Of greatest significance is the potentially lost understanding of the topic that comes from completing such tasks as the review of the literature and the analysis of data. While the use of statisticians to manage the numerical computations or to review the computations completed via software systems such as the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) is common, the primary researcher is still ethically responsible for the accurate analysis of the data. So, using Mechanical Turk for statistical calculation and analysis doe s not preclude the researcher from having a working knowledge of statistical calculation and analysis.

Additionally, since MTurk can be used to conduct research surveys, there are ethical concerns surrounding it use on research including the provision of informed consent to survey participants, compensation of MTurk workers, and the potential for unwittingly involving vulnerable populations such as minors. Each of these can be addressed to a great and, dominantly, safe extent, but researchers should take extra precaution to assure the well-being of study participants. For example, simply structuring the survey to place the informed consent information on the survey landing page and requiring the participant to manually check a box indicating understanding of the information should suffice. Compensating MTurk workers fairly is mostly a matter of providing compensation information at the outset and securing individual consent to the compensation offered. Assuring that minors or other vulnerable populations are not involved in the survey population unless they are the focus of the research study may not be perfectly possible. However, as with the other consent items mentioned above, a self-report that requires the participant to manually select the choice indicating that the participant is not part of a vulnerable population may suffice.  

Because of these concerns, it is necessary for the researcher to include the intended use of MTurk in the research proposal and to discuss its use thoroughly with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) overseeing the study before proceeding to use MTurk for analyzing data or gathering survey information. The value of this service may be considered great to the researcher, but the concerns noted above need to be addressed before beginning research using MTurk.