Autism and online recruiting methods: A comparison of Mechanical Turk and discussion forums

Abstract

In a study by a team at the intersection of information and communication sciences and disorders, researchers worked to design an interactive, online professional development system for academic librarians to better serve students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In creating this program, it was imperative to have stakeholder input and support; recruiting members of this population, students with ASD, was critical. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and online discussion forums, including Reddit, were used for recruitment for an online survey. While there was some overlap in results, there were also marked differences in responses based on online sampling frame. This paper details the online methods used for recruiting members of this community, and compares and contrasts success rates, challenges, and numbers associated with each method.

The psychometric properties of a self‐report inventory of autistic symptoms in individuals with autism spectrum disorder

“…Qualtrics, an online survey platform, was used to provide surveys and collect participant data. These online data collection methods were used because these and other online sampling methods appear to be preferred by participants with ASD because they can participate anonymously, from wherever they choose, without needing to disclose their ASD diagnosis in front of others (Anderson et al, 2019).…”

Autistic Students’ Views on Meaningful Inclusion: A Canadian Perspective

“…The third phase of recruitment occurred via a posting on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). MTurk has been used in research since 2005 (Buhrmester et al, 2011) and is described as an effective method to recruit hard-to-reach populations, including those with disabilities (Anderson et al, 2019;Smith et al, 2015). Research has also shown that MTurk participants are more attentive, thus perform better than comparison groups on completing online surveys (Hauser & Schwarz, 2016), which has positive implications on the benefits of using MTurk samples in social science research (Chandler et al, 2014).…”