What is Formative Research?

I must start with saying that It was really great to see every one do the group presentations. For GSPH course work, it was my first direct partner and community interaction. It was an experience to talk to people in Immunization branch, and convince them that Formative research was important. Not to mention the name, but it was funny when I was asked back “What is Formative Research, I have never heard of this before”. And they were trying to find mistakes in our survey as if it was a measurement tool. But that’s how I guess life is, we were the people with knowledge of science and convinced them that we knew what we were doing, and it shall help us to better tailor the campaign.

It was a good to see the field work that all the groups had done for their topics. Presentations were nice, and I feel, we could have done a little better. Really impressive was the example of the calculator and the lap top. It just made me realize certain things that probably were in my sub conscious. And I totally agree that it’s the percentage of difference that matters, and not the absolute numbers, just like in case of calculator, it would make sense to go to another place for $10, but not for computer. I also tend to base my decisions thinking, how much time I would spend, and the gas, as for me: time and gas are equally important resources which I would weigh against the money that I could potentially save.

It is so true how the tone and design of messages have an impact on us. Fear, comedy, social significance are all potent ways to do that, and there is generally good background research done as to what should work for what type of message. This just keeps me wondering, what we. The Mass Vaccination group should be doing, to get people to the Vaccination clinic.