Finding the Hidden Participant

Abstract

Certain social groups are often difficult for researchers to access because of their social or physical location, vulnerability, or otherwise hidden nature. This unique review article based on both the small body of relevant literature and our own experiences as researchers is meant as a guide for those seeking to include hard-to-reach, hidden, and vulnerable populations in research. We make recommendations for research process starting from early stages of study design to dissemination of study results. Topics covered include participant mistrust of the research process; social, psychological, and physical risks to participation; participant resource constraints; and challenges inherent in nonprobability sampling, snowball sampling, and derived rapport. This article offers broadly accessible solutions for qualitative researchers across social science disciplines attempting to research a variety of different populations.

‘Just stuff yourself’: Identifying health‐promotion strategies from the perspectives of adolescent boys from disadvantaged neighbourhoods

“…Engaging this vulnerable group in public health research is important . However, similar to other studies, it proved difficult to recruit and retain these boys, so it was important to adjust research activities to their interests and collaborate with youth workers and teachers. The use of different methods (triangulation) increased the validity of the results, but the disadvantage of using different methods and groups/sites is the relatively low number of participants per group/site.…”

“…Generally, recruitment of hard‐to‐reach groups (including adolescents with a low SEP) is difficult; therefore, multiple recruitment strategies were used to maximize recruitment success: For the interviews, boys were recruited by a teacher at one school. In four school classes (all grades were represented), boys were asked whether they wanted to volunteer for an interview.…”

“…Generally, recruitment of hard-to-reach groups (including adolescents with a low SEP) is difficult; therefore, multiple recruitment strategies were used to maximize recruitment success 29 : 1. For the interviews, boys were recruited by a teacher at one school.…”

Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Uganda: A Case Study of the Lango Subregion

“…The snowball technique involves using a known contact to identify other persons to be considered as subjects in a given study. The method was employed because the area is hard-to-reach, and information about the respondents was not easily accessible [43,44]. The starting point was with a female agricultural officer identified at local government together with a project officer who introduced the researcher to the local leader of the villages where CA was implemented.…”

Negotiating occupation: How older people make sense of the concept of “occupation”

“…This might be a limitation of the study and also partly acknowledged by the participants themselves in their discussions. The problematic leads us to a well-known dilemma of qualitative studies in many fields; the difficulty of attracting participants from social strata other than the middle class (Ellard-Gray, Jeffrey, Choubak, & Crann, 2015).…”