Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research

In many areas of research, practical issues associated with sampling and data collection are of real concern to researchers. One of the most important methodological issues is the accessibility to the population, both in terms of the willingness to participate of the individuals and the provision of...

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Autores principales: Baltar, Fabiola, Brunet Icart, Ignasi
Formato: Documento de Conferencia PeerReviewed
Publicado: 2011
Acceso en línea:http://nulan.mdp.edu.ar/1410/
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institution Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP)
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repository_str R-135
collection Nulan - Fac.Cs.Económicas (UNMdP)
description In many areas of research, practical issues associated with sampling and data collection are of real concern to researchers. One of the most important methodological issues is the accessibility to the population, both in terms of the willingness to participate of the individuals and the provision of accurate information. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss the use of online instruments to improve the participation of "hard to involve" population and to increase the quality of the data collected. This paper presents the results obtained from the combination of Social Networking Sites (Facebook) with an online questionnaire to study immigrant entrepreneurs in Spain. The hypothesis is that the informal way to contact and the online survey characteristics facilitate the engagement of this population in scientific studies. In order to test the hypothesis, this paper analyses the pattern of answer of 219 entrepreneurs surveyed. A cluster analysis of respondents and type of questions is developed in order to describe the advantages and disadvantages and suggest recommendations for the appropriate use of online instruments. The conclusion is that new technologies can help social researchers to inquiry on units of observation with barriers to access. Moreover, the new technologies can help researchers to tackle some of the limitations associated with the administration of surveys to businessmen (e.g. insufficient time, lack of motivation to answer, the intermediate filters, etc.) and can improve the quality of the information collected (e.g. higher level of response in confidential questions). However, it is acknowledged that ethical and methodological considerations are of great importance in this kind of studies.
format Documento de Conferencia
PeerReviewed
author Baltar, Fabiola
Brunet Icart, Ignasi
spellingShingle Baltar, Fabiola
Brunet Icart, Ignasi
Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
author_facet Baltar, Fabiola
Brunet Icart, Ignasi
author_sort Baltar, Fabiola
title Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
title_short Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
title_full Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
title_fullStr Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
title_full_unstemmed Using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
title_sort using online instruments to study "hard to involve" populations in social research
publishDate 2011
url http://nulan.mdp.edu.ar/1410/
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