Remote interviewing, accessibility, and scams: Notes on a case of fraudulent responses to a recruitment flyer

Abstract

Remote interviewing has become even more common since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and allows greater accessibility for many interview participants regardless of pandemic circumstances. This accessibility is especially important in the context of my research with autistic individuals. However, it may also expose interview studies to the same concerns about fraudulent responses that survey studies face. While advice for survey research often suggests requiring interviews as a way to discourage fraudulent responses, I had participants I later concluded were misrepresenting their eligibility actually complete audio interviews. In this note, I describe my experience with this potential scam, the solutions I rejected, and the solutions I ultimately implemented to add additional screening questions related to where the participant lived and how they heard about the study. In line with my interpretivist and constructivist approach to autism studies, I focus on strategies for identifying who is “really eligible” without gatekeeping who is “really autistic.” I argue that many of the suggestions for identifying fraudulent participants may inappropriately exclude autistic or neurodivergent individuals, and describe a framework for identifying locally relevant and culturally appropriate screening questions that do not overly burden or scrutinize participants.