An examination of the WHOQOL-BREF using four popular data collection methods

The rapid increase of researchers utilizing internet sites for conducting research has not yet been adequately investigated for the degree to which psychometric properties of instruments remain intact. Although using the internet for data collection is now commonplace, there are a limited number of studies that have investigated the quality of data provided from online subject pools and responses from those platforms compared to methods used to create these instruments. The present study collected data using the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF instrument across four different types of data collection methods which included Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, Craigslist.org, college students completing the survey online, and college students completing a survey in a traditional face-to-face format. Feldt tests comparing observed Cronbach's alphas to alphas from a published validation study and confirmatory factor analyses corroborated the use of online data collection for quality of life for the general public and college students. However, the face-to-face data collection method did not provide as consistent results across the scales. Further research should investigate the lack of internal consistency in face-to-face responses. Reliability coefficients of the WHOQOL-BREF was compared across data collection methodologies.Face-to-face participants yielded the least consistent results.Participants from Mechanical Turk, Craigslist, and Mechanical Turk yielded similar patterns of responses.Mechanical Turk appeared to be the best combination of effectiveness and efficiency.