Certainly sampling and the “validity” of respondent data is a component but not the whole story (even that is subjective, what is valid? how do we determine invalidity?).
This all needs to be formalized & broadcast far & wide.
Unless the majority of the industry buys into the definitions it isn’t going to be widely adopted nor respected & trusted by buyers of research.
We need to define standards for what is :
- good sample vs not-so-good.
- good sample vs not-so-good.
- good online execution
- best practices on usability (accessibility needs to be addressed but accessibility does not equal usability), etc , etc.
And all this needs to be affordable.
Much of this exists but most is not universally agreed upon.
Who decides what is good & what is not?
And assuming we can get our act together & create such standards, how do we disseminate this ” online research gospel”.
Tall order :-)
Cheers