Conducting Online Surveys with Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Best Practices for Recruitment, Human Subjects Protections, Data Integrity, and Measurement

Sexual and gender minority adolescents represent an understudied and hard-to-reach population who experience higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems (e.g., depression, posttraumatic stress, suicide attempts, sexual risk taking, and substance misuse) in comparison to their cisgender, heterosexual peers. Stigma is one of the primary factors (e.g., fear of being “outed,” losing friendships and stable housing) that make traditional, face-to-face or telephone-based research activities risky for these adolescent populations. As a result, research has relied primarily on convenience samples, resulting in a dearth of empirical research on sexual and gender minority adolescents of color, non-cisgender adolescents, adolescents questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity, and those who live in non-coastal, rural, and/or impoverished communities. Despite the numerous challenges that exist in conducting research with sexual and gender minority adolescents, it is critical to service provision and prevention efforts that research not merely include, but focus on this hard-to-reach population.

Methodological and technological advances, such as social media campaigns for study promotion and the ubiquitous nature of smartphones, have the potential to change the way that survey research is conducted, making hard-to-reach adolescent populations more accessible. With these advances, the capacity of social science research to gain access to hard-to-reach populations has shifted markedly. Online surveys have the potential to increase researchers' ability to access sexual and gender minority adolescents by (a) preserving their anonymity and allowing them to participate without disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity and (b) making surveys accessible to adolescents who may be isolated from typical recruiting hubs (e.g., rural youth).

This roundtable session will begin a dialogue regarding best practices in designing and implementing online surveys for sexual and gender minority adolescents. Drawing on their own online survey administration with sexual and gender minorities, presenters will use concrete examples to facilitate a conversation about challenges and opportunities of employing this approach. Presenter one will focus on recruitment and engagement, including the leveraging of social media (e.g., Facebook) and videos to recruit and engage a more nationally representative sample. Presenter two will focus attention on safety and protection of human subjects, including the strategies for administering informed consent and protecting participant anonymity and wellbeing with online surveys. Presenter three will focus on ensuring data integrity, including discussion of mechanisms to detect dishonest and repeat responders. Presenter four will focus on measurement of identity-related constructs in adolescents with diverse sexual and gender identities, including strategies for item wording and management of measurement invariance. Our goal is to create a conversation regarding best practices for reaching sexual and gender minority adolescents and other hard-to-reach populations with online surveys, while also increasing awareness of common pitfalls and safeguards when implementing this type of survey design.