Now a days Survey Monkey API is very common and several researchers prefer this for their data collection. Whether it will be a representative sample?
David has provided an excellent answer. We use SurveyMonkey extensively. It has pros and cons like any other survey method. For example, you have no idea who has actually completed the survey. On the good side, it becomes very easy to undertake an international survey. The main thing is to understand its limitations when interpreting the results.
Hello Dr.Brijesh
my answer would be sharing our personal experience during the data collection of our published study about nursing perception towards JCI. We used a pre validated tool designed on a monkey survey and lime survey templates. The creation of template and construction of questions is pretty easy and results can be extracted in an exell form sheet. Pretty reliable as far as order of variables. However, the response rate was low most of which due to withdrawal of participants during the survey, thus leaving lots of incomplete datacollection forms. Although we had mass distribution emails and reminders the response was less than expected. Therefore, as a data collection method, online monkey surveys seem to be weak compared to face to face interviews or paper based self administration. Probably a 2-3 page survey is doable with less risk of incomplete surveys.
Goodluck
The representativeness of any sample depends on how well it reflects the larger population to which you want to generalize. Since Survey Monkey can only reach internet users, it will, at a minimum, not be representative of an population that includes a substantial number of people who don't use the internet.
So the first issue to consider is whether your population of interest can indeed be reached by using Survey Monkey.
Beyond that you have consider how Survey Monkey might influence traditional survey concerns like non-response, missing data, etc.
(Also, I would avoid using the word "reliability" in this context because that has a technical meaning outside the sampling issues that concern you.)
David has provided an excellent answer. We use SurveyMonkey extensively. It has pros and cons like any other survey method. For example, you have no idea who has actually completed the survey. On the good side, it becomes very easy to undertake an international survey. The main thing is to understand its limitations when interpreting the results.
One more disadvantage I see about this method is that, a single respondent can answer the questionnaire several times.
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