Recruiting people for research

Currently, I am doing a summer fellowship. I am studying how intelligence and mood affect the way people use visual information in physical and digital spaces. This is my exploratory stage and I only need 20 students from 2 colleges. So far I have 11 volunteers but everyday is more difficult to get new ones. I have seen some difficulties for this. First, the 90 minutes session is quite long because I am collecting qualitative data. Initially I thought that it was short, and it really is, but free time is not abundant today.  Second, people need good compensation to motivate them. I decided to ask the university review board for introducing a small amount gift card. Third, if you are unknown, people do not feel confident. I believe that people have decided not participate because they do not know me.

For future projects it is essential to think about easy recruitment. For example, professors and their student groups with some affiliation to the project. If the project is with teenagers, one can look for high school partners. Besides, reducing the time as much as possible might be good. However, shorter times make projects more quantitative prone. Thus, this will depend on the research design.