Development of a research tool for the elicitation of consumer response

A new consumer research tool is proposed for eliciting consumer responses from unstructured data, such as narratives. The grounded theory approach is adopted to guide the process of data collection and analysis. Classical grounded theory methodology relies heavily on the ability of researchers to notice patterns in the data and to cope with theory, which is termed 'theoretical sensitivity'. This study attempts to suggest an alternative method that makes use of the sense-making abilities of consumers in shaping and detecting patterns. A practical consumer research project is conducted to explore the patterns of foreign language learning behaviour among tertiary students. Participants experience a sense-making process during which they assign codes to short pieces of narrative, categorise the codes to themes and give names to the categories. This real project helps to demonstrate that the proposed tool could provide an understanding of the behaviours of participants as well as of some of their underlying values. The research process is interactive and dynamic, with participants playing very active roles. This differentiates the study from ordinary focus group research.