Using the Internet to Aid the Research Process
Chapter Five In R. Sternberg, The psychologists
companion:
A guide to scientific writing for students and researchers (4th ed.)
Beth Dietz-Uhler and Richard Sherman
Miami University
From the Chapter Introduction
The Internet can be a powerful research tool. Its potential usefulness arises from three important characteristics that we will discuss in this chapter. First, it allows easy and quick access to information about a wide range of psychological topics. This can be very helpful in exploring potential research ideas as well as for gathering background information for writing papers. Second, the Internet can be used to collect data from people in online research projects, for example in online surveys. Data from many people can be collected in a short amount of time with this technique, and the respondents’ background characteristics may be much more diverse than participants in typical psychological studies. Third, the Internet enables researchers to communicate with each other quickly and inexpensively, allowing them to share research findings and discuss ideas more easily and effectively than ever before.
There are also pitfalls in using the Internet for research that can mitigate its advantages. For example, although information may be accessed easily and quickly, much of it may be either irrelevant nor invalid. Effective use of the Internet requires knowing how to search for information efficiently and how to evaluate the quality of the information that is found. Other potential pitfalls are involved in using the Internet to gather data. For example, people may respond differently to an online survey than to one presented in a more traditional format. Some may try to participate more than once. People not in the desired target population may participate. In short, the researcher must overcome both logistical and inferential problems in order to obtain results that are reliable and valid. Taking advantage of the Internet’s potential as a research tool requires avoiding its pitfalls, as we will see throughout this chapter.