The Internet has already fundamentally changed the way that
people communicate, shop, and even date, but now it is poised to revolutionize
psychological studies by enabling researchers to quickly and easily recruit
thousands of study volunteers from around the world, and by changing the way
the public interacts with researchers.
By conducting experiments online, researchers have been able
to enlist as many as 65,000 volunteers to take part in studies of cognition, a
number far larger than they could bring into the lab. Such studies, however,
have been dogged by questions about whether anonymous, unpaid volunteers tested
online can produce data that is as high quality as that gathered through
in-person lab testing.
REFERENCE:
“Is the Web as good as the lab? Comparable performance from
Web and lab in cognitive/perceptual experiments.” (click here
to see the abstract)