One of the most notable recent developments in survey research is the increased usage of online convenience samples drawn from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). While scholars have noted various social and political differences (e.g., age, partisanship) between MTurk and population-based samples, the breadth and depth of these variations remain unclear. We investigate the extent to which MTurk samples differ from population samples, and the underlying nature of these differences. We do so by replicating items from the population-based American National Election Studies (ANES) 2012 Time Series Study in a survey administered to a sample of MTurk respondents. With few exceptions, we not only find that MTurk respondents differ significantly from respondents completing the 2012 ANES via the Web but also that most differences are reduced considerably when controlling for easily measurable sample features. Thus, MTurk respondents do not appear to differ fundamentally from population-based respondents in unmeasurable ways. This suggests that MTurk data can be used to advance research programs, particularly if researchers measure and account for a range of political and demographic variables as needed.

Last modified

• 04/06/2017

Creator

• Kevin E. Levay1 , Jeremy Freese2 , and James N. Druckman

Contributors

• James N. Druckman, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2RB5P

Subject

• survey sample, demographic, Turk Samples,

Publisher

• Sage Open

Language

• English

Alternate Identifier

• DOI: 10.1177/2158244016636433

Keyword

• Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, survey sampling, research methods, public opinion

Date created

• 2016-01

Related url

• sgo.sagepub.com

Resource type

• Article

Source

• Sage Open

License

• Attribution 3.0 United States