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Abstract
Recruiting subjects for research studies can be challenging. Respondent time and burden may pose challenges when trying to recruit busy professionals as participants. Holding a focus group during a research-oriented conference session is a novel way to address recruitment barriers for such subjects. In this field note, we address recruiting participants by word of mouth and snowball sampling for a focus group study held during a research session about Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) coaching at a professional conference. We found that this novel approach yielded experienced participants, with a depth of perspective, who were already primed to think about important issues in the field and had a desire to contribute. Participants commented about the ease and convenience of engaging in a research study during a conference session while they had already set time aside from other professional obligations. This type of recruitment yields a convenience sample with both the benefits and drawbacks of a high degree of self-selection among participants. We found that participants engaged enthusiastically in our focus group study related to the emerging field of ADHD coaching. Study recruitment at a conference may be particularly suited to research on “hot topics” or an emerging field that would easily attract and engage participant interest.
Keywords
qualitative, focus group, research recruitment, commentary, field notes
Publication Date
4-2-2022
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
DOI
10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5204
Recommended APA Citation
Saviet, M., & Ahmann, E. (2022). Using Conference Sessions as Research Settings: A Field Note. The Qualitative Report, 27(4), 890-896. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5204
ORCID ID
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4112-7860
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Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Social Statistics Commons