The answer to this question ultimately depends on your objective, but we've laid out some principles below to help guide you:
Looking for data to help make a decision that otherwise would have been driven by your "gut instinct", or maybe just the weather outside?
Great! It doesn't require a huge sample to make a decision that otherwise would have been made without any data at all. In this case, simply grab a few team members or some friends & family, and see how their brains respond! Getting neuro-input from even a small set of folks lets you know whether key messages and story elements are going to connect!
Want to understand how meetings or customized training is connecting with attendees?
Fantabulous! While we recommend measuring as many attendees as you can, it's totally fine to measure a subset of folks too. Tracking emotional engagement for even a small group of brains across an experience offers valuable information about what information was absorbed and what topics may require some follow-up content. The map of immersion in the Second-by-Second tab of your experience also provides a guide pinpointing which elements to optimize for the future!
Looking to get a statistically valid measure from Immersion?
In order to get a statistically reliable Immersion measure of an experience or piece of content, we recommend collecting data from at least 35 individuals per base group you're interested in. That means that if you wanted to look at differences between people who wear shoes and those who don’t, you would want a sample of 70 people (35 who are shoeless and 35 who wear shoes). However, if you just want to learn where the good, the bad, and the ugly are in your presentation or new commercial concept, you only need to source 35 brains.
How did we come to the conclusion of 35 brains? We conducted a Power Analysis, of course! This is just a fancy way of saying we’ve already done the math for you - looking at effect size, confidence intervals, and standard deviations.
Why is this number so much lower than survey-based sample sizes, you ask? Because we're capturing a LOT more data! We capture second-by-second data, meaning for a 1-minute piece of content tested with 35 people, you get 2100 data points!!! Mind blowing, we know!
To sum things up, all you need is 35 good quality participants to have confidence that the pattern of results you see on our platform will be the same with another similar group of 35 individuals!
Have more questions about sample size that aren't answered here? We've got your back! Simply contact your Customer Success representative, or email Success@getimmersion.com!