Surveying risk-taking behaviours in alternative healthcare : methodological considerations in the use of commercial survey panel services

Author / Creator

Garrett, Bernard, author

Available as

Online

Summary

Building on previous work, this case study reports work that sought to better understand the reasons why people engaged with risk-associated alternative healthcare, and if contemporary psychosocial...

Building on previous work, this case study reports work that sought to better understand the reasons why people engaged with risk-associated alternative healthcare, and if contemporary psychosocial theory could help explain and predict levels of engagement. A mixed-methods study was undertaken, involving a Web-based survey that incorporated several validated psychometric tools and an open-ended question to explore levels of engagement and to test associations between psychological factors associated with risk tolerance. Commercial online survey panel services (Amazon Mechanical Turk and Lucid) as well as social media advertising (Twitter) were used to deliver the survey. The researchers identified a number of issues with the use of commercial services relating to quality of data and false response rates, and subsequently implemented various techniques to counter them and validate the data acquired. This case study focuses on the specific methodological issues encountered in the use of commercial online survey panel services. It explores how the choice of a survey vendor can impact sample composition and data quality, and how the use of respondent selection, validation techniques, and question screening can significantly reduce the number of quality check failures and increase the usable responses per paid participant.

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