Online Surveys ! Should You or Shouldn ’ t You Participate ?
by Veronica D . Feeg , PhD , RN , FAAN National Student Nurses Association ( NSNA ), Co-Investigator and Research Associate NSNA Annual New Graduate Survey
Life has changed with COVID-19 . That is an understatement . We have grown more reliant on electronic means of communication in all professional , academic , and social parts of our lives . Our emails and social media links are bombarded with unsolicited ads and offers , splattered in between our important information of the day . What is real and what is spam is blended together – sometimes automatically screened “ in ” or “ out ” by the software – but always perused by our critical eyes to search for messages that we deem relevant to our education , work , friends , or family .
As part of this “ white noise ” of emails , we are frequently asked to participate in online surveys that might be simple “ scroll left for yes – right for no ” or more complex research studies that seek our opinion , knowledge , education , experience , or practice information . In this pandemic era , legitimate research has been stymied by Institutional Review Board ( IRB ) rules prohibiting face-to-face data collection ; more studies are being approved as surveys . These surveys come in many forms . Although it takes a moment or two of deciding to push the delete button , you may be missing an opportunity to have a voice in solidly constructed research and not simple marketing surveys . Here ’ s how to know the difference .
Survey Based Evidence In these days of lock-down and limited face-to-face contacts , researchers are more often using online mechanisms to reach samples of populations to discover what exists in the real world as measured by tools or tests that are developed under painstaking rigor . It ’ s hard work to design and send these surveys .
28 NSNA IMPRINT n NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020 n www . nsna . org