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Computer Science > Software Engineering

arXiv:2201.05348 (cs)
[Submitted on 14 Jan 2022 (v1), last revised 15 Mar 2022 (this version, v2)]

Title:Software Engineering User Study Recruitment on Prolific: An Experience Report

Authors:Brittany Reid, Markus Wagner, Marcelo d'Amorim, Christoph Treude
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Abstract:Online participant recruitment platforms such as Prolific have been gaining popularity in research, as they enable researchers to easily access large pools of participants. However, participant quality can be an issue; participants may give incorrect information to gain access to more studies, adding unwanted noise to results. This paper details our experience recruiting participants from Prolific for a user study requiring programming skills in this http URL, with the aim of helping other researchers conduct similar studies. We explore a method of recruiting programmer participants using prescreening validation, attention checks and a series of programming knowledge questions. We received 680 responses, and determined that 55 met the criteria to be invited to our user study. We ultimately conducted user study sessions via video calls with 10 participants. We conclude this paper with a series of recommendations for researchers.
Comments: To appear at RoPES 2022
Subjects: Software Engineering (cs.SE); Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC)
Cite as: arXiv:2201.05348 [cs.SE]
  (or arXiv:2201.05348v2 [cs.SE] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2201.05348

Submission history

From: Brittany Reid [view email]
[v1] Fri, 14 Jan 2022 09:01:21 UTC (360 KB)
[v2] Tue, 15 Mar 2022 06:36:06 UTC (360 KB)
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