Roy Morgan invests in human-centric research, returning to face-to-face interviewing
Commencing January 2025, Roy Morgan will be returning to face-to-face interviewing as part of our Roy Morgan Single Source survey program.
Michele Levine, Roy Morgan CEO, says:
“Roy Morgan is investing heavily in human-centric research – real people interviewing real people, asking questions, and faithfully recording their answers.
“Today, to achieve truly representative research, it is critical to have a sample comprising address-based in-person interviewing, as well as telephone and online. Only then, once the framework is sound, can all the other data sources, sophisticated data analytics, data science and AI be confidently applied to add detail, depth, and forecasting power.
“Face-to-face interviewing has always been a critical and on-going data collection method for many Roy Morgan projects, particularly major government studies and longitudinal research, and we are pleased that the pre-eminent consumer survey in Australia, Roy Morgan Single Source, will be re-incorporating this methodology in its program again.
“This investment aligns with our Founder, Roy Morgan’s, desire to accurately record and report the views and behaviours of Australians rather than having journalists or politicians claim to speak for them.”
From 2025, Roy Morgan Single Source will be multi-mode, with face-to-face, telephone interviews, online surveys, and self-completion journals ensuring that it continues to provide gold standard consumer data about all Australians. The inclusion of face-to-face interviewing ‘future proofs’ the Single Source design, enabling Roy Morgan to provide valuable consumer data trends into the future.
Other benefits of face-to-face interviewing include:
- It is addressed-based, random probability sampling which means every type of Australian has the opportunity to be represented, reducing the potential for bias in the data.
- It has the highest response rates due to interviewers building trust and engagement at the door – this again minimises non-response bias.
- Data accuracy is increased as respondents are provided showcards/prompts and interviewers can pick up on non-verbal cues more easily.
In 2025, Roy Morgan self-completion journals will use sample predominantly recruited from probability-based initial interviews. This is unique in the consumer survey market, where most ongoing surveys are conducted via commercial online panel providers where respondents have ‘opted-in’ to the panel for points and rewards. In contrast, we know respondents to our online journals are real people, are truly representative of the population, and provide accurate responses because their opinion counts.
From January 2025, Roy Morgan Single Source’s initial interviews will include 2,000 face-to-face interviews per month (or 500 per week) across all of Australia, complemented by our telephone survey (~2,000 per month) and online survey (~1,000 per month), ensuring Roy Morgan Single Source continues to sample over 60,000 respondents annually.
Roy Morgan is committed to data accuracy and ensuring minimal disruption to our clients and the market. As part of this commitment, in 2024, we have piloted the face-to-face Single Source survey, in partnership with Tourism Research Australia. We also continue to incorporate improvements across our survey to ensure that we capture key metrics, attitudes, and behaviours across industries with a user-friendly and up-to-date survey design for our respondents.
Rod Battye, Manager of Data Innovation and Partnerships at Tourism Research Australia says:
“We’re excited to be partnering with Roy Morgan to deliver Australia’s domestic tourism statistics via the face-to-face Single Source survey from 1 January 2025.
“We know that face-to-face interviewing allows us to have more control over the sample, better geographical targeting, and interviewers can build rapport with respondents, increasing response rates and providing more accurate data.
“As we undertake sophisticated data science and modelling, incorporating ‘big data’ into the tourism metrics and having the most consistent, accurate and robust sample is critical. The future of research is face-to-face.”
For comments or more information please contact:
Portia Morgan
Head of Client Services, Roy Morgan
Office: +61 (3) 9223 2436
Mobile: 0421 058 572
About Roy Morgan
Roy Morgan is Australia’s largest independent Australian research company, with offices in each state, as well as in the U.S. and U.K. A full-service research organisation, Roy Morgan has over 80 years’ experience collecting objective, independent information on consumers.
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
