Student‐recruited samples in organizational research: A review, analysis, and guidelines for future research

Abstract

Student‐recruited sampling, a technique involving the use of student recruiters to find participants on behalf of a researcher, has been increasingly used in organizational research; yet there has been little attempt to understand its implications for the conclusions scholars draw from research. In this study, we meta‐analyse studies of engagement and perceptions of politics in order to examine whether student‐recruited sampling leads to samples that differ from other samples and whether those differences result in different observed relationships between variables. We found that student‐recruited samples were not substantively demographically different from non‐student‐recruited samples. Further, we found few differences in the observed correlations of student‐recruited samples compared with non‐student‐recruited samples; the differences found would not lead to different practical conclusions from the findings. We discuss the implications of these results for future studies and provide guidance for researchers, reviewers, and editors regarding the use of student‐recruited samples in organizational research. Practitioner points The type of sample used can lead to over‐ or under‐representation of demographic characteristics with the sample, which has unknown affects on analyses of data. Student‐recruited samples may lead to smaller effect sizes of observed statistical relationships.

Reciprocal effects of work stressors and counterproductive work behavior: A five-wave longitudinal study.

“…Of course, our sample may be different from a representative sample in other characteristics, which could have affected the findings in an unknown way. A recent meta-analysis by Wheeler, Halbesleben, Shanine, and Donovan (2012), however, showed that correlations from snowball samples were only slightly smaller than those from nonsnowball samples, suggesting that if anything, our results provide a conservative estimate of stressor-CWB relationships. Nevertheless, future research on reciprocal effects of work stressors and CWB would benefit from using probability samples.…”

Psychological Detachment Mediating the Daily Relationship between Workload and Marital Satisfaction

“…However, recent meta-analytic findings (Wheeler et al, 2014) suggest slightly lower effect sizes and correlations in convenience samples compared to non-convenience samples, whereas the same overall conclusions could be drawn from both samples. Hence, the use of a convenience sample would have resulted in more conservative estimates of the relationships between the variables under study.…”

Is Competition Engaging? Examining the Interactive Effects of Goal Orientation and Competitive Work Environment on Engagement

“…Student‐recruited sampling has become an acceptable research design feature, especially when collecting survey data (Demerouti & Rispens, ; Hochwarter, ). Wheeler et al () provide a recent meta‐analysis of engagement studies, which did not find a significant difference in the observed relationships found in studies based on their use of traditional or student‐recruited sampling.…”