“Although these studies show a high degree of smartphone adoption among physicians, these results should be interpreted cautiously. These firms provide few details on how they actually conducted these studies. A major hurdle to conducting such research is sampling bias. This can occur in survey research when researchers get a low response rate (i.e.—researchers approach a large number of individuals to fill out a survey but few actually fill it out).
This biases the result in that the group responding to the survey is likely different than those who declined to respond. More specifically, those who responded to requests by these marketing researchers may have been more likely to be avid technology enthusiasts and thus, more willing to talk about their use of technology with a surveyor. This biases the sample towards giving a higher estimate of technology use than there actually may be.”
Article
Josh Herigon, iMedicalApps, 31 January 2011
