The Hidden Cost of Using Amazon Mechanical Turk for Research

TL;DR

This paper reveals that even highly rated Amazon Mechanical Turk workers exhibit significant inattentiveness, emphasizing the need for multiple attention checks and adjustments in research protocols to ensure data quality.

Contribution

It demonstrates the prevalence of inattentiveness among top-tier MTurk workers and advocates for improved attention checks and methodological adjustments in crowdsourced research.

Findings

22.3% of participants failed at least one attention check

Most failures were in honesty checks (94 participants)

Highlights the necessity of multiple attention checks regardless of worker reputation

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the attentiveness exhibited by participants sourced through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), thereby discovering a significant level of inattentiveness amongst the platform's top crowd workers (those classified as 'Master', with an 'Approval Rate' of 98% or more, and a 'Number of HITS approved' value of 1,000 or more). A total of 564 individuals from the United States participated in our experiment. They were asked to read a vignette outlining one of four hypothetical technology products and then complete a related survey. Three forms of attention check (logic, honesty, and time) were used to assess attentiveness. Through this experiment we determined that a total of 126 (22.3%) participants failed at least one of the three forms of attention check, with most (94) failing the honesty check - followed by the logic check (31), and the time check (27). Thus, we established that significant levels of inattentiveness exist even among the most elite MTurk workers. The study concludes by reaffirming the need for multiple forms of carefully crafted attention checks, irrespective of whether participant quality is presumed to be high according to MTurk criteria such as 'Master', 'Approval Rate', and 'Number of HITS approved'. Furthermore, we propose that researchers adjust their proposals to account for the effort and costs required to address participant inattentiveness.