RECRUITING RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS - A COMPARISON OF THE COSTS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF 5 RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

Among the major costs associated with conducting survey research are t he time and money spent recruiting a large and racially representative sample. Contrasted here are the costs of different recruitment strate gies (agencies, support groups, snowballs, media, mass mailings) in te rms of project time, supplies (e.g., postage, support materials), and staff time as they bear on the costs of recruiting 841 older mothers o f offspring with lifelong disabilities. Results indicate that the cost s of recruitment vary by method and race. Whereas agencies, support gr oups, and snowball recruitment were low-to moderate-cost strategies, t hey were less effective for recruiting African Americans than were med ia and demographic sampling unit strategies. These analyses suggest th at with appropriate planning, funding, and implementation, nonprobabil ity sampling methods can be used successfully to recruit a large and d iverse sample. Suggestions for improving the implementation of future recruitment campaigns are also offered.