5 - What do the participants get? Is that simply up to the sponsor? If so, who reviews it to assure that the incentive does not distort the data? If no one, will you at least require that the incentive be reported as part of the trial?
We need to design rules governing participant compensation.
At a minimum I think all compensation should be reported (it’s part of what’s needed for replication), and of course not related to the results a participant reports. Ideally we create a couple defined protocols for locating participants, and people largely choose to go with a known good solution.
StackOverflow et al are also free and offer no compensation except for points and awards and reputation. Maybe it can be combined. Points for regular participation, prominent mention somewhere and awards being real rewards. The downside is that this may pose moral hazards of some kind.
I had been assuming that participants needed to be drawn from the general population. If we don’t think there’s too much hazard there, I agree a points system would work. Some portion of the population would likely just enjoy the idea of receiving free product to test.
For studies in which people have to actively involve themselves and consent to participate, I believe that there is always going to be some sampling bias. At best we can make it really really small, at worst, we should state clearly what we believe are those biases in our population.
At worst, we will have a better understanding of what goes into the results.
Also, for some studies, the sampled population might, by necessity, be a subset of the population.
We need to design rules governing participant compensation.
At a minimum I think all compensation should be reported (it’s part of what’s needed for replication), and of course not related to the results a participant reports. Ideally we create a couple defined protocols for locating participants, and people largely choose to go with a known good solution.
StackOverflow et al are also free and offer no compensation except for points and awards and reputation. Maybe it can be combined. Points for regular participation, prominent mention somewhere and awards being real rewards. The downside is that this may pose moral hazards of some kind.
Oh, interesting.
I had been assuming that participants needed to be drawn from the general population. If we don’t think there’s too much hazard there, I agree a points system would work. Some portion of the population would likely just enjoy the idea of receiving free product to test.
I would worry about sampling bias due to selection based on, say, enjoying points.
For studies in which people have to actively involve themselves and consent to participate, I believe that there is always going to be some sampling bias. At best we can make it really really small, at worst, we should state clearly what we believe are those biases in our population.
At worst, we will have a better understanding of what goes into the results.
Also, for some studies, the sampled population might, by necessity, be a subset of the population.