Hi all

I'm in psych and collecting data for my dissertation. Having trouble getting the last 19 males. Have done the whole participation pool thing (where the first years get course credit), have done uni-wide intranet advertising, have put up posters, have used an undergraduate to recruit his friends. Just need to get the final 19 and am reduced to standing outside my building and soliciting males (!) Very undignified... am considering shorter skirts and more makeup - it's that bad. How can I get them in?

Ensure decorum at all stages if your research, Ogriv. Have you tried to offer incentives for participation? That usually works. Say, a chocolate bar? Otherwise, drastic needs call for drastic recruitment measures. You could go all gorilla tactics by asking lecturers you are friendly with to tell all the males about it at the end of their lectures - and you could either, ta-da, come walking in or be waiting outside, quickly recruiting them.

Recruitment can be horrible - I know- and feel like doing field sales, or the Daz Doorstep Challenge.

Cheers Wally

Yeah, I think some kind of incentive is the way to go, although strictly speaking if the females haven't been given an incentive and the males have then that could mean an effect on the experimental results... but pragmatically speaking I expect most experimenters ignore that, or vaguely refer to it in the discussion.

I am finding some participants rather uncouth. The last one kept taking calls on his mobile while he was looking at the stimuli... sigh

Still, it's marginallly better than working in a call centre as I once did. ;-)

Yeah, you could try sucking up to a lecturer and asking him/her to mention it at the end of their lecture or to let you have their attention for 5 minutes so you can explain what you're doing and try to reel them in that way. A few people used to do that in our lectures- some even handed questionnaires out at the beginning of the lecture for us to fill out in the break and hand back to them on the way out, but obviously that only really works for questionnaires. How many participants do you already have- i.e. how much of a disaster would it be if you couldn't quite get 19 more? Best, KB

I've already got 44 males actually. So since I first posted today I got another 3. My goal is to get up to 60 so I've got the same number as the female sample. Therefore just 16 needed now! Thing is they have to come and look at stimuli on the computer as well as answer questionnaires - it takes 20 mins on average: longer for slow readers and shorter for those who just give the same response to every question. So it's not the kind of thing I can drag them into after a lecture.

But have just been to see my supervisor and he says we can perhaps pay the rest of them to participate, as we have a teeny budget. Perhaps a fiver each! Only prob would be is a riot breaking out if my previous participants find out people are now getting PAID to take part, rather than just getting measly course credit, my warm thanks, or the opportunity to see inside a rather bleak psych lab. Whadd'ya do?


:p

try the library...or the canteen. just be careful to defend your method of collection in your methodology chapter, otherwise someone (examiner) may well pick you up on it - and I don't think 'they were the only ones I could get' would cut much ice!