Kramer, J., Rubin, A., Coster, W., Helmuth, E., Hermos, J., Rosenbloom, D., Moed, R., Dooley, M., Kao, Y.C., Liljenquist, K., Brief, D., Enggasser, J., Keane, T., Roy, M., & Lachowicz, M. (2014). Strategies to address participant misrepresentation for eligibility in web-based research. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research,23(1), 120-129. PMID: PMC4070377.
Many research studies recruit participants over the internet. Studies using this methodology face challenges in ensuring that survey respondents are not misrepresenting their characteristics to obtain benefits, such as access to treatment or financial compensation. In two recent studies, participant recruitment was paused to deal with this issue. The authors offer several strategies in three domains to deal with participant misrepresentation. Procedural and design strategies can be used to limit access to web-based data collection. By requiring participants to answer questions asking for specific information related to the condition of interest, researchers can determine whether participants have knowledge about study related topics. For example, a study of Veterans asked participants about specific military terminology. Surveys can also be designed to collect the same information in multiple ways, allowing researchers to check for consistency. Researchers can also avoid offering financial incentives or advertising study compensation. Technology and software strategies can be used to track Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and data/time stamps to look at where and when respondents are completing surveys. In the study of Veterans, researchers were able to exclude multiple surveys completed in one Chinese village where a large population of U.S. military Veterans was unlikely. Finally, data analytic strategies can be used to check consistency between multiple similar items, and examine how respondent characteristics compare to previous studies of the target population.