Background:

Online crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), have become popular alternatives to the ubiquitous student samples used in psychology research. r/SampleSize, an alternative pool on the website Reddit, allows for online participant recruitment without compulsory or immediate payment, making it potentially useful for students, research trainees, and course instructors.

Objective:

The current study sought to assess the viability of using r/SampleSize as a participant pool by comparing its data characteristics to MTurk and existing lab samples.

Method:

Two hundred and fifty-six MTurk workers and 277 r/SampleSize participants completed identical questionnaires on demographics, participation motivations, and standard psychology scales.

Results:

Participants recruited through r/SampleSize reported diverse ages, education levels, income, and employment, although White ethnic background and US residence were predominant. r/SampleSize participants were more internally motivated than MTurk to participate in research and had greater need for cognition but did not differ significantly in altruism or motivation to gain self-knowledge. r/SampleSize data reliability and quality were comparable to MTurk and lab samples across most analyses.

Teaching Implications:

r/SampleSize can be used to recruit relatively large and diverse samples for undergraduate research projects with minimal setup, labor, and cost.

Conclusion:

The findings suggest that r/SampleSize is a diverse and viable participant pool.

中文翻译：

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评估 Reddit 作为心理学研究项目的众包平台

背景：

在线众包平台，例如 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)，已成为心理学研究中无处不在的学生样本的流行替代品。r/SampleSize 是 Reddit 网站上的替代池，允许在线招募参与者而无需强制或立即付款，使其对学生、研究受训者和课程讲师可能有用。

客观的：

当前的研究试图通过将其数据特征与 MTurk 和现有实验室样本进行比较来评估使用 r/SampleSize 作为参与者池的可行性。

方法：

256 名 MTurk 工人和 277 名 r/SampleSize 参与者完成了关于人口统计学、参与动机和标准心理学量表的相同问卷。

结果：

通过 r/SampleSize 招募的参与者报告了不同的年龄、教育水平、收入和就业，尽管白人种族背景和美国居住地占主导地位。r/SampleSize 参与者比 MTurk 更有参与研究的内部动机，并且对认知有更大的需求，但在利他主义或获得自我知识的动机方面没有显着差异。在大多数分析中，r/SampleSize 数据的可靠性和质量与 MTurk 和实验室样品相当。

教学意义：

r/SampleSize 可用于以最少的设置、劳动力和成本为本科研究项目招募相对较大和多样化的样本。

结论：

研究结果表明 r/SampleSize 是一个多样化且可行的参与者池。