Pathways to research participant recruitment in a challenging information behaviour context: South African cold case investigators as exemplar

Abstract

Introduction. Research participant recruitment is challenging – especially in vulnerable, stigmatised, high security, poorly demarcated contexts and contexts with diverse and interchangeable job labelling and poorly centralised reporting infrastructures. Cold case investigators in South Africa is an example of the latter. Method. Scoping literature review of information behaviour and other disciplines to note challenges and solutions in research participant recruitment. Analysis. Brief review of challenges noted in research methodology textbooks and applied thematic analysis mapped to problems and correlating solutions for research participant recruitment (various disciplines including information behaviour). Results. There are many challenges and solutions noted across disciplines including information behaviour e.g. job confidentiality, poor context demarcation, diverse and interchangeable job labels for the same context. Solutions reported include exploring related job/role labels, snowball sampling, non-intrusive social media methods. Conclusion. Based on experience with information search heuristics we suggest an additional novel approach for information behaviour research (and other) participant recruitment; a South African cold case investigator information behaviour study serves as exemplar to demonstrate how search heuristics can be used to identify potential research participants and solicit referrals for research participant recruitment.