The Opportunities and Limitations of Using Mechanical Turk (MTURK) in Public Administration and Management Scholarship

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Opportunities and Limitations of Using Mechanical Turk (MTURK) in Public Administration and Management Scholarship

AU - Stritch, Justin Michael

AU - Pedersen, Mogens Jin

AU - Taggart, Gabel

PY - 2017/7/3

Y1 - 2017/7/3

N2 - Other social science fields are increasingly conducting research using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk)—an online crowdsourcing platform—but how might MTurk be useful to public administration and management research? This article provides an introduction of the platform and considers both the opportunities and limitations for using MTurk in public administration and management scholarship. We find that MTurk might be relevant for examining particular types of research questions. We identify five areas where MTurk data may complement and enhance public administration and management research: (1) exploratory analyses and survey construction; (2) measurement refinement of latent constructs; (3) experiments; (4) longitudinal research and data collection; and (5) collection of data from citizens. The article emphasizes how a key requisite conditions both the applicability of MTurk data and the validity of MTurk-based findings: the researcher must understand the boundaries and potential of the platform, since the issues related to representativeness, participation, and data quality are non-trivial

AB - Other social science fields are increasingly conducting research using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk)—an online crowdsourcing platform—but how might MTurk be useful to public administration and management research? This article provides an introduction of the platform and considers both the opportunities and limitations for using MTurk in public administration and management scholarship. We find that MTurk might be relevant for examining particular types of research questions. We identify five areas where MTurk data may complement and enhance public administration and management research: (1) exploratory analyses and survey construction; (2) measurement refinement of latent constructs; (3) experiments; (4) longitudinal research and data collection; and (5) collection of data from citizens. The article emphasizes how a key requisite conditions both the applicability of MTurk data and the validity of MTurk-based findings: the researcher must understand the boundaries and potential of the platform, since the issues related to representativeness, participation, and data quality are non-trivial

U2 - 10.1080/10967494.2016.1276493

DO - 10.1080/10967494.2016.1276493

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1096-7494

VL - 20

SP - 489

EP - 511

JO - International Public Management Journal

JF - International Public Management Journal

IS - 3

ER -