Lec 6 - Participant Recruitment And Sampling Flashcards
What is the ethnographic cycle composed of?
- Recruit participants
- Collect data
- Make inferences
- Design research instrument
What are the differences in sampling between qualitative and quantitative research?
Quantitative = large samples, randomly selected, statistical representation, and generalization
Qualitative = small samples, purposely selected, representation of range, depth of understanding
What are the 2 main tasks involved in sampling?
- Defining the study population
- Identifying strategies for recruiting participants
What are the sampling goals? This is tied to your research objectives (6)
- Maximum diversity
- Homogeneity
- Typical cases
- Critical cases
- Deviant or extreme cases
- Theory development
What are the 6 recruitment strategies?
- Gatekeepers
- Registers
- Formal and informal networks
- Snowballing
- Advertisements
- Mixed methods recruitment
What are gatekeepers?
People who have a prominent and recognizable role in the group or community. They can be influential in encouraging group members to participate in a study, and they can act as an intermediary between the researcher and participants.
What are the benefits of working with a gatekeeper?
- Respecting hierarchy and protocol within the community
- Gaining valuable information that can assist with participant recruitment
- Advocacy for your research study
What are registers?
Membership lists, enrolment records are examples of registers that can be used for identifying potential study participants
What are the pros and cons of registers?
Pro: the ability to manage diversity amongst participants + return to the register to select additional participants, if needed.
Con: permission needed, register may be incomplete or not updated and those who are not listed in the register are excluded.
What are networks? (Types)
Formal and informal networks to reach participants.
Formal = professional associations
Informal: word of mouth, places where members of a group tend to gather or hang out
What is the snowball technique?
When is it typically used?
Technique whereby you ask a study participants or key informant to identify others who meet the study criteria.
Typically used when population might be difficult to access
Why is advertisement a useful sampling method?
Useful when you gave very specific criteria that participants must meet; participants can self-identify .
Works best with financial incentives.
What are mixed methods?
Mixed method design is quant+ quality, you select the participants for the qualitative study from those already taking part in the quantitative study.
Can also choose participants from a previous qualitative study (e.g. focus group) to follow up (using in-depth interviewing) on an issue raised in the focus group study.
In both cases, you are seeking to address an issue in greater depth
What are the pros and cons of mixed methods?
Pro: participants have already established a relationship with the research team through their involvement in one part of the study + you have a priori data
Con: participants’ responses may be influenced by earlier participation.
What is saturation?
The point in data collection when no more new issues are identified and data begins to repeat.
