On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 13:41:08 -0000 (UTC),
pschleck@panix.com (Paul W. Schleck) wrote:
Path: news..!feeder3.eternal-september.org!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: pschleck@panix.com (Paul W. Schleck)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.usenet,alt.culture.usenet,news.groups
Subject: Challenges of Internet Recruitment: A Case Study with Disappointing Results
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2025 13:41:08 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC
Message-ID: <vphstk$bco$1@reader1.panix.com>
Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2"; >...
"Overall, the recruitment rate was disappointingly low. In our case, >recruitment using Internet technologies including email, electronic >discussion boards, Usenet forums, and websites did not prove to be an >effective approach for soliciting young subjects to participate in our >research." >https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicUsenet/comments/1iidfqk/challenges_of_internet_recruitment_a_case_study/
(recycled, unattributed, cross-posted, classic troll farm rerun)
(using Tor Browser 14.0.6)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=recruitment+rate+was+disappointingly+low
...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15829478/
Randomized Controlled Trial
J Med Internet Res
2005 Mar 19;7(1):e6.
^^^^ ^^^ ^^
doi: 10.2196/jmir.7.1.e6.
Challenges of internet recruitment: a case study with disappointing results >Abstract
Background: The Internet provides tremendous opportunities for innovative >research, but few publications on the use of the Internet for recruiting >study participants exist. This paper summarizes our experiences from 2 >studies in which we attempted to to recruit teenagers on the Internet for
a questionnaire study to evaluate a smoking-cessation website.
^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
Objective: To evaluate strategies of recruiting teenagers for the
evaluation of a smoking-cessation website through the Internet.
Methods: In Study 1 (Defined Community Recruitment), we sent invitation >emails to registered members of a youth health website, CyberIsle. A total
of 3801 email addresses were randomly divided into 2 groups. In the first >group, emails indicated that the first 30 respondents would receive a Can >dollars 20 electronic gift certificate for use at an online bookstore if
they would go to the Smoking Zine website and respond to a short survey.
For the second group, the email also indicated that respondents would
receive an additional Can dollars 10 gift certificate if they referred
their friends to the study. Reminder emails were sent 10 days after the >sending of the initial invitation email. In Study 2 (Open Recruitment), we >posted invitation messages on Web discussion boards, Usenet forums, and
one specialized recruitment website, and attempted a snowball recruiting >strategy. When potential participants arrived at the study site, they were >automatically randomized into either the higher incentives group (Can
dollars 15 electronic gift certificate) or lower incentive group (Can
dollars 5 gift certificate).
Results: In Study 1 (defined community recruitment), 2109 emails were >successfully delivered. Only 5 subjects (0.24%), including 1 referred by a >friend, passed the recruitment process and completed the questionnaire; a >further 6 individuals visited the information page of the study but did
not complete the study. In Study 2 (open recruitment), the number of users >seeing the advertisement is unknown. A total of 35 users arrived at the >website, of whom 14 participants were recruited (8 from the Can dollars 15 >gift certificate group and 6 from the Can dollars 5 gift certificate
group). Another 5 were recruited from the general Internet community (3
from discussion boards and 2 from the Research Volunteers website). The >remaining 9 participants were recruited through friend referrals with the >snowball strategy.
Conclusions: Overall, the recruitment rate was disappointingly low. In
our case, recruitment using Internet technologies including email,
electronic discussion boards, Usenet forums, and websites did not prove to
be an effective approach for soliciting young subjects to participate in
our research. Possible reasons are discussed, including the participants' >perspective. A major challenge is to differentiate trustable and
legitimate messages from spam and fraudulent misinformation on the
Internet. From the researchers' perspective, approaches are needed to
engage larger samples, to verify participants' attributes, and to evaluate >and adjust for potential biases associated with Internet recruitment.
[end quoted plain text]
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)