Recruiting Interview Subjects

Previously, I discussed you should not recruit people you know for interviews, so how do you recruit people you do not know? There are two common ways, which are typically approved by the IRB:

1) Work through an organization. You can work through an organization to access their employees/ members/ customers/ or patients. Typically, the IRB does not want you to contact personally potential interviewees, instead having the organization forward an email with a description of your study information often works. Alternatively, posting flyers or having handouts available onsite is an option. You will need the organization's permission through a letter of agreement.

2) You may be able to use a snowball recruiting technique in which you give out flyers/ send out a description by email of your study to people you know. You then ask them to forward on the information to people they know. Remember, you should not know your final interviewees.

Next time we will consider cleaning your quantitative data. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu