Research on romantic relationships for an undergraduate senior project!

[adrivald]

Hi everyone! I am posting this in the off topic subforum because it's not asking for advice, but it is asking about relationships so I hope it's not a problem!

I am in the process of trying to complete my thesis for undergrad, and I am doing research on age gap relationships. The survey I am conducting is on hypothetical relationships, so you are not required to be in an age gap relationship for the survey. Rather, it's about what you would consider to be costs and benefits of a relationship and attitudes about sex in relationships. Like the blurb says below, it's completely anonymous and your responses are completely protected.

I would really appreciate your participating in this survey! Thanks for considering and for helping a girl graduate from school!

My name is Adriana Valdivias, an undergraduate student from Scripps College, and I would like to invite you to participate in my online survey for a senior thesis project. You may participate if you are 30 to 50 years of age and heterosexual. The survey should take about 15-20 minutes of your time. You will be asked to answer questions regarding potential (hypothetical) relationships,as well as questions about sexual behavior and sexual attitudes. These questions could be considered potentially sensitive and personal to some individuals. Answers will be kept anonymous and secure by the researcher. If you choose to participate in this survey, you can choose to enter to win a $10 gift certificate. If you would like to participate in this research study, please copy and paste the Survey Monkey link provided below into a new window..

Also feel free to pass the link along to anyone who you think fits the qualifications and would be interested in participating, including parents and family friends!

surveymonkey.com/s/KNSF9WS
Thank you!

[adrivald]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to explain something about my research in case anyone was a tiny bit confused about why it's about hypothetical relationships.

At first, my intention was to do a survey on people who are actually in age gap relationships, but in fact getting participants, even online, is difficult. My advisor and I were worried about people not wanting to divulge personal information, even anonymously. We were especially worried about getting women to participate because of issues of stigma associated with older female romantic partners in relationships with younger male partners.

The "hypothetical" age gap relationship won't necessarily tell us about what is going in real age gap relationships right this moment, but it might illuminate on what people think about said relationships, or what people think are costs and benefits of those relationships. So far, age gap relationships, especially involving older women, are under-researched in psychology. Although age gap relationships certainly aren't new, they do seem to be fairly new to the media, in particular relationships involving older women and younger men. Hopefully, with this data collected I can begin to theorize about people's interests in such relationships, and to begin to see patterns of thinking about these relationships.

There is a lot more information in both my informed consent and debriefing page in my actual survey, but feel free to ask any other questions!

[basilandthyme]

At first, my intention was to do a survey on people who are actually in age gap relationships, but in fact getting participants, even online, is difficult.

What was in it for them? Did you offer them any recompense for their time and effort?

May I add that research done on randoms on the internet would be meaningless. At the very least, you should be working with subjects who's identity and relationship status you can verify.

[adrivald]

What was in it for them? Did you offer them any recompense for their time and effort?

Hi basilandthyme (those are like the two best herbs). When I was designing my methods for my thesis, we just decided to ask about hypothetical/pretend scenarios instead of trying to recruit people in age gap relationships. If I would have recruited people involved in age gap relationships, I would indeed have offered compensation (probably the same $10 gift card raffle). However, we feared it would be to difficult to recruit so we chose to not do that. So in terms of asking what was in it for them, I guess I would say that what is usually "in it" for research participants is contribution to a larger body of work that helps to understand human behavior and thought patterns.

Since this is my undergraduate thesis project, I don't have a lot of money to pay every participant or to offer much bigger rewards. Most psychology studies offer small compensations, such as raffles, for people's time and effort, so this is keeping in line with that precedent.

Hope that helped a little bit!

- - - Updated - - -

May I add that research done on randoms on the internet would be meaningless. At the very least, you should be working with subjects who's identity and relationship status you can verify.

You are right that it's a convenient sample and so in terms of coming up with meaningful conclusions it can be tricky. However, as a student who has read lots of studies, many that recruit by having people come in an do surveys in person or have access to a participant pool, usually they have grants for a ton of money. So for people doing surveys as part of their thesis or other projects, we often use online participants, and offer small amounts of compensations.

I'm sorry if my posting here has offended you. That was truly not my intention. The reason I posted this survey in forum such as this one, is because I do believe there are people whose opinions and thoughts on relationships are valuable to research, and I am hoping to capture some of that in my research.

Once again, thank you for your thoughts. I do appreciate any feedback!

I also wanted to add, that although I don't want to give too much of my survey away, I do indeed ask questions about relationship status and relationship history to try to get a sense of who has experience and who does not!