Using the Internet to collect data

Abstract

This chapter shows the major steps in collecting data on the Internet. The first section, Internet-Based Research, narrates the short history of Internet-based data-collection methods in psychological research, describes their characteristics, and presents a systematic overview of the four basic types of methods. Some notions about planning Internet based research lead to the second section, Generating a Web Experiment. The section describes an example and provides the reader with the opportunity to become active and experience Internet-based data-collection methods by creating and conducting a web experiment in a step-by-step fashion. The example introduces the important concepts of client-side versus server-side processing and illustrates a number of important techniques. The third section, Pretesting, emphasizes the need to take extra care in preparing the materials and procedure and evaluating their usability. Useful procedures in pretesting of Internet-based data collection are introduced, and the section explains how these procedures prevent methodological problems. In the fourth section, Recruitment, the pros and cons of various ways of attracting participants to Internet based studies are explained, concluding with the use of games as research environments on the Internet. The Data Analysis section explains a number of important issues such as raw data preservation, paradata, inclusion criteria, and technical variance. Furthermore, the section introduces several specific methods, including log file analysis. The concluding section looks at future trends and the continuing evolution of Internet-based methods and their use in behavioral and social research.