RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

10
Internet-based research and computer usage
Introduction
The rise of the Internet has not only opened
the door to developing conventional research
techniques such as surveys, questionnaires,
experiments and interviews, but also enabled
researchers to use literature search-and-retrieval
techniques to locate and return materials from
the web at an exponential rate in terms of size
and rapidity. Here we review some of the most
commonly used features in using the Internet
as a research facility, commenting particularly
on surveys and their related questionnaires,
experiments and interviews, and using the Internet
for locating research materials.
Internet-based surveys
Using the Internet for the conduct of surveys
is becoming commonplace in many branches of
social science. Although Internet-based surveys
have many features in common with paperbased
surveys, they also have their own particular
features.
Internet-based surveys have moved from being
in the form of emails to emails-plus-attachments
of the questionnaire itself, to emails directing
potential respondents to a web site, or simply to
web sites. While emails have the attraction of
immediacy, the potential for web-based surveys
to include graphics has been too great for many
researchers to resist. Often a combination of the
two is used: emails direct potential participants to
awebsiteatwhichthesurveyquestionnaireis
located in HTML form. Although email surveys
tend to attract greater response than web-based
surveys, web-based surveys have the potential
to reach greater numbers of participants, so
web-based surveys are advisable; emails can be
used as an addition, to contact participants to
advise them to go to a particular web site.
Some principles for constructing
Internet-based surveys
Dillman et al. (1998a; 1998b; 1999) set out several
principles of web-based surveys. Some of these
are technical and some are presentational. For
example, in terms of technical matters, they found
that the difference between simple and ‘fancy’
[sic] versionsofquestionnaires(theformerwith
few graphics, the latter with many, using sophisticated
software) could be as much as three times
the size of the file to be downloaded (317 k in
contrast to 959 k), with a time of downloading
of 225 seconds for the plain version and 682
seconds for the ‘fancy’ version. They found that
either respondents with slow browsers or limited
power spent longer in downloading the file or,
indeed, the machine crashed before the file was
downloaded. They also found that recipients of
plain versions were more likely to complete a
questionnaire than those receiving fancy versions
(93.1 per cent and 82.1 per cent respectively),
as it took less time to complete the plain version.
Utilizing advanced page layout features does
not translate into higher completion rates, indeed
more advanced page layout reduced completion
rates. This echoes the work of Fricker and Schonlau
(2002) who report studies that indicate a 43
per cent response rate to an email survey compared
to a 71 per cent response rate for the same mailed
paper questionnaire. Indeed they report that it
is only with specialized samples (e.g. undergraduates)
that higher response rates can be obtained in
an Internet survey. The different kinds of software