Text highlighting combined with open‐ended questions: A methodological extension

Text highlighting is a new method for consumer research, especially in attitude measurement. Presently, the method is evolved into a mixed method approach through a combination with open‐ended questions. While participants read a text they use highlighter functions to select content that they like/feel positive about, and content which they dislike/feel negative about. Immediately hereafter they answer open‐ended questions about the text they selected and why they did so. The mixed method approach was implemented in two consumer studies (1,554 participants) and the results showed that the combination of text highlighting and open‐ended questions achieved greater “completeness,” that is, more comprehensive insights on the topic of the research. The supplementary qualitative component of the mixed method design (i.e., the open‐ended questions) helped to elaborate the insights from text highlighting (i.e., the quantitative core component). Practical Applications This research showcases how the recent method of text highlighting can be combined with open‐ended questions, and that doing so is simple and beneficial. This is illustrated in two case studies on the topics of, respectively, biodynamic agriculture and vertical farming. The open‐ended questions were added to identify reasons underlying participants' “like” and “dislike” text highlights and helped to better interpret the highlighting responses. The combination of text highlighting with open‐ended questions is a general purpose method that can be used in many areas of consumer research—including novel foods/food technologies and product research.