Text highlighting: Three methodological studies to inform guidelines for implementation

Abstract

Text highlighting was recently introduced as a method for exploring consumer attitudes and perceptions. It consists of asking participants to read a piece of text on a digital device while using highlighting functions to indicate those parts of the text that they ‘like’/feel positive about, as well as those parts they ‘dislike’/feel negative about. As with any new method, methodological research helps to develop recommendations for best practice in use. In this regard, the present research addressed three research questions (RQs) in three studies with participants from New Zealand, United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia (ntotal = 5381). In a qualitative approach, Study 1 (RQ1) validated the notion that the text highlighting task is not expected to induce bias. Study 2 addressed RQ2 and explored whether the process of completing the text highlighting task influence consumers’ topic- and product-related responses? There was minimal evidence of this, meaning that text highlighting can reasonably be used together with other types of consumer responses without much the risk of biasing the latter. RQ3 (Study 3) investigated whether the type of highlighting task performed influence text selection. To date the method has been implemented as a dual approach (i.e., selecting both ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ aspects of the text), however, this could tentatively bias either or both responses compared to a single response task where participants select only ‘like’ highlights or only ‘dislike’ highlights. Study 3 found no effect for ‘like’ highlights when comparing dual- and single-response highlighting. However, for ‘dislike’ highlighting, significantly fewer words were selected in the dual-response approach (although the difference in frequency of selection was < 10%). The findings were established in case studies pertaining to kiwifruit and biodynamic agriculture but require confirmation in studies with different products, texts and participants.