Participant multitasking in online studies

Abstract

Do online research participants complete studies as continuous tasks, or do they switch back and forth between the study and other online activities? While researchers generally prefer for participants to complete online studies continuously, participants may choose to multitask and complete other activities simultaneous to the study, potentially impacting their responses. This research directly measures the prevalence of online participant multitasking across three studies, examines the impact of multitasking on participant responses, and explores solutions for reducing multitasking. Findings indicate that multitasking is common, is dramatically understated in participant self-reports, can be observed unobtrusively, significantly affects participant responses, and is difficult to reduce. I also find age and gender differences in the frequency of multitasking. The appendices include new code, making it easy for other researchers to measure multitasking on multiple platforms.