Multilingual data is invaluable to any business, whether you are using that data to evaluate the effectiveness of your overseas sales team, or customer satisfaction in a new market.
If you are looking to optimize and grow a global business, you may have already taken the step of collecting that multilingual data. Maybe you have already interviewed your employees or your customers, or held focus groups. Maybe you have hired management consultants, or market researchers.
But until you have analyzed that data, the real value has yet to be revealed.
What is the best way to extract the messages, the insight that will help guide your business?
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Quantitative Analysis Methods
Perhaps you have a collection of questionnaires, whose purpose was to assign a tangible and numerical value to misunderstandings between entry level staff and management.
You have some research questions developed and you have your sample ready.
Using quantitative methods to analyze your questionnaire results, you’ll end up with percentages per answer per question, means, and frequencies.
This is a great starting point for your business, it is cold, hard data that is hard to dispute.
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Qualitative Analysis Methods
Your quantitative data was helpful in showing the broad strokes of your challenges or successes. But have you considered individual differences? Or the questions that you didn’t think to ask?
What about answers employees have that weren’t given as an option? There might be more insights that you are leaving on the table, if you rely solely on quantitative methods.
In order to obtain more detailed results, you could also introduce qualitative methods.
For example, if you add in-person interviews using interviewees from the original sample, your business can gain even more helpful insight into the challenge at hand.
Combining both quantitative and qualitative methods is called “mixed methods research”, and it is a service that we can offer (in dozens of languages) at Meridian Linguistics.
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Mixed Methods Research (MMR)
Mixed methods research employs both quantitative and qualitative analysis, and includes a mix of data types or strategies.
To get the most value out of your data as possible, mixed methods research ensures you leave no stone unturned.
Since large samples are expensive, and small samples unreliable, mixed methods research can help you make sure that your data paints and accurate and thorough picture.
Don’t forget, not all samples are representative, and not all results are generalizable. In the field of applied linguistics, this method is particularly advantageous. It allows for the efficiency of solid numerical data while adding an exploratory approach.
The exploratory approach takes into consideration context, social dynamics, social hierarchy, cultural backgrounds, roles, and more.
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How are multilingual research analyses carried out?
This service is highly adaptable to the needs of any client. What you get back from our linguists depends on the type of analyses you need.
Our linguists use a combination of SPSS (for all quantitative testing) and human coders (for qualitative).
Any analyses involving factors, determinants, relationships, correlation, of effect, is carried out in SPSS by a single linguist.
Qualitative analysis is used for data relating to more complex personal experiences, conversations, meaning, or developments.
This part is done by at least two linguists. The first linguist creates a “coding system” by placing data into meaningful categories.
A second linguist is then used for reliability purposes: this linguist recodes the data to ensure that the categories and the choices made by the first linguist were consistent and accurate.
Our team includes analysts that work in many different languages, but if a language yis requested that those analysts do not speak, we put together multilingual teams of linguists and analysts who work together to understand the materials at hand.
Sometimes that involves translation, but translation is not always the most cost-effective way to analyse multilingual data. Often, we use a more complex workflow procedure that allows analysts and linguists to work together efficiently. This way, we only need to “translate” the results.
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What is the deliverable when you order multilingual MMR Analysis?
After we conduct mixed methods analysis, our clients receive a preliminary analysis as well as a set of descriptive statistics.
The statistics may include a frequencies table, a histogram of means, a scatter plot of ranks, etc in addition to a summary that interprets our findings into plain English.
For the qualitative portion, there are several options, depending on the data source and strategy.
If part of the data is a set of interview audio files, we might use conversation analysis to tag important utterances and search for trends.
If the interview questions are more open ended, you might prefer categorizations instead. In this case you might receive IPA transcripts, theme development, or categorizations organized via chart/diagram.
You could also ask for a discussion of results, along with the coding outline, and/or a proposal for a theoretical framework.
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How long does it take to carry out multilingual linguistic research?
Depending on the amount of data and complexity of the analyses, most services can be delivered in a matter of weeks.
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CASE STUDY:
.A France-based company wanted to reduce churn among employees at overseas offices in Spain, German, and the United Kingdom. They therefore conducted a study to better understand the challenges they faced via survey and an informal interview.
Numeric data from the survey answers provided some insight: charts showing frequencies of certain answers helped the company understand that there were common issues that could be addressed. Other statistical methods helped to show the magnitude or pervasiveness of their existing challenges.
A team of linguists working in three languages then coded for carefully translated question categories, such as “mission disconnect,” “salary,” or “stunted professional growth.”
Codes were also created to interview responses such as “sociocultural disconnect” or “shifted priorities due to age gap.”
These categories were then compared with coded categories from interview conversation to fill in the gaps.
After reviewing the analyzed results, the French company was then able to develop new strategies to improve worker retention in their overseas offices, based on the trends and interpretations of their data.
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How We Can Help You Plan Your Multilingual Research and Analyses
As you can see, multilingual research is extremely flexible, and has many applications!
Furthermore, you don’t need to plan it all out from the beginning. A project can be designed and/or conducted with the intent of applying mixed methods, or it can follow completed analyses.
Alternatively, the timing can be sequential. It all depends on your goals, your resources, and your preferences.
Not only do we have expertise in quantitative, qualitative, and MMR research analysis; our team of analysts includes specialists working across dozens of languages. Our specialized data analysts are also able to work in tandem with our database of over 3,000 linguists working in hundreds of languages, in case your needs include rarer languages.
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What We Need From You:
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- The research procedure(s) used. Is the data collected via Likert-scale, interviews, questionnaire, pre-test + post-test, etc? Or alternatively do you require assistance in developing one of the prior mentioned instruments?
- Strand(s). In which “direction” is the research made to go i.e. qualitative –> quantitative or quantitative –> qualitative?
- Products. What is the desired result or subject of focus i.e. thematic analysis, categorization, conversation analysis, etc?
- Context. What are the demographics, body language, and relevant backgrounds of the research participants?
- Framing. Are there any philosophical or theoretical positions that are central to the research i.e. queer theory, grounded theory, etc?
- Any existing coding. Was there any input was “reverse coded” i.e. questions worded negatively such as “which of the following was least likely to-.” How was data grouped?
- The research question. What are you looking at specifically and what are further considerations to keep in mind?
How Much Does Multilingual Linguistic Research Analysis Cost?
Because this kind of research analysis is very detailed, and often involves the work of specialists who speak multiple languages, you can expect the pricing to be consistent with the level of expertise that is needed.
To give a few examples:
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Pricing Example 1:
A client needs assistance in the development of questionnaires, test questions, interview questions, or other instruments for the research design in addition to numerical data like histograms and coding with preliminary discussions. The data is in Spanish and English.
Estimated cost USD $3,000+.
Turnaround Time: This could be completed in approximately 3 weeks, depending on the sample size and instrument of choice mentioned above.
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Pricing Example 2:
A project involving transcription of 2 Korean interviews, each captured in 20 minutes of audio files, needing a normal distribution table with descriptive statistics and coding for categories. The client would like the results and analysis to be presented in English for their international management team.
Estimated cost: USD $1,500.
Turnaround Time: Approximately 2 weeks
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In conclusion
If your project goals and budget align with investing in multilingual linguistic research, it is an invaluable tool that enhances any research set. At Meridian Linguistics, we have linguists and analysts that specialize in quantitative, qualitative, and MMR methods, and work in dozens of languages.
For an estimate, please contact our project managers.