Participant Recruitment

A strong participant recruitment plan is a major determinant of the success of human subjects research. The plan adopted by researchers will determine the kinds of inferences that follow from the collected data and how much it will cost to collect. Research studies with weak or nonexistent recruitment plans risk recruiting too few participants or the wrong kind of participants to be able to answer the question that motivated them. This chapter outlines key considerations for researchers who are developing recruitment plans and provides suggestions for how to make recruiting more efficient.