Status quo levels in discrete choice experiment?

[#1]

Dear fellow researchers,

I am conducting a choice-based conjoint analysis in my research. Within the experiment, I´d like to compare two alternatives to a fixed status quo per choice task.

The status quo is modelled as a constant "none-option" and will be estimated as a constant. I am wondering, if I can use the levels which define the status quo also as levels for the alternatives in order to give the respondents the chance to select between options which are not completely different from status quo but only differ in some attributelevels but not over all attributelevels.

A possible choice task could look like this:

Status Quo via constant:

Attr. 1 status quo level = red

Attr. 2 status quo level = 300mph

Attr. 3 status quo level = Electric engine

Alternative 1:

Attr. 1 level =blue

Attr. 2 level = 300 mph (status quo level)

Attr. 3 level = diesel engine

Alternative 2:

Attr. 1 level = red (status quo level)

Attr. 2 level = 150 mph

Attr. 3 level = gasoline engine

Do you see any problem with regards to design or analysis that could come from this?

Any advice is highly appreciated.

Thanks and best,

Julia

[#2]

Hi @Julia90 ,

  This is a really interesting question, and I'd like to know what you find out in the end. I'm not too familiar with the Choice Design DOE, but that might be a platform to use. I found it easy to set up a 3 attribute design where two attributes are two-level (blue/red, 300 mph/150 mph) and the third attribute is a three-level (gas, diesel, electric). Then, you can specify how many attributes change during each choice option -- which might affect how many runs you have or how the evaluation is done.

  I also found these blog posts from @Ryan_Lekivetz during the recent Discover Summit Europe interesting and helpful. There, they used the Custom DOE platform, which is very flexible in creating DOEs.

  Another thing you could try is in the Sample Data Index, there is an option for Consumer Research, and a selection for Choice (No Choice) for pizza, which might help in understanding how to setup your DOE. The online JMP help also has a good example for coffee here.

  This is an area where I would also like to better understand the DOE generation and analysis.

  Hopefully this can get you headed in the right direction.

Good luck!,

DS