The Fallacy of Online Surveys: No Data Are Better Than Bad Data

Internet or online surveys have become attractive to fish and wildlife agencies as an economical way to measure constituents' opinions and attitudes on a variety of issues. Online surveys, however, can have several drawbacks that affect the scientific validity of the data. We describe four basi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHuman dimensions of wildlife Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 55 - 64
Main Authors Duda, Mark Damian, Nobile, Joanne L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Taylor & Francis Group 29.01.2010
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Comparative analysis
Internet
Internet surveys
non-response bias
public opinion
Public opinion surveys
sample validity
SLOP surveys
Validity
Wildlife
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Summary:Internet or online surveys have become attractive to fish and wildlife agencies as an economical way to measure constituents' opinions and attitudes on a variety of issues. Online surveys, however, can have several drawbacks that affect the scientific validity of the data. We describe four basic problems that online surveys currently present to researchers and then discuss three research projects conducted in collaboration with state fish and wildlife agencies that illustrate these drawbacks. Each research project involved an online survey and/or a corresponding random telephone survey or non-response bias analysis. Systematic elimination of portions of the sample population in the online survey is demonstrated in each research project (i.e., the definition of bias). One research project involved a closed population, which enabled a direct comparison of telephone and online results with the total population.
ISSN:1087-1209
1533-158X
DOI:10.1080/10871200903244250