Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Many Surveys, About One In Five, May Contain Fraudulent Data (sciencemag.org)

Posted by timothy on from the ask-those-dentists-about-the-gum-again dept.

sciencehabit writes: How often do people conducting surveys simply fabricate some or all of the data? Several high-profile cases of fraud over the past few years have shone a spotlight on that question, but the full scope of the problem has remained unknown. [Tuesday], at a meeting in Washington, D.C., a pair of well-known researchers presented a statistical test for detecting fabricated data in survey answers. When they applied it to more than 1000 public data sets from international surveys, a worrying picture emerged: About one in five of the surveys failed, indicating a high likelihood of fabricated data.

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Gee, you don't suppose respondents lie? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I take most surveys I answer calculated to confound the test as much as possible, on the assumption that anyone could be doing so; and thus, to accelerate the process is to bring it to the attention of the researchers faster. The problem is that it's an inherently flawed method.

    1. Re:Gee, you don't suppose respondents lie? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Respondent's lie and researchers lie. I've been unable to find it now, but a month ago I came across a essay from an established sociologist who was bemoaning the current number of researchers in his field who were conducting shit studies in the furtherance of promoting their political and cultural ideology. He examined a few prominent studies that were debunked when it came to light that the researchers had either manipulated, or dropped data points that conflicted with their study's conclusions, or outright fabricated data. I wish I could find it because it was very illuminating about how younger social/psychological science researchers are teaming up with journalists that have the same ideological bent to manipulate and shape public opinion.

  2. Half the marketing departments I've seen by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Roughly half the marketing departments at companies I've worked for have used half-baked surveys to gather statistics so the company name and the statistic get repeated in the industry over and over again.

    This often happens like this: "At (industry conference) this year, let's pass out a survey asking whether or not someone has every heard of a coworker getting hacked by (whatever threat our product purports to mitigate). Survey goes out to already half-paranoid people walking by, and the entire marketing and sales department fills one out that says 'yes I have'. A week later a press release goes out that says "(company) surveyed (# of people) IT managers and other attendees at (conference) and found that (high percentage) had direct knowledge of a coworker getting hacked by (threat)." Very often this stuff gets picked up by the press, bloggers and even other competitors, and the essentially made-up stat gets repeated and repeated until some people even think its true.

    Examples:
    - http://www.tripwire.com/compan...
    - http://www.prnewswire.com/news...
    - https://www.voltage.com/breach...