Anyone used forums to get participants to fill in internet research questionnaires?

anewman

Was just wondering if anyone had any experience of this and had any advice on it. Things like avoiding annoying the forum members and also the wrath of forum moderators/admins who have the ability to delete posts. And also how to get as many participants as possible.

melancholly

some people have done it on here before.... as long as they haven't been really badly laid out or horrifically long, i've filled them in.

a bigger issue will be what ethics approval you have to recruit - i know i certainly have to get it cleared in advance so the wording of adverts is approved - this may not apply but it worth checking out.

can you send an email round your department/whole university? that tends to get lots of people interested!

Lokolo

Agreed with above ^^

Also people on forums, some people, will tend to lie anyway, whereas in front of you they are more likely to be honest. You could offer an incentive, i.e. win £50 or something. That way you are likely to get like 100 results or whatever you need.

anewman

The prize idea is a good one I have seen used a bit. I guess perhaps 8 prizes of £5 (maybe a gift voucher, amazon maybe) might be a good incentive.

Regarding length....

My questionnaire has a few general questions and then 51 agree-disagree likert style questions (most 5 point). Is that possibly too long? Could get away with making it 43 but concerned that will make data poor in terms of the two theories used. I guess if someone speed filled it in and fully understood the questions they might be able to do it in 15 minutes.

melancholly

remember that by allocating a prize, the data can't be anonymous. this is a very important thing to consider - depends on the nature of the questions asked and again, what you have had approved by an ethics committee.

and if it's a long likert scale, set up the webpage so that it isn't just a depressing huge list where it's hard to see which scale corresponds to each question!

bestpud

Lokolo wrote: »

Agreed with above ^^

Also people on forums, some people, will tend to lie anyway, whereas in front of you they are more likely to be honest. You could offer an incentive, i.e. win £50 or something. That way you are likely to get like 100 results or whatever you need.

I guess it could encourage people to fill it in but you could end up with a load of rubbish because people have just done what they need (just flicked through and clicked random boxes) to be in with a chance of winning? Another consideration maybe?