New R package published in the Journal of Open Source Software
06.03.2025 -
The other form of open science service to the market research community!
Check out our new R package published in The Journal of Open Source Software.
In recent years, during discussions with specific small and medium-sized market research providers and marketing departments, we observed that studies on preference elicitation through Conjoint analysis or (anchored) Maximum Difference Scaling (MaxDiff) rarely include measures to assess the predictive (out-of-calibration) validity in holdout tasks to ensure data quality in managerial decision-making.
The reasons for this neglect may be manifold:
- Functions for implementing and validating holdout tasks are often not fully integrated into commercial software solutions that handle Conjoint and MaxDiff studies.
- A lack of time in the fast-paced market research industry
- Insufficient training for participating market research managers
- Ultimately, professional online panel providers have no incentive to address previously unmentioned data quality issues.
Our new R package validateHOT comes into play (see GitHub for tutorials).
Beginning with a few functions we provided to our students during Conjoint seminars at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, we have now consolidated several functions into a package that offers tools for validating holdout tasks and preparing basic market simulations, among other features. The package also helps with Total-Unduplicated-Reach-and-Frequency (T.U.R.F) analysis. It integrates seamlessly with (Adaptive) Choice-based Conjoint or MaxDiff as conducted by popular proprietary packages commonly used by companies.
Curious? Check out the open-access publication for free by following this link.
We wish you all some happy coding