Web Survey Bibliography
Title Participation in Online Social Research: Demographic Characteristics and Means of Recruitment
Author Frye, N. E., Rychener, S., Fitzpatrick, J., Crawford, D.
Year 2000
Access date 20.08.2004
Abstract Researchers have recently recognized the value of the Internet as a means of data collection. There are currently 35 psychology online studies listed with Yahoo, suggesting that researchers are utilizing the unique opportunities for participant recruitment via the Internet. The Internet offers access to thousands or perhaps millions of individuals to whom investigators would not be able to contact under traditional data collection circumstances. What has not yet received much attention is the characteristics of the individuals who participate in such online research. Is one type of individual responding to many surveys, indicating that we are repeatedly reporting findings about the same small group of participants? Or is there some variability in survey respondents, suggesting that our results might be more generalizable to the larger population? This study compared data gathered from two samples that participated in two separate online studies. We examined whether respondent demographics differed by (a) means of recruitment, (b) topic of the study, and (c) motivation for participation. While a wide variety of people can be found on the Internet, the characteristics of participants recruited via the Internet may differ both with means of recruitment and study topic. Thus, the specific goals of the study should be kept in mind when designing Internet-based research.
Year of publication2000
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
