Well, it’s officially the second week of PIRE, and no one has signed up to participate in my study since last week. As of now, I have six individuals interested in participating. Unfortunately, I need at least eight. Despite this bump in the road, I am hopeful that a few more people will sign up before next week. Because this study depends of having mixed groups of German learners of English and English learners of German, I should really have even numbers of German learners of English and English learners of German. I am, however, quickly discovering that things don’t usually work out so perfectly in the world of research.
Interestingly enough, I think a large contributor to the apathy people have towards participating is an ironic component of what I am trying to study in the first place. After spending so much of the past year and a half on Zoom or similarly monotonous platforms, most people seem to value the extra time away from their computers, or at least, away from Zoom more than the compensation we offer for their participation. Is this dichotomy in and of itself worth including in my final study? I am looking at the interactions between second language students through Zoom, but is choosing not to interact just as much of an interaction? I would love to hear any thoughts or insights you have on this!
Hello,
I totally feel this! I think zoom fatigue is real and people are less inclined to want to participate now. However, I hope in the upcoming weeks we find some participants!
Hi Adeline!
I have not yet started recruiting participants, but will be starting that very soon. Most likely by the end of next week or possibly the week after. It has been very helpful to read everyone’s blogs in order to see some of the challenges I might be facing. The Zoom fatigue that you mention is certainly real, even I try to at least do my work on my laptop outside if I can, as if to feel like I am getting away from the computer even though I am not. I do not doubt that some participants feel that the compensation is not worth the extra time spent looking at a screen or away from family members, or even away from a new hobby that they started due to COVID. Hopefully, we all can get past some of these recruiting problems that are associated with a very unique time in the research world, and the world in general. We just need to get our recruitment efforts out to the right people and platforms in order to complete our research. Good luck!
Hi Adeline! I feel your frustration. Having to schedule with more than one person, especially in more than one time zone has been a bit of a struggle, but reading all these blogs has made me feel much less alone. I know that many of us are facing the same issue, but I am confident once we all start conducting our studies, we will get more participants from friends of the participants.
I think it’s so interesting the point you bring up, about choosing not to interact being as much of an interaction! I know I am feeling the Zoom fatigue after spending 2 and a half semesters online. That is what is making our research that much more interesting. We are doing research in unprecedented times!
Best of luck with everything 🙂
Hi, Adeline! As you know, I’m in the same boat with lack of participants. Indeed, really the only thing we can do now is wait and cross our fingers! But I think your observation that Zoom fatigue is limiting participant sign-ups is really interesting. I’m not sure if it’s possible to conduct an entire study based on the fact that not many people were willing to participate, but I think that it may not be a bad idea to start thinking about new approaches if this continues to be a major problem.