IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jexpos/v10y2023i1p148-153_13.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fraud in Online Surveys: Evidence from a Nonprobability, Subpopulation Sample

Author

Listed:
  • Bell, Andrew M.
  • Gift, Thomas

Abstract

We hired a well-known market research firm whose surveys have been published in leading political science journals, including JEPS. Based on a set of rigorous “screeners,” we detected what appears to be exceedingly high rates of identity falsification: over 81 percent of respondents seemed to misrepresent their credentials to gain access to the survey and earn compensation. Similarly high rates of presumptive character falsification were present in panels from multiple sub-vendors procured by the firm. Moreover, we found additional, serious irregularities embedded in the data, including evidence of respondents using deliberate strategies to detect and circumvent one of our screeners, as well as pervasive, observable patterns reflecting that the survey had been taken repeatedly by a respondent or collection of respondents. This evidence offers reasons to be concerned about the quality of online nonprobability, subpopulation samples, and calls for further, systematic research.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, Andrew M. & Gift, Thomas, 2023. "Fraud in Online Surveys: Evidence from a Nonprobability, Subpopulation Sample," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 148-153, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jexpos:v:10:y:2023:i:1:p:148-153_13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2052263022000082/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jexpos:v:10:y:2023:i:1:p:148-153_13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/xps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.