How to I recruit people in London for my study?
May 4, 2019 4:24 AM Subscribe
I made a post on Jobs that got no attention, so I thought I would try here. I am part of a scientific study at a university -- we to pay people born and raised in or near London to come to Nice, France, for a couple of days to participate in a study. How do I find them?
What I want so to be able to get people who meet a set of requirements regarding native language/age/etc to be able to get in touch with me so that I can book them a plane ticket and hotel and pay them a per diem to fly from London to Nice and sit for a couple of hours a day while we conduct a language study on them. How do I do this with the greatest efficiency?
I made several posts on Facebook which were widely shared and did actually get me a number of participants, but I think the well there is about dry. I tried some Facebook groups like the UCL group but the posts either got buried or removed by moderators. The same result on Reddit: the r/london moderators removed my post. I'm looking for ideas/places that people might have which will allow me, via the internet, to distribute information that Londoners who are likely to be interested in what we are proposing will actually see, and then get in touch with me. Thanks!
What I want so to be able to get people who meet a set of requirements regarding native language/age/etc to be able to get in touch with me so that I can book them a plane ticket and hotel and pay them a per diem to fly from London to Nice and sit for a couple of hours a day while we conduct a language study on them. How do I do this with the greatest efficiency?
I made several posts on Facebook which were widely shared and did actually get me a number of participants, but I think the well there is about dry. I tried some Facebook groups like the UCL group but the posts either got buried or removed by moderators. The same result on Reddit: the r/london moderators removed my post. I'm looking for ideas/places that people might have which will allow me, via the internet, to distribute information that Londoners who are likely to be interested in what we are proposing will actually see, and then get in touch with me. Thanks!
If you msg me I could pass it on to my fb circle in London who could in turn pass it. How many are you looking for? Maybe the meta-jobs link would suffice?
posted by Iteki at 4:43 AM on May 4, 2019
posted by Iteki at 4:43 AM on May 4, 2019
Can you make contact with any researchers in the London area and have them spread the word at their institutions?
posted by trig at 5:05 AM on May 4, 2019
posted by trig at 5:05 AM on May 4, 2019
I could post it and get it around expat FB groups if you like, if Londoners living elsewhere in Europe would work. I also have a friend who's a professor in London - if students meet the criteria.
posted by jrobin276 at 5:08 AM on May 4, 2019
posted by jrobin276 at 5:08 AM on May 4, 2019
Response by poster: As a response to the good suggestions made so far: 1) I have made contact with researchers in the London area that I know, and they have spread the word, but mostly to their own linguistics students and we are looking for linguistically naive participants 2) Expats unfortunately are generally excluded because a) they tend to have extensive exposure to other languages and b) logistically it much more complicated on our end.
posted by os tuberoes at 5:28 AM on May 4, 2019
posted by os tuberoes at 5:28 AM on May 4, 2019
Without really knowing the specifics of the kind of research that you're doing, it is a bit difficult to recommend sampling strategies because different strategies have downstream effects on your analysis and findings. So you want to carefully think through the implications of recruiting using any suggested methods.
For example, snowball sampling could be a potential recruitment strategy for you. Snowball sampling is when you ask your existing participants to recruit people they know into your study. It's advantageous in social science research where accessing participants can be difficult, but it necessarily reduces the generalizability of your findings.
I have had some good success placing Facebook advertisements and using promoted tweets to recruit participants for studies, but that costs money. But you can target demographics very specifically with ads on these platforms. You can also place ads in local newspapers.
Another fairly old school method is to have somebody post flyers in public places where likely participants may be. For your study, that sounds like you be putting posters in London. Do you have a collaborator on this research that lives in London? That would probably make some of this recruitment a bit easier. Recruiting participants is fairly challenging even for small studies where I simply talk to people on the phone for several hours, so you are going to have to do some leg work to convince your participants that your research is trustworthy. Having collaborators in London could potentially really help with this problem. A research team that flies you to Nice for a few days and chats with you about language acquisition sounds a bit too good to be true, so figuring out a way to build trust is going to be very important. This is why snowball sampling could be particularly useful. Since you have existing participants who know this is above-board, people they may potentially recruit will probably trust the opportunity more than someone who sees a flyer or an ad.
I'm assuming that you either don't need permission from an IRB for specific recruitment methods, or that you have permission to recruit on the Internet, but I imagine you will make sure you're in compliance with any necessary review boards in your country. In the states, doing research with people outside of the country requires a whole extra set of review and documentation, but that may not be the case where you are. I really don't know. As a US researcher I am also required to document all of my recruitment strategies and have them okayed before I carry them out with my IRB. This may not apply, but I felt like I needed to mention it.
posted by sockermom at 5:30 AM on May 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
For example, snowball sampling could be a potential recruitment strategy for you. Snowball sampling is when you ask your existing participants to recruit people they know into your study. It's advantageous in social science research where accessing participants can be difficult, but it necessarily reduces the generalizability of your findings.
I have had some good success placing Facebook advertisements and using promoted tweets to recruit participants for studies, but that costs money. But you can target demographics very specifically with ads on these platforms. You can also place ads in local newspapers.
Another fairly old school method is to have somebody post flyers in public places where likely participants may be. For your study, that sounds like you be putting posters in London. Do you have a collaborator on this research that lives in London? That would probably make some of this recruitment a bit easier. Recruiting participants is fairly challenging even for small studies where I simply talk to people on the phone for several hours, so you are going to have to do some leg work to convince your participants that your research is trustworthy. Having collaborators in London could potentially really help with this problem. A research team that flies you to Nice for a few days and chats with you about language acquisition sounds a bit too good to be true, so figuring out a way to build trust is going to be very important. This is why snowball sampling could be particularly useful. Since you have existing participants who know this is above-board, people they may potentially recruit will probably trust the opportunity more than someone who sees a flyer or an ad.
I'm assuming that you either don't need permission from an IRB for specific recruitment methods, or that you have permission to recruit on the Internet, but I imagine you will make sure you're in compliance with any necessary review boards in your country. In the states, doing research with people outside of the country requires a whole extra set of review and documentation, but that may not be the case where you are. I really don't know. As a US researcher I am also required to document all of my recruitment strategies and have them okayed before I carry them out with my IRB. This may not apply, but I felt like I needed to mention it.
posted by sockermom at 5:30 AM on May 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
Ask for someone in the specific area to post flyers on local physical job offer boards.
(I badly wanted to reply but can check off zero of your qualifications)
posted by sammyo at 6:35 AM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
(I badly wanted to reply but can check off zero of your qualifications)
posted by sammyo at 6:35 AM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
You’ve posted in groups, why not try ads on Facebook?
posted by tilde at 6:37 AM on May 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by tilde at 6:37 AM on May 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
The issue with the channels you're trying is that they're going to be limited by the fact that you selected them. You're in academia; the people you know are academics or at least exposed to tertiary education; to get that far, those people all took French or German in school and are thus excluded. You need to massively broaden your audience.
-- Run a very cheap ad in r/London. (You can also run an ad on Facebook with very low bids but London will be a geographically competitive market on Facebook.)
-- Do a press release: French University Paying Londoners to Visit Nice this Summer. Send it to Metro and all the London blogs you can find. It's been a long time since I was a content editor for exactly that blog niche but I would have run the fuck out of that. (PM me if you want help with a press release that isn't for academia and is more likely to be run by normal media.)
posted by DarlingBri at 6:45 AM on May 4, 2019 [15 favorites]
-- Run a very cheap ad in r/London. (You can also run an ad on Facebook with very low bids but London will be a geographically competitive market on Facebook.)
-- Do a press release: French University Paying Londoners to Visit Nice this Summer. Send it to Metro and all the London blogs you can find. It's been a long time since I was a content editor for exactly that blog niche but I would have run the fuck out of that. (PM me if you want help with a press release that isn't for academia and is more likely to be run by normal media.)
posted by DarlingBri at 6:45 AM on May 4, 2019 [15 favorites]
Rather than posting in Facebook try advertising in Facebook. If you've never done this before it will take you a few hours to set up something simple.
How are you describing the opportunity here? Is it, "Participate in our study for a weekend. We'll have to fly you to Nice to do it." Or are you saying, "Free weekend in Nice, France. All expenses paid. You'll need to participate in our study for N hours, but the rest of the time will be yours."
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:53 AM on May 4, 2019
How are you describing the opportunity here? Is it, "Participate in our study for a weekend. We'll have to fly you to Nice to do it." Or are you saying, "Free weekend in Nice, France. All expenses paid. You'll need to participate in our study for N hours, but the rest of the time will be yours."
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:53 AM on May 4, 2019
A bit more about Facebook ads:
FB Ads have a goal. The goal can be "visit my website", "download my app", etc. You want your goal to be "submit a form". The form can have the person's name, email, phone number, and other questions (such as "were you born in London?"). Facebook prefills the information that it knows (eg email address) so it is very easy for people to fill out.
When you get a form submission, respond to it with outreach within 24 hours, to increase the chances that the person will remember who you are and that they filled out the form. Don't be shy about phoning people. In my experience, phoning people worked about 50% of the time and emailing people worked about 5% of the time. I didn't try texting -- that might be an option, I'm not sure.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:57 AM on May 4, 2019
FB Ads have a goal. The goal can be "visit my website", "download my app", etc. You want your goal to be "submit a form". The form can have the person's name, email, phone number, and other questions (such as "were you born in London?"). Facebook prefills the information that it knows (eg email address) so it is very easy for people to fill out.
When you get a form submission, respond to it with outreach within 24 hours, to increase the chances that the person will remember who you are and that they filled out the form. Don't be shy about phoning people. In my experience, phoning people worked about 50% of the time and emailing people worked about 5% of the time. I didn't try texting -- that might be an option, I'm not sure.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:57 AM on May 4, 2019
Part of the problem may be that if I saw this as a facebook post etc. like you describe, I would think it sounded shady as anything since it sounds too good to be true (like, organ harvest-y or something potentially). Get people to check what you're posting to make sure it reads less suspiciously and that it links to a very authoritative site with clear contacts where everything can be double checked and verified by any potential applicants.
posted by hotcoroner at 7:00 AM on May 4, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by hotcoroner at 7:00 AM on May 4, 2019 [15 favorites]
Part of the problem may be that if I saw this as a facebook post etc. like you describe, I would think it sounded shady as anything since it sounds too good to be true
This. I would 100% assume it was a scam unless you linked directly to a page about the study on your official University website.
posted by belladonna at 7:24 AM on May 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
This. I would 100% assume it was a scam unless you linked directly to a page about the study on your official University website.
posted by belladonna at 7:24 AM on May 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: The study is approved by the equivalent of the IRB. I only need about a half a dozen more participants so I don't know how much cash we have for ads, allthough an ad for example on r/london is not something I had considered.
As regards the legitimacy issue: the project does have a tiny university website which includes contacts and project funding info. Indeed, before being removed from r/london the post got basically only organ harvesting jokes. Winnie the Proust: I do indeed say 'all expenses paid trip to Nice, all you have to do is. . . ' Is that too good to be true? Would the results be better if I went with the second option?
I will come up with a press release; when speaking of blog niches, how do I find London based blogs (I assume Metro is one, I will start by looking there)? Thank you all for your help so far.
posted by os tuberoes at 8:26 AM on May 4, 2019
As regards the legitimacy issue: the project does have a tiny university website which includes contacts and project funding info. Indeed, before being removed from r/london the post got basically only organ harvesting jokes. Winnie the Proust: I do indeed say 'all expenses paid trip to Nice, all you have to do is. . . ' Is that too good to be true? Would the results be better if I went with the second option?
I will come up with a press release; when speaking of blog niches, how do I find London based blogs (I assume Metro is one, I will start by looking there)? Thank you all for your help so far.
posted by os tuberoes at 8:26 AM on May 4, 2019
Yes, this definitely seems like a kidnapping scheme to me. I would foreground the research aspect ("Participate in our study, which involves N hours of X and M hours of Y", where X and Y justify why this can't just happen in London) and background the free trip aspect.
posted by batter_my_heart at 10:29 AM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by batter_my_heart at 10:29 AM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: https://www.callforparticipants.com/ may be of interest to you
specifically, this page https://www.callforparticipants.com/researcher
posted by Mrs.Spiffy at 10:40 AM on May 4, 2019
specifically, this page https://www.callforparticipants.com/researcher
posted by Mrs.Spiffy at 10:40 AM on May 4, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by grouse at 4:33 AM on May 4, 2019 [6 favorites]