Broad Experience:
Our research facilitates informed decision-making through targeted scientifically-defensible analysis of group opinions and characteristics. We have conducted over 1,700 quantitative and qualitative opinion research projects since 1981 for national clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to startups in nearly every imaginable field.
Design Experience:
The firm’s founder has an almost unique background having studied qualitative/field research methods at the doctoral level and quantitative/survey research at the doctoral and postdoctoral level, each at what was then recognized as the premier academic department in the world that specialized in that particular discipline. As a result, we are able to craft methodological recommendations based not upon their conformity to a single expertise, but rather to best meet the needs of a particular project. There are many nationally recognized practitioners of either quantitative or qualitative methodologies; almost none of these is seriously credentialed in both.
State of the Art:
Our practices are not only based on our own 25+ year/1700+ project experience; they reflect continuing professional involvement at the highest levels with the nationally recognized professional research organizations through professional literature, active conference participation, and continuing contact with nationally-recognized peer professionals.
Full Service:
All core research functions are undertaken in-house so we can maintain rigorous standards of quality control. These include not only all project design and analysis activities, but also questionnaire development, sampling, a range of data collection methodologies (phone, web, mail, intercepts), data coding, editing, cleaning, tabulation, graphical presentation for quantitative surveys and in-depth interviewing and focus group research for qualitative projects.
Credibility:
Our research has been widely reported in national and local media including the New York Times, National Public Radio, ABC Nightly News, Good Morning America, and Nightline as well as hundreds of articles in print media and numerous mentions and staff appearances on radio and television programming. This positive and continuous observance and coverage of our results translates into immediate recognition and credibility should you
decide to release your
results publicly.
Facilities/Technology:
We have operated from company-owned facilities since 1984. We maintain all state-of-the-art technology including a centralized telephone facility equipped with Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), an executive focus group facility, programs for Web-based interviewing, scanning paper surveys, and a range of both custom/proprietary and commercial programs for data cleaning, tabular processing, and graphical presentation.
Professional Staffing:
We maintain a staff of carefully selected and highly-trained Analysts, Project Managers, Programmers, Field Supervisors, and Interviewers sufficient to meet any anticipated need.
Ethical Commitment:Over the years, O’Neil Associates has adhered to a rigorous set of ethical and professional standards. These include, but are not limited to, the code of standards of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the nation’s premier survey research industry association of which we have been a member for over 30 years.
Michael
J. O'Neil, Ph.D., has over 30 years experience in designing, conducting, and analyzing opinion research projects. He has overseen hundreds of research projects for a wide range of clients, including major national corporations; law firms; national unions; major utilities; hospitals and other healthcare providers; various Federal, State, County and city agencies; and educational institutions, from universities to community-college districts and school districts.
Dr. O’Neil’s training in survey research includes work at the nation’s two dominant academic survey research centers: graduate work at the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago and postdoctoral studies at the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The latter appointment was the result of the award of a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Survey Research Methodology for research and study in the interview methodology section of the Survey Research Center. Subsequently, he was appointed to the faculty at the University of Michigan and later to the faculty at Arizona State University, where he was Director of the Public Opinion Research Program.
Dr. O’Neil’s training is nearly unique in that it equally emphasizes qualitative research methods. This training began when he began studying doctoral-level anthropological research methods while a junior at Brown and followed by a year engaged in full-time urban anthropological field research that became the basis for a Master’s degree in Sociology earned simultaneously with his undergraduate degree. This interest in qualitative research and participant observation led him to doctoral studies in Sociology at Northwestern, then the leading qualitative sociology department in the country.
Listed in Who’s Who in America, Dr. O’Neil is a Phi Beta Kappa honors graduate of Brown University, from which he also holds a Master’s degree in Sociology. His Ph.D. in the same field is from Northwestern.
Dr. O’Neil serves as chief methodologist for all projects at O’Neil Associates. In this capacity, he applies the education and experience described above to ensure that each project employs the methods best suited to meet the identified needs of a given project. He also oversees, edits, approves, and contributes to all analytical reports.
