Web Survey Bibliography
Title Challenges of Internet Recruitment: A Case Study with Disappointing Results
Author Koo, M., Skinner, H.
Source Journal of Medical Internet Research, 7, 1
Year 2005
Access date 24.04.2005
Full text doc (110k)
Abstract Background: The Internet provides tremendous opportunities for innovative research, but few publications on the use of the Internet for recruiting study participants exist. This paper summarizes our experiences from 2 studies in which we attempted to recruit teenagers on the Internet for a questionnaire study to evaluate a smoking-cessation website. Objective: To evaluate strategies of recruiting teenagers for the evaluation of a smoking-cessation website through the Internet. Methods: In Study 1 (Defined Community Recruitment), we sent invitation emails to registered members of a youth health website, CyberIsle. A total of 3801 email addresses were randomly divided into 2 groups. In the first group, emails indicated that the first 30 respondents would receive a Can $20 electronic gift certificate for use at an online bookstore if they would go to the Smoking Zine website and respond to a short survey. For the second group, the email also indicated that respondents would receive an additional Can $10 gift certificate if they referred their friends to the study. Reminder emails were sent 10 days after the sending of the initial invitation email. In Study 2 (Open Recruitment), we posted invitation messages on Web discussion boards, Usenet forums, and one specialized recruitment website, and attempted a snowball recruiting strategy. When potential participants arrived at the study site, they were automatically randomized into either the higher incentives group (Can $15 electronic gift certificate) or lower incentive group (Can $5 gift certificate). Results: In Study 1 (defined community recruitment), 2109 emails were successfully delivered. Only 5 subjects (0.24%), including 1 referred by a friend, passed the recruitment process and completed the questionnaire; a further 6 individuals visited the information page of the study but did not complete the study. In Study 2 (open recruitment), the number of users seeing the advertisement is unknown. A total of 35 users arrived at the website, of whom 14 participants were recruited (8 from the Can $15 gift certificate group and 6 from the Can $5 gift certificate group). Another 5 were recruited from the general Internet community (3 from discussion boards and 2 from the Research Volunteers website). The remaining 9 participants were recruited through friend referrals with the snowball strategy. Conclusions: Overall, the recruitment rate was disappointingly low. In our case, recruitment using Internet technologies including email, electronic discussion boards, Usenet forums, and websites did not prove to be an effective approach for soliciting young subjects to participate in our research. Possible reasons are discussed, including the participants’ perspective. A major challenge is to differentiate trustable and legitimate messages from spam and fraudulent misinformation on the Internet. From the researchers’ perspective, approaches are needed to engage larger samples, to verify participants’ attributes, and to evaluate and adjust for potential biases associated with Internet recruitment.
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Year of publication2005
Bibliographic typeJournal article
Web Survey Bibliography - Health (436)
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- Developing and validating a nursing website evaluation questionnaire; 2005; Tsai, S. - L., Chai, S.-K.
- Computer adaptive testing; 2005; Gershon, R. C.
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- Evaluation of surgical margins in melanocytic lesions: a survey among 152 dermatopathologists; 2005; Sellheyer, K., Bergfeld, W. F., Stewart, E., Roberson, G., Hammel, J.
- Web-based and Mailed Questionnaires: A Comparison of Response Rates and Compliance; 2005; Baelter, K., Balter, O., Fondell, E., Trolle-Lagerros, Y.
- Using a web-based survey to assess correlates of intention towards HIV testing among never-been-tested...; 2005; Hou, S.-I., Wisenbaker, J. M.
- Smoking Cessation Research via the Internet: A Feasibility Study; 2005; Stoddard, J. L., Delucchi, K. L., Muñoz, R. F., Collins, M., Pérez-Stable, E. J., Augustson,...
- Biases in internet sexual health samples: Comparison of an internet sexuality survey and a national...; 2005; Ross, M. W., Mansson, S.-A., Daneback, K., Cooper, A., Tikkanen, R.
- Analysis of Break-off Patterns in Web Surveys; 2005; Ahsan, S., Broach, R. J.
- Evaluation of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Young People Using a Web-Based Survey Technique.; 2005; Chung, J. H., des Roches, C. M., Meunier, J., Eavey, R. D.
- The psychometric properties of pen-and-pencil and internet versions of the midlife women's symptom index...; 2005; Im, E. O., Chee, W., Bender, M., Cheng, C.- Y., Tsai, H.- M., Kang, N. M., Lee, H. S.
- An overview of the ethics of cyber-space research and the implication for nurse educators; 2005; Haigh, C., Jones, N. A.
- Demands on web survey tools for epidemiological research; 2005; Baelter, O., Baelter, K.
- Challenges of Internet Recruitment: A Case Study with Disappointing Results; 2005; Koo, M., Skinner, H.
- Challenges in conducting longitudinal randomized controlled trials online - The story of evaluating...; 2005; Davidovich, U.
- Adjusting for selection bias in Web surveys using propensity scores: the case of the Health and Retirement...; 2005; Schonlau, M., van Soest, A., Kapteyn, A., Couper, M. P.
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- Alcohol-related problems experienced by university students in New Zealand; 2004; McGee, R., Kypri, K.
- Using the Web to trap data; 2004; Mrayyan, M. T.
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- The web survey network of sudden infant death syndrome and apparent life-threatening events in the Emilia...; 2004; Parmigiani, S., Bevilacqua, G., Leali, L., Pisani, F.
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