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Thank you for your interest in our study! We completed an initial tally of the results late in the Fall of 2000. The online programs themselves worked fine, but we were disappointed in the number of participants in this first wave of research: 21 adult helpers (17 with a Down syndrome child and 4 with a Williams syndrome child) completed the survey and 5 Down syndrome individuals, with the asistance of adult helpers, completed the experiment. We believe that our email and Web recruiting efforts did not really reach many families (many of the links that we were provided were "dead"), and we believe that some potential participants were discouraged by the long time needed to download the plugin necessary to run the studies. However, those who participated were quite helpful in their feedback, and we will use all of the information we collected to improve our future, family-based online research efforts. This study has been published! Here is the reference: Marcell, M. M., & Falls, A.L. (2001). Online data collection with special populations over the World Wide Web. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(3), 106-123. The abstract reads as follows: The quick ascendance of the World Wide Web as the dominant vehicle for Internet communication has recently made experimentation in a multimedia environment feasible on the Internet. Although web sites containing online psychology demonstrations and experiments for non-handicapped individuals have appeared in recent years (especially in the areas of cognitive and social psychology), there appear to have been few attempts to conduct online experimentation with special populations. We recently initiated two online studies of families with Down syndrome or Williams syndrome members: a) A survey that asks (via Likert rating scales, adjective checklists, multiple-choice style questions, and text-entry boxes) about family background, computer use, and temperament of the special needs family member; and b) An experiment (to be completed by a special needs individual) that includes auditory and visual digit span tasks and a memory-for-orientation task in which responses are entered via mouse clicks. Recruiting began with e-mail announcements to representative Down syndrome and Williams syndrome discussion groups, listserves, and bulletin boards, and submission of the project?s URL (http://www.cofc.edu/~marcellm/testaw.htm) and key indexing terms to selected search engines. We review technical aspects of developing online programs as well as the strengths and weaknesses of online vs traditional laboratory-based research in relation to issues such as experimental control, delivery of instructions, experimenter bias, subject recruitment, sample heterogeneity, generalization, attrition, privacy, financial costs, and data integrity. We conclude by offering our thoughts on two models for implementing online experimentation with special populations: a) Using a remote parent ?helper? as a proxy to work with the target individual; and b) Collaborating with professional colleagues in Web-based projects conducted in traditional laboratory settings. We are no longer tabulating data for this study. However, you are welcome to run the programs in order to compare your results with those reported in the above paper. The survey is completed by a parent and should take less than 10 minutes. The experiment is completed by a parent and a special-needs child, adolescent, or adult; it will take about 15-20 minutes. To run either of these studies, click here. Dr. Michael Marcell & Mandy Falls
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