After weeks of talking about the summer holidays and other light topics, I think it’s about time we shift back to reality. You would think that as a busy Ph.D. student, research would be my prime concern and that I don’t have time to waste on YouTube and Twitter. However, even though Ph.D. research is interesting, it can make one giddy and at times a fresh breath of air is essential for perspective.
As I embark on my data collection process for my PhD study, I have come across unforeseen hurdles. The process I had initially thought would be easy has turned out to be more challenging than I perceived. Qualitative methods are my primary source of research, meaning I rely on interviews as the primary source of data and thereby need to recruit people and entice them to participate in my research. However, this has proven to be an excruciating and at times embarrassing ordeal, as I have succumbed to begging at times to persuade individuals to partake in the research.
The truth hurts. People are not interested in the subject matter of our research. As researchers we are prompted to put our egos behind us and yield to beseeching candidates to participate in our research.
I began the data collection phase by addressing my candidates, even my friends, in a formal manner as Mr./Mrs., and accompanied the e-mail by a briefing about the nature of my research, coupled with a romantic note that this research might bring about great changes to the world. I also assured my candidates of complete confidentiality and promised them that the research would abide by international ethical standards. Despite the great attention taken in writing the e-mails to my potential candidates, my e-mails have most often been met with indifference and discarded.
As a researcher you are left waiting and pondering why no one has responded, and after a few days of patient waiting, panic sets in. You begin to think that maybe the e-mail system is down or there was a network failure, and decide to send follow-up e-mails, albeit this time less formal and more urgent and pressing.
At this point, you might receive a few responses and you decide to provide them with more information, thinking that they might need an extra push to join.
However, as the responses remain muted to your kind and pleading requests, it dawns on you that people are just not interested in your work, unless it directly relates or affects them. It is true that your research is potentially very important and beneficial to the community once completed, but for people unconcerned with the research, you are merely a nuisance to their time and privacy.
As such, researchers must be pragmatic, while maintaining their ethical bounds of course. Some researchers offer cash compensations, while others offer shopping vouchers, all for the sake of getting participants, and the fact remains that recruiting people in research is one of the most time consuming and excruciating tasks in research.
I feel obliged now to offer my sincere apologies to anyone who sent me a survey and I deleted it without responding, or marked it as important and then forgot about it; its karma, what goes around comes around. God helps us all.
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