Step 5: Recruit Participants
The next step is recruiting participants for your data collection. The method of recruiting
participants varies widely depending on your chosen data collection methods.
Just as you need good questions to get good results, you also need to have the right participants.
There's no point in spending time and effort creating questions only to ask them of the wrong
people. You should have an instrument developed before you start recruiting participants.
Recruiting participants too early can rush the timeline; therefore, not allowing you the opportunity
to develop the best possible instrument.
Screening
You should have a set of characteristics that define your participants. Use these criteria to set up
a screening tool. When someone responds to your inquiries about participating, this screening
tool will allow you to see if they match your criteria. If you are doing separate focus groups with
people who have different characteristics the screening tool can determine which group the
respondent is most appropriate for, if any.
Offering Incentives
You may want to offer incentives for participating, especially if recruiting is difficult or your data
collection significantly inconveniences participants. Incentives don't necessarily have to be costly,
but they should be relevant to your audience. Sometimes a meal and free childcare are enough,
other times you may need to offer something more substantial. Taking a few moments to find out
from your audience what incentives are motivating could save you quite a bit of time and money
in the long run.
Biases
Think about any biases inherent in the method of your recruitment. For example, if you plan to
use a commercial marketing research firm's recruitment database, you may have difficulty
reaching low-income participants. If you recruit participants from a clinic or other setting, think
about if they will be inherently different from people who do not go to that clinic or who wouldn't
be at that specific setting.