Here are links to all the posts on recruiting participants to your research. Do you have any helpful suggestions – what has worked for you?
It’s all about managing expectations and making it easy for your participants.
July 11, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis Leave a comment
July 4, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
It’s all about managing expectations and making it easy for your participants.
May 18, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, pilot study, qualitative, quantitative, research, research methods, students, thesis Leave a comment
Whatever research method you have chosen to employ, you will find that your exact procedure and resources will develop as you take your research forward. No researcher can decide on the perfect procedure on the first draft of their research proposal. Instead it should evolve as more information becomes available. However, once you start collecting data, in most methods it is imperative that the procedure remains constant. To ensure that the optimum procedure has been selected it is essential that a pilot study is performed. Sommer and Sommer (2002, p9) describe this effectively.
“No matter how carefully you reviewed the background literature and designed the study, there is no substitute for a pilot study before the actual data are collected. A pilot study is a preliminary use of a procedure designed to identify problems and omissions before the actual study is conducted. Remember Murphy’s Law – if something can go wrong, it will. Even the best designed experiments will have flaws, and the most carefully developed interview sheet will have ambiguous questions or words that the respondent will misinterpret. There is no way to predict all potential problems in advance. Not even the most experienced survey researcher can compose a perfect questionnaire on the first try. Survey research firms test out their questions in a pilot study before beginning formal data collection. You should plan to do the same in your own research. Set aside a designated time for this after the procedures have been developed. Don’t skip the pilot study in a rush to collect data. A little effort put into it will pay big dividends in improving the precision, reliability, and validity of the data collected in the actual study.”
The pilot study doesn’t have to be a major task; just make sure you get the most from it. So, for example, if you want to pilot the questionnaire you have designed, get a small sample of people to use it and question them afterwards on their understanding of the questions and answer options. Alternatively you can ask them to say aloud what they are thinking as they complete the form (they may feel a little self-conscious doing this). Using their comments you can refine or reword questions, leave out some or put new ones in.
Finally, make sure that you report on this in the Method section of your report. It doesn’t have to be too detailed. Something along the lines of:
A short pilot study with 5 participants resulted in the amendment of question 5, the removal of questions 3 and 10, and the inclusion of an additional question (see appendix A for details).
Sommer, R. & Sommer, B. (2002) A Practical Guide to Behavioural Research. Tools and Techniques. 5th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press
March 28, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
Make it clear in your research report which recruitment method(s) you used and when.
March 13, 2012
Research Methods case study, design and test, discursive, dissertation, experiment, interview, MSc, PhD, qualitative, quantitative, research, research methods, students, survey, thesis Leave a comment
Once you have decided on your research question and started to read the existing literature on the topic, you must decide what approach you are going to employ to further your research. There are a variety of tools available to you to gather the data you need to answer your research question such as interviews, surveys, case studies, design and test, experiments etc. You will need to decide which tool is appropriate for the research questions and whether you have the skills to use it effectively.
No technique is perfect. For example experimentation suffers from artificiality, and observation may suffer from differences in opinion between observers. However, each tool will have some advantages too such as the economies of scale seen with online surveys. In some instances the most appropriate procedure cannot be used. In this situation a combination of other tools may be the best compromise. Ultimately though, the choice of tool should be decided by the question to be answered and the time, resources and skills available.
Table 1 below is adapted from Sommer and Sommer (2002, p6) and may help you choose the tool appropriate for your research question. For some questions more than one tool may be needed.
Table 1: choosing among research tools
PROBLEM | APPROACH | RESEARCH TOOL |
To obtain reliable information under controlled conditions | Test people, equipment or procedures in a laboratory | Laboratory experimentSimulation |
To find out how people behave in public | Watch them | Systematic observation |
To find out how people behave in private | Ask them to keep diaries | Personal documents |
To learn what people think | Ask them | Focus groupInterviewQuestionnaire/survey
Attitude scale |
To find patterns in written or visual material | Systematic tabulation (categorisation) | Content analysis (qualitative techniques) |
To understand an unusual event or specific instantiation | Detailed and lengthy investigation | Case study |
To find out what people have done in the past | Check public records | Archival research |
To discover whether a function is achievable | Build it in the lab and test against set criteria | Design and test |
To generate new guidelines or theories from existing knowledge | Read existing literature and synthesise conclusions or new meaning which may be applied to new situations | Discursive |
Sommer, R. & Sommer, B. (2002) A Practical Guide to Behavioural Research. Tools and Techniques. 5th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press
March 12, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, PhD, research, research methods, students, thesis Leave a comment
I was recently asked for recommended literature on research methods. There are too many to put into a single tweet so my current favourites appear here organised according to topic. Hopefully they will be available in your university library or book shop. Publishers – if my copies are out of date, or you have a book that you believe will trump mine, I’m happy to receive inspection copies to review! A couple of online resources worth a mention are: Methodspace and Sage Research Methods.
Oates, B.J. (2006) Researching Information Systems and Computing. Sage: London
Lazar, J., Feng, J.H., & Hochheiser, H. (2010) Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction. Wiley: Chichester, West Sussex
Breakwell, G.M, Hammond, S. & Fife-Schaw, C. (1995) Research Methods in Psychology. Sage: London
Fisher, C. (2007) Researching and Writing a Dissertation. A Guidebook for Business Students. Pearson: Harlow, Essex
Clark-Carter, D. (1997) Doing Quantitative Psychological Research. From Design to Report. Psychology Press: Hove, East Sussex
Kranzler, J.H. (2007) Statistics for the Terrified. Pearson: New Jersey, USA
Field, A. (2009) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. Sage: London
Silverman, D. (2010) Doing Qualitative Research. Sage: London
Richards, L. (2009) Handling Qualitative Data. A Practical Guide. Sage: London
Silverman, D. (2007) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Qualitative Research. Sage: London
Banister, P., Burman, E., Parker, I., Taylor, M. & Tindall, C. (1994) Qualitative Methods in Psychology. A Research Guide. Open University Press: Buckingham
Gaiser, T.J. & Schreiner, A.E. (2009) A Guide to Conducting Online Research. Sage: London
James, N. & Busher, H. (2009) Online Interviewing. Sage: London
McMillan, K. & Weyters, J. (2007) How to Write Dissertations and Project Reports. Pearson: Harlow, Essex
Clark, S. & Pointon, G. (2009) Words: A User’s Guide. Pearson: Harlow, Essex
Marriott, S. & Farrell, B. (1992) Chambers Common Errors in Written English. Chambers: Edinburgh
Chambers (1991) Chambers Effective English. A Guide to Good Writing. Chambers: Edinburgh
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
March 6, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
Levie, W.H. & Lentz, R. (1982). Effects of text illustrations: a review of research, Education & Communication Technology Journal, 30: 195-232
Glenberg, A.M. & Langton, W.E. (1992). Comprehension of illustrated text: pictures help to build mental models, Journal fo Memory & Language, 31(2): 129-151
February 28, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
Kahneman, D. (2011), Thinking Fast and Slow, London: Penguin
February 20, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, incentives, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
Burger, J.M. & Caldwell, D.F. (2011), When opportunity knocks: the effect of a perceived unique opportunity on compliance, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14(5): 671-676
Garner, R. (2005). Post-It note persuasion: a sticky influence, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(3): 230-237
February 16, 2012
Research Methods dissertation, incentives, MSc, participants, PhD, recruitment, research, research methods, students, thesis 1 Comment
Hornblum, A.M., (1997). They were cheap and available: prisoners as research subjects in twentieth century America. British Medical Journal, 315: 1437-1441