Online research methods

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Online research methods (ORMs) are ways in which researchers can collect data via the internet. They are also referred to as Internet research, [1] Internet science [2] or iScience, or Web-based methods. [3] Many of these online research methods are related to existing research methodologies but re-invent and re-imagine them in the light of new technologies and conditions associated with the internet. The field is relatively new and evolving. With the growth of social media, a new level of complexity and opportunity has been created. The inclusion of social media research can provide unique insights into consumer and societal segments and gaining an "emotional" measure of a population on issues of interest.

Contents

Some specific types of method include:

Online clinical trials

Clinical trials are at the heart of current evidence-based medical care. They are, however, traditionally expensive and difficult to undertake. Using internet resources can, in some cases, reduce the economic burden, and may have other benefits in Medicine. [4] Paul et al., [5] in The Journal of Medical Internet Research, describe the background and methodologies of online clinical trials and list examples.

Research in and with social media

The advent of social media has recently led to new online research methods, for example data mining of large datasets from such media [6] or web-based experiments within social media that are entirely under the control of researchers, e.g. those created with the software Social Lab. [7]

See also

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The seriousness check is a technique that can be used in online research to improve data quality. Nowadays, many scientific studies with human participants are conducted online and are accessible to a large diversity of participants. Nonetheless, many people just want to look at the different pages of the questionnaire, instead of giving carefully chosen answers to the questions. The seriousness check addresses this problem: In this approach the respondents are asked about the seriousness of their participation or for a probability estimate that they will complete the entire study or experiment. Thus, by using the seriousness check irrelevant data entries can be easily identified and be excluded from the data analysis.

The multiple site entry technique is a strategy that can be used in online research to target different samples via different recruitment sites and compare their data. It is a method used in behavioral and social research to assess the presence and impact of self-selection effects. Self-selection effects can be considered a major challenge in social science research. With the invention of online research in the 1990s the multiple site entry technique became possible, because the recruitment of participants via different links (URLs) is very easy to implement. It can be assumed that there is no self-selection bias if the data sets coming from different recruitment sites do not differ systematically.

References

  1. Reips, U.-D. (2012). Using the Internet to collect data. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, R. Gonzalez, D. L. Long, A. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (eds.), APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, Vol 2: Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 291-310). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/13620-017
  2. Reips, U.-D., & Bosnjak, M. (Eds.). (2001). Dimensions of Internet Science. Lengerich: Pabst. http://iscience.deusto.es/archive/reips/dis/
  3. Reips, U.-D. (2006). Web-based methods. In M. Eid & E. Diener (Eds.), Handbook of multimethod measurement in psychology (pp. 73-85). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/11383-006
  4. Reips, U.-D. (2013). Internet-based studies. In Marc D. Gellman, J. Rick Turner (eds.), Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine (Part 9, pp. 1097-1102). Berlin: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_28
  5. The Internet and Clinical Trials: Background, Online Resources, Examples and Issues. James Paul; Rachael Seib; Todd Prescott. Journal of Medical Internet Research Vol 7 (1) 2005. http://www.jmir.org/2005/1/e5/ (accessed 12 Feb 2009).
  6. Reips, U.-D., & Garaizar, P. (2011). Mining Twitter: Microblogging as a source for psychological wisdom of the crowds.Some websites specialize in creation of online content such as http://perfectscholars.com/ Behavior Research Methods, 43, 635-642. doi:10.3758/s13428-011-0116-6
  7. Garaizar, P. & Reips, U.-D. (2013). Build your own social network laboratory with Social Lab: a tool for research in social media. Behavior Research Methods. doi 10.3758/s13428-013-0385-3

Further reading