How people make choices

How do you choose a stated preference method?

Imagine you wanted to find out how people choose a house. 

They may consider its size, price, whether it has a garden big enough for the dog’s zoomies — and whether it’s located close enough to family (but far enough from them) 👀

How would you find out what matters to them?

Here are some stated preference methods to find out more about how people make choices:

➡️ You could present people with two or three houses and ask them to choose one. A Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE), the most commonly used stated preference method, asks this type of question repeatedly. 

➡️ Or you could present three houses and ask people to choose the house they like best and least. Best-Worst Scaling 3 (BWS3), a variant of a DCE, would ask these two questions. This method gives you more information about each person’s preferences than a DCE. The benefit? You can increase precision and reduce sample size, but you need to ask each person more questions.

➡️ Now imagine all you wanted to find out was what house feature people find most important, second most important, third most important — you get the drill. You could present a list of house features and ask people to choose the house feature they find most and least important. Best-Worst Scaling (BWS1) asks this type of questions.

➡️ And what if you wanted to find out when people would choose a bigger house over a more central location, all else being equal? You could present the same options, but gradually increase the size of one house. Threshold-technique asks this type of questions.

When choosing a stated preference method, you’ll need to consider what kind of question you’re asking.

All while striking the right balance between data precision and participant burden.

Which method do you use most often?