Recruiting and retaining young participants: strategies from five years of field research

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the challenges inherent in conducting research with young participants. Based on a series of three studies with children ranging in age from 7--17 as examples, the paper contains descriptions of participant recruitment approaches and challenges. Also included is a discussion of issues surrounding the retention of participants for longitudinal studies, including specific issues for participant retention and loss. Overall, this paper provides detailed experiences of the challenges of large-scale long-term field work with children, and provides guidance for others who are in similar research situations.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing