Using Online, Crowdsourcing Platforms for Data Collection in Personality Disorder Research: The Example of Amazon%26apos;s Mechanical Turk

作者:Miller Joshua D; Crowe Michael; Weiss Brandon; Maples Keller Jessica L; Lynam Donald R
来源:Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment , 2017, 8(1): 26-34.
DOI:10.1037/per0000191

摘要

The use of crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) for data collection in the behavioral sciences has increased substantially in the past several years due in large part to (a) the ability to recruit large samples, (b) the inexpensiveness of data collection, (c) the speed of data collection, and (d) evidence that the data collected are, for the most part, of equal or better quality to that collected in undergraduate research pools. In this review, we first evaluate the strengths and potential limitations of this approach to data collection. Second, we examine how MTurk has been used to date in personality disorder (PD) research and compare the characteristics of such research to PD research conducted in other settings. Third, we compare PD trait data from the Section III trait model of the DSM-5 collected via MTurk to data collected using undergraduate and clinical samples with regard to internal consistency, mean-level differences, and factor structure. Overall, we conclude that platforms such as MTurk have much to offer PD researchers, especially for certain kinds of research (e.g., where large samples are required and there is a need for iterative sampling). Whether MTurk itself remains the predominant model of such platforms is unclear, however, and will largely depend on decisions related to cost effectiveness and the development of alternatives that offer even greater flexibility. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

  • 出版日期2017-1