COMPARING DATA COLLECTION ALTERNATIVES: AMAZON MTURK, COLLEGE STUDENTS, AND SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS

摘要

Previous research has tested differences among Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk), college students, and other online research (Buhrmester et al. 2011; Paolacci et al. 2010) but has not addressed the comparison between mTurk, college students, and secondary data sources. Much research involves secondary data (Church 2002), and therefore a comparison of these three common methods of data collection is a beneficial addition to the marketing literature. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to cpmpare the effectiveness of these data collection methods (i.e., panel sample through secondary data research, college students through primary data research, and adult sample through primary data research collected by using mTurk) in terms of demographic variables distribution, psychometric properties, and testing relationships among variables. The results of this comparison will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of three common data collection methods and benefit researchers when they face a choice between these data collection methods.