Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for many useful comments and suggestions regarding on-line data
collection.
Several people expressed concerns about the quality of data collected
on-line, even to the point of categorically denouncing the technique.
On-line surveys certainly have serious limitations, though there may be some
applications where on-line data collection is superior to other methods.
Consider a survey of recent alumni from a graduate program, where email
addresses are available for all of the potential respondents. I seems to me
that an on-line survey of this population could be better than a mail
survey. The response rate may be greater, and with electronic transcription
of data, there may be fewer coding errors. An on-line survey is certainly
faster and less expensive. In this application there may be little risk of
duplicate responses, and not much concern over confidentiality.
In my view, categorical dismissal of on-line data collection is not
warranted, though it will be important to assess threats to validity, find
ways to counter them, and consider them in the analysis and interpretation
of data.
Dale Berger
Professor and Dean, Psychology
Claremont Graduate University
123 East Eighth Street
Claremont, CA 91711
FAX: 909-621-8905
Phone: 909-621-8084
http://www.cgu.edu/faculty/bergerd.html
Original message (in part):
<I have a student who would like to collect data using a survey form on the
internet. He would like to have data collected in a format that can be
imported easily into SPSS. Other desired features: confidentiality, though
not anonymity - that is, he would like to assure users that other users will
not have access to individual responses. He also would like to assure that
no one responds more than one time, and ideally be able to track who has
responded.
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