Hello, again. For this lesson,
we will continue our discussion on
the things you need to think about before you start recruiting.
I will cover the various ways you can recruit for qualitative research.
This includes focus groups,
in-person interviews with key informants,
or key opinion leaders.
My aim with this lesson is to give you a big picture view of your options
and some of the ways to approach people to get
them to help you by providing their knowledge and opinions.
After this lesson, you'll be able to list
the three most common ways to recruit and be able
to describe best approaches to get
people to agree to participate in your qualitative research.
Are you ready for this? Let's go.
Basically, there are three ways to recruit participants for focus groups.
On the telephone via referrals or intercepting people at various locations.
These are the best ways to get specific people with whom you are certain are
located in the designated geographic regions where you're conducting your focus groups.
In general is not a common practice to use social media to get participants,
but the Internet is starting to be used for larger research projects.
If you have a list of names and you're planning to recruit on the telephone,
first look at the list and see if it's broken into specific demographics.
If it is, randomly choose some from each group that meet the criteria of your study.
If you don't have a list you might have to find people randomly.
Call the phone number and make sure to track if the person was home.
If you talk to someone,
if the phone was busy,
if you were told to call back,
if you leave a message make it short and sweet leaving your name,
phone number and the basic gist of why you're calling.
I usually will say something like,
"You would be perfect for the interview or focus group we are
doing on whatever the topic is."
Usually on your screener sheet you should have
a place where the outcome on the call is listed for tracking purposes.
Is good to have some code to track your calls,
like CB for Call Back and make sure to put down the specific time.
LW for Left Word on answering machine.
B for Busy and C for Complete.
If you get the person on the phone,
be cordial, positive and personal.
Be sure not to ask them a question like,
"Is this a good time,
are you able to answer a few questions?"
It's best to make a positive statement like,
"We're recruiting for a focus group that might interest you on immunizations.
The meeting's Monday at 4:00.
Will that be good for you?"
If you have a referral to specific people,
make sure when you introduce yourself to mention who referred you.
You would say something like, "Hello,
this is Susan Berman.
Your friend Jason suggested that I contact you.
He thought you would be a great help for the research project."
Thank them in advance for hearing you out about the project.
Tell them that they are not obligated in any way but would be a great help.
Having a referral when you contact someone goes
a long way towards getting a positive response.
If you're approaching random people on the street,
you want to approach them gently.
Do not overwhelm them or chase them down.
Be friendly and approachable.
Sometimes I put my clipboard away so that they don't think I'm doing sales or something,
and I just carry a flyer that I can give
them with the time and place of the discussion group.
The main thing is to be respectful and do whatever you can to reduce intimidation.
Once recruited I will add their name to the list on a piece of paper.
I find this very helpful to have a list with their names.
I can use that list when I send confirmation letters and make confirmation calls.
I can then check off each time I complete each task.
Think about what would make the people you hope to recruit most receptive.
The main difference between recruiting for a focus group or key informant or
key opinion leader interview is that the one-on-one interview is much more personal.
You will want to suggest a mutually acceptable and perhaps fun place to meet.
The meeting place alone can be an incentive for a busy key opinion later to participate.
Then, again, if you know they are busy,
you might suggest doing the interview on the phone.
Whether you are recruiting focus group participants,
key informants or key opinion leaders
accommodate your recruiting to their needs and interests.
That wraps up our final lesson in this module.
After this lesson, you should now be able to identify
good places and practices for recruiting
participants of a focus group for a general topic,
describe typical ways people are recruited for in-person interviews or focus groups.