Occasionally you may
have participants indicate that they want to stop and do not want to continue
in your study. This is most common with special populations, such as the
elderly and ill.
What to do? First, I
suggest asking if a break might help (and if you can recognize the need for one
early, all the better). Second, as frustrating as it may be, you should just
thank them for coming and let them go.
Incomplete data. Thus
far I have been addressing in-person research concerns, but one that is very
common with online data collection is participants skipping questions. Some
standardized surveys are invalid if questions are skipped.
What to do? In
person, you can do a quick check to see if any data is missing. Online is
trickier. Most survey programs (like survey monkey) allow the option for
requiring answers to the questions. There are some positives and negatives to
consider with this. The positive is that your data will be complete, with no
missing responses. The negative is some people will quit the survey if they
can’t skip responses.
Next time, we will discuss inappropriate disclosure. Do you
have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post?
Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
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