INTECIN   20395
INSTITUTO DE TECNOLOGIAS Y CIENCIAS DE LA INGENIERIA "HILARIO FERNANDEZ LONG"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Traditional versus Facebook-based Surveys: Evaluation of Biases in Self-reported Psychometric Information
Autor/es:
MARIANO G. BEIRO; CIRO CATTUTO; KYRIAKI KALIMERI; ALESSANDRO ROSINA; ANDREA BONANOMI
Lugar:
Montreal
Reunión:
Workshop; Social Media and Demographic Research Workshop (SMDR17); 2017
Resumen:
Social media in scientific research offer a unique digital observatory of actual human behaviors and hence a huge possibility to conduct research at large scale. This study aims to compared the consistency between self-reported information collected traditionally versus social media administered questionnaires, and in particular Facebook.We place the focal point on two major aspects; firstly, we address possible demographic, psychometric and behavioural biases in Facebook-administered data collections, possibly due to self-selection in recruitment phase of the application (i.e., different recruitment rates in different psychometric segments); and secondly, we assess biases in the self-reported psychometric information, possibly due to the different context in which the questionnaire is administered. Initially we engaged a demographically representative cohort, of approximately 4,000 young adults in Italy, in taking a series of questionnaires online and then then we invited them to re-take the same using our ad hoc Facebook application (988 accepted). Our findings suggest that surveys administered on Facebook do not exhibit major biases with respect to traditionally administered surveys neither in terms of demographics, nor personality attribute assessment, showing proof of the premise that Facebook is an adequate tool to administer surveys. However, small but statistically significant difference emerged, calling for the researchers´ attention; loyalty, authority and social binding values were slightly higher in the Facebook platform, probably due to the platform´s intrinsic social character.