New study raises questions about survey fraud.

Many surveys, about one in five, may contain fraudulent data

By John BohannonFeb. 24, 2016 , 3:00 PM

How often do people conducting surveys simply fabricate some or all of the data? Several high-profile cases of fraud over the past few years have shone a spotlight on that question, but the full scope of the problem has remained unknown.  Yesterday, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., a pair of well-known researchers, Michael Robbins and Noble Kuriakose, presented a statistical test for detecting fabricated data in survey answers. When they applied it to more than 1000 public data sets from international surveys, a worrying picture emerged: About one in five of the surveys failed, indicating a high likelihood of fabricated data. Read more.