It Starts at the Screener: Why Inclusive Language Matters in Research

Screeners are integral to ensuring participants are recruited correctly, and they’re also one of the first things a participant will see and fill in when they want to take part in research, so it’s really important we get them right! Market research at its core is about understanding people, and our first opportunity to do that often comes from their survey application, so it’s important that the language we use within our screeners set a standard from the start that we want them to feel comfortable and safe to answer all questions honestly.

With this in mind, we’ve recently re-looked at the way we ask standard questions to ensure we’re remaining as inclusive as we can be.

Though thankfully few and far between, we sometimes receive screeners where the only gender options are male, female and other which is why we need solid standard questions to ensure our practices remain inclusive and respectful to all. Our standard gender question reads:

The following question is related to how you describe your gender identity. To ensure we're speaking to a representative sample, please can you tell me how you describe your gender identity?

[   ] 1. Woman

[   ] 2. Man

[   ] 3. Non-binary

[   ] 4. Gender non-confirming

[   ] 5. Prefer to self-describe:

[   ] 6. Prefer not to say

Previously, options 1 and 2 read as female and male, but we’ve updated it to ‘woman’ and ‘man’ because female and male focus more on biological sex and can often exclude transgender people, but woman and man are social terms that acknowledge a wider range of gender identities. We don’t ever want anyone not to apply for something they’re interested in because the first questions they answer aren’t as inclusive as they can be, so it’s important that the language we use is affirming to ensure that all those filling it in feel seen and heard, which in turn shows that we want them to feel safe to express their opinions, which after all is what market research is all about.

We have also updated our question to check whether participants have any access requirements that we need to be aware of to encourage participants to share anything that they’re comfortable sharing with us. This question can often just be seen as referring to physical disabilities, but we want everyone to feel comfortable to tell us the adjustments they’d need to take part. This may include step-free access or large print materials, but we also want to know if a participant feels like they might need to take a pause, or if they’d prefer to take part in a quieter environment or smaller group where we have the option.

We also use and have evaluated our standard questions for things like sexuality, ethnicity etc and we update these based on feedback from participants. For example, participants have fed back to us that Sri Lankan should be included on our ethnicity question, so that is now included. This blog post would be a lot longer if we went into detail on every question (and believe me, we could), but it’s really important that our screeners are as inclusive as they can be! They’re often the first way a participant will express interest in a project, so we need to make sure that when they do apply, we’ve created a welcoming environment for everyone to answer honestly.

Written by Robyn Simner, Project Manager at Acumen. 

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