How much can technology help research?

NatCen is the UK's largest independent social research organisation. The use of Computer-Assisted Interviewing in the early 90s made a dramatic change to the way research was carried out and to the productivity of our survey organisation. There has been no comparable technological breakthrough since and, for those wanting to carry out surveys with statistically representative samples of the population on complicated issues, the traditional survey issues of sample and questionnaire design, interviewer quality, response rates, accurate data and meaningful analysis still dominate and resist easy technological fixes.