Recruitment and Participants
When thinking about recruitment there are two important questions to answer: 1) Who will you be recruiting to participate in your research; and 2) How will you recruit them?
The answer to the first question (who) will likely shape the answer to the second question (how).
Participants
Your research question will obviously shape who you are trying to recruit - you will not be able to answer questions about the experiences of medical students by talking to preschoolers, nor figure out how to improve early childhood education techniques by observing medical students.
It is important to think carefully about who you will recruit, and how many people you will need to include in your study to produce meaningful results. If your work presents risks to participants it is equally important to make sure you are not oversampling (and exposing additional participants to the risk unnecessarily) or under sampling (thereby exposing participants to risk without producing beneficial results).
Risk Sensitive or Vulnerable Populations
Some groups, for structural or historical reasons, are considered vulnerable populations. For these groups the recruitment and consent process may be complicated and therefore extra caution must be taken. For some of these groups there are extra regulatory requirements that must be met.
Below we will discuss some of the groups that are typically considered vulnerable populations, but it is important to think about the specific context of your research as well. A group that might not be considered vulnerable ordinarily, could be at extra risk given the particular topic or methods of your research. It is the responsibility of the researcher to think through these possibilities, and make sure that the recruitment methods and research procedures work to reduce such risks.
Recruitment Procedures
There are many ways of recruiting participants: flyers, in-person communication, advertisements, electronic communication, mail, and more.
Whatever way you chose, the IRB will need to review your recruitment materials. All flyers, scripts, and templates need to be included in the attachments section of the application. If there are changes to recruitment materials after the application is approved, you will need to submit an amendment application which must be approved before the new materials can be used.
The goal of recruitment materials is to clearly and efficiently state what will be required should someone chose to participate. If materials are confusing, or leave out important details, that can be a waste of time for potential participants or for those who are not actually eligible for the study.
With that in mind, recruitment materials should give an overview of who is eligible, the topic of the study, and the procedures broadly speaking. All recruitment materials should include the full time commitment of participation.
When thinking about recruitment there are two important questions to answer: 1) Who will you be recruiting to participate in your research; and 2) How will you recruit them?
The answer to the first question (who) will likely shape the answer to the second question (how).
Participants
Your research question will obviously shape who you are trying to recruit - you will not be able to answer questions about the experiences of medical students by talking to preschoolers, nor figure out how to improve early childhood education techniques by observing medical students.
It is important to think carefully about who you will recruit, and how many people you will need to include in your study to produce meaningful results. If your work presents risks to participants it is equally important to make sure you are not oversampling (and exposing additional participants to the risk unnecessarily) or under sampling (thereby exposing participants to risk without producing beneficial results).
Risk Sensitive or Vulnerable Populations
Some groups, for structural or historical reasons, are considered vulnerable populations. For these groups the recruitment and consent process may be complicated and therefore extra caution must be taken. For some of these groups there are extra regulatory requirements that must be met.
Below we will discuss some of the groups that are typically considered vulnerable populations, but it is important to think about the specific context of your research as well. A group that might not be considered vulnerable ordinarily, could be at extra risk given the particular topic or methods of your research. It is the responsibility of the researcher to think through these possibilities, and make sure that the recruitment methods and research procedures work to reduce such risks.
Recruitment Procedures
There are many ways of recruiting participants: flyers, in-person communication, advertisements, electronic communication, mail, and more.
Whatever way you chose, the IRB will need to review your recruitment materials. All flyers, scripts, and templates need to be included in the attachments section of the application. If there are changes to recruitment materials after the application is approved, you will need to submit an amendment application which must be approved before the new materials can be used.
The goal of recruitment materials is to clearly and efficiently state what will be required should someone chose to participate. If materials are confusing, or leave out important details, that can be a waste of time for potential participants or for those who are not actually eligible for the study.
With that in mind, recruitment materials should give an overview of who is eligible, the topic of the study, and the procedures broadly speaking. All recruitment materials should include the full time commitment of participation.