadic concept testing?

In a sequential monadic test, respondents see two or more concepts in an isolated environment. The concepts are presented in a random order to avoid order bias. Each concept is followed by the same series of questions to determine each of the concepts’ in-depth insights.

Pros of sequential monadic concept testing

Since each respondent is shown at least two concepts, the required sample size goes down, making the research more cost-effective. Since you require fewer respondents, this method is more suitable for researching niche markets. Fewer respondents also mean less time is needed to field the survey and collect data.

Cons of sequential monadic concept testing

Presenting multiple concepts at a time increases the survey’s length, which affects the completion rate of the survey and introduces the risk of nonresponse bias to your research. The research may also be at risk of order bias unless the order of the concept is appropriately randomized.

To set up monadic concept testing with QuestionPro, view our help-file on survey blocks sequential monadic testing.

Now that you better understand each of the above concept testing methods and their pros and cons, you can decide which method is better suited to your requirements and can start your research with QuestionPro’s Research Edition.