Survey sabotage: Insights into reducing the risk of fraudulent responses in online surveys

Abstract

Validity is a key element of many forms of research—particularly surveys, which are often used in health professions education research. A survey must accurately measure what it is intended to measure to be considered valid. This is becoming increasingly difficult in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), where “bots” (short for robots) are challenging researchers' abilities to deliver valid surveys. While financial incentives were once considered the gold standard method for survey recruitment and participant reimbursement, emerging technologies help bad actors in taking advantage of these incentives, jeopardizing the validity of survey research. In this short communication, we share a case study illustrating how online surveys can be sabotaged by bad actors. We aim to expand researchers' awareness of this challenge to survey validity and offer guidance to maximize their ability to deliver psychometrically valid surveys in health professions education research.