This page focuses on the recruitment and compensation processes connected to data collection, ensuring participants can access and engage in interviews, focus groups, and surveys. For the AM-ME project, we utilized teachers and students to support recruitment, and we provided gift card incentives to honor the participants’ time and expertise.
Check out activities developed for implement
Activities used to recruit and compensate participants with the AM-ME Research Group can be found in the Implement Research Group Meetings.
Recruitment
We discussed recruitment during our AM-ME Research Group Meetings, determining that students and teachers were best suited to lead efforts. For qualitative data collection, teachers identified peers and students in their schools, leveraging their relationships to engage participants. Students and teachers also contributed to decisions on location and timing, with remote interviews for teachers and in-school focus groups for students, all conducted with necessary parent and school approvals.
For quantitative data collection, teachers determined the best method of survey administration for their schools, while students helped spread the word among peers. To maximize participation, we created recruitment flyers with key details on incentives, access, confidentiality, and contact information.
Downloadable Resource
Below are meeting materials from the AM-ME Research Group to explore how we developed recruitment plans and materials.
Incentives
It is important to secure and distribute incentives to participants if your budget allows. In our proposal development stage, we knew we wanted to offer $50 gift cards to students and teachers participating in interviews and focus groups and $10 e-gift cards to all students who completed a survey. We used Giftbit to purchase our gift cards and distributed them one of three ways: (1) our project manager sent e-gift cards to teachers after their interviews, (2) we distributed gift cards to students immediately after completing focus groups in person, and (3) partner schools distributed e-gift cards for survey completion after we purchased the gift cards and shared the gift cards. We recommend keeping organized records of incentive purchases and distributions to ensure participants are paid in a timely manner.
Downloadable Resource
The Adapted Measure of Math Engagement Research Group includes six students (Antonio Chavira, Brianna Espy, Ryan Ombongi, Serrah Ssemukutu, Salma Ahmed, and Diamond Tony-Uduhirinwa), five teachers (Nathan W. Earley, Karina Mazurek, Kathleen Morgan, Karla Rokke, and Ashly Tritch), and five researchers (Marisa Crowder, Samantha E. Holquist, Diane (Ta-Yang) Hsieh, Claire Kelley, and Mark Vincent B. Yu). Researchers Alyssa Scott, Olivia Reyes, and Avalloy McCarthy also extensively contributed to this work. Bloomington Public School District leaders Betsy Hawes, Marcie Coval, Julio Caesar, and Rik Lamm provided support to this work. Jennifer Widstrand served as the project manager.
If you have questions about the Adapted Measures of Math Engagement project, please contact Principal Investigator Samatha E. Holquist at sholquist@childtrends.org.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, grant #2200437. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.