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9/30/2003
Psychological Research Online: Opportunities
and Challenges
As the Internet has changed communication,
commerce, and the distribution of information, it is
also changing psychological research. Psychologists
can observe new or rare phenomena online and can do research
on traditional psychological topics more efficiently, enabling them to expand the scale and scope of
their research. Yet these opportunities
entail risk both to research quality and to human subjects. Internet research is inherently no
more risky than traditional observational, survey
or experimental methods. Yet the rapidly changing nature of technology, norms, and online
behavior means that the risks and safeguards
against them will differ from those characterizing traditional research and will themselves change
over time. This paper describes some benefits
and challenges of conducting psychological research via the Internet and offers recommendations
to both researchers and Institutional Review
Boards for dealing with the challenges.

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