I have used survey monkey with survivors of childhood sexual abuse but did so through a support organisation. Engagement with support organisations is really important when dealing with such sensitive subjects. When I did my original qualitative work with this group of women I was advised by a support organisation against open advertisements/calls to recruit participants (although it has been done) because we cannot know the impact that seeing such an advert will have on the individual or whether they have access to support if needed.

This is a really important area of study - I hope you find a solution.

It seems that getting the right people to respond is a much bigger challenge than the online survey tool. Rehab facilities/institutions in different countries may be of help, but it is uncertain how they would cooperate through internet. As far as tools are concerned, you can check Google Forms or Typeform as alternatives to Surveymonkey.

https://www.google.com/forms/about/

http://www.typeform.com/

Please try Google. Not only does it reach out to potential participants, the collected information is also protected. In addition, it starts your process of analysis by classifying responses.

Good morning  Cristina,

Survey monkey is actually an excellent  tool used for survey. Especially,  when collecting data on the Internet, but be careful of the integrity of who can complete the survey instrument.

Hello Christina

Not sure if it is any better but I was very glad about SurveyGizmo software and it was easy to transfer the data to SPSS format. 

Good luck with your research

Hello Christina,

Due to the sensitive nature of your topic, my suggestion to reach out to the survey respondents is to contact support organizations for your target group. Try to get their support for your research survey.That will give more credibility to your survey and you have more probability of getting  honest responses from the participants. Best of luck.

Suggestion for survey softwares: http://www.capterra.com/survey-software/

I have used survey monkey with survivors of childhood sexual abuse but did so through a support organisation. Engagement with support organisations is really important when dealing with such sensitive subjects. When I did my original qualitative work with this group of women I was advised by a support organisation against open advertisements/calls to recruit participants (although it has been done) because we cannot know the impact that seeing such an advert will have on the individual or whether they have access to support if needed.

This is a really important area of study - I hope you find a solution.

I second Khandoker and Merie on their comments that your question is more linked to reaching respondents than the technical issues of administering an online survey.

If it is about academic research, I would not rely on commercial online panels when your research focuses on a very special target group like in your case (thumbs up to survey monkey who could have made some money but rather warned you that the result might not be satisfying).

I think the first step is to really think about what your population of the survey should be and whether it is possible for you to find an adequate sample of that population. For example, instead of trying to infer to the whole population of your target group you might restrict yourself to some organizations that might help you to contact people and, thus, you infer to the population that is in contact with these organizations. This is not compromising the value of your study, you are just changing your population and you have to reflect that when presenting your results.

Thank you so much for your feedback and suggestions everyone! I really appreciate it!

Many thanks,

Christina

Thank you so much for your feedback and suggestions everyone! I really appreciate it!

Many thanks,

Christina

Thank you for this offer and information. I would likely need to request my own access however, as I think that might run into some potential concerns with my study. Thanks so much for this information! :)

Christina

As ELISA indicated, gatekeepers might be crucial to your investigation. In this context, perhaps one option would be through organisations that work with people who gave suffered abuse. Trust is crucial, but in some other cultural context, fear of stigmatisation is even more crucial. Why not approach organisations that work eith this group and see what you might find.

Hi, Christina -

Your school's IRB will have to approve your sampling techniques to ensure that you adhere to the principles of the Belmont Report, which deals with research with human subjects. I suspect that you will have a real challenge with this sampling since your target population will be considered "vulnerable". Other data collection companies are:

http://www.qualtrics.com/

https://www.survata.com/

Perhaps an online search for data collection companies might help.

Best of luck!

Hi Ruth,

Thank you for your suggestions! I will look into this. :)

Hi Ruth,

Thank you for your suggestions! I will look into this. I have worked through the possibility of recruiting vulnerable participants to the IRB's liking, so I've overcome that hurdle.  ;)  Thank you!

Hi Christina,

Good luck tomorrow! Here is something that came up in our prospectus class as an alternative to Survey Monkey.

Amazon's Mechanical Turn is rapidly gaining acceptance as an alternative.

Here's the link in case if fits your study:

https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

Thanks! I used Qualtrics and it was such a great experience! They were very customer-service oriented and responded to all of my questions within the same day. :)

Are you asking about online recruitment tools?

If so, here are some websites which you may find helpful for recruiting participants online for free:

Social media:

I found Reddit to be a great platform for recruiting participants. In addition to relevant Subreddits, here are some Subreddits where you can post your study without requesting permission from a moderator (the Sample Size Subreddit allows reposting every 24 hrs):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Participants/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SampleSize/

Online research study listings (any discipline):

https://www.callforparticipants.com/

https://www.surveycircle.com/en/

http://www.surveytandem.com/#/

Online research study listings (for psychology studies):

http://www.onlinepsychresearch.co.uk/ 

http://www.in-mind.org/content/online-research 

http://psyresearch.org/online/ 

https://www.socialpsychology.org/expts.htm 

http://psych.hanover.edu/research/exponnet.htm

Thank you for this information.

Good submissions

Information provided by Stephanie is quite useful to researchers.

Information provided by Stephanie is quite useful to researchers.

I am in agreement with the views of dr Elsa