: And welcome back to another episode of coloring outside the memos beautiful humans, I am Dr Tiffany she her pronouns with. i'm Dr Lizzie she her pronouns. And today wonderful people today we have our special host the queen of sound. Lindsay um so here we go. Today, we are talking about recruitment and recruitment challenges. And I mean, we've, I know Dr. Lizzie, you and I have talked about this, you know, some of the challenges, the pros, the cons. Oh, have we? Buckle in, y'all. We're, we're ready to really talk about this today. So, so without further ado, Queen Lindsay is going to... Happy to, happy to. Roll out. Yeah, welcome to my podcast, everybody. I'm just taking over. No, no, I'm just teasing. I wouldn't take it from you guys. Oh wait, I like that. I love it. Take over. You make it happen, you can call it your own. Yes. Background, background help. Yeah, absolutely though. Happy to be a part of this podcast and I will just go ahead and jump right in because I know you all have a wealth of information for our listeners. First question. How do you determine that an individual is an ideal participant for your study? That's a good question. And I think such a hard question because it's seemingly really easy. This is one of those topics that I say a lot that I think we spent like one sentence and all of our PhD talking about in the classroom and it's something that has made me want to pull out my hair while I've been doing studies. and trying to figure out like how do you actually do this? I think it's one of the things most people assume your mentors will talk to you about and maybe you have a mentor who talks to you about it and maybe you don't or maybe they tell you some random anecdote about a study that they once did and they don't actually tell you any details. So you think part of it is looking at your research question and really digging into that and I think the other piece of it is understanding what's um, how to be anti-racist and specifically inclusive of, um, black populations and how to be really thoughtful about recruitment with sexuality and gender and income and various other pieces. And I think you take all of those into consideration when you're doing your initial ask and formulating that research question, and that should shape who your participants are. Dr. Tiffany, what other things? I feel like you just did a drop mic. I mean, everything is about the research question. Everything is about the research question. You are living and breathing that research question. And if you're not living and breathing that research question, you have no idea who that population is going to be. You need to understand who you're working again with, not on, who you're working with. And I wish everybody could see you, Dr. Lizzie. Dr. Lizzie is like snapping here. But I mean, you want to make sure you're working with a population and in doing so, being culturally aware, culturally sound, culturally competent. I know a lot of these terminologies can be our influx, trying to be in the in the attempts to trying to be anti-racist and having that type of pedagogical lens. But let's stop being heady about it. You know, let's just get down to it. Know what your research question is. Know who you're talking to. get to the people and understand who you're working with. So how you determine who you're working with, that's the ideal participant. Think about your research question, period. Lizzie, did you have something you wanted to add? Yeah, I actually do though. I had one other thought as you were talking Dr. Tiffany of being aware of who's on your team as well. And if you feel like the best research question for you to answer, or to ask is about, let's say, low income, non-binary refugees. And you have a team of all really high income, highly educated white folks on your team. Maybe ask yourself, who else do you need to have on your team to make sure you're doing an appropriate job with that? Because it shouldn't just be about the research question. You also want to make sure you have the right people involved to make sure you are actually going to get the answers you are seeking to ask. That's so important. I mean, because I think about who we both had on our committees and my committee of seven. Um, so, I mean, but I mean, which again, is not typical. But I mean, when we think about this, if there is not someone that can understand that community, again, skinfolk ain't kinfolk, as I was always reminded, but we have to keep that in mind. We have to like think about these things when you're putting together a study. I wanted us to move past this question, but it's so important, you know, like who are you talking to, who are you working with? Who is your go-to person? Who are your resources? What and who are your resources? What being like text, video? I mean, go outside the norms. Maybe it is art. Like learn something new about those people that you're working with, the people that you are working with to figure out, are you going about the best way of recruiting? Because if you are trying to, and I'm gonna use your example, trying to reach a non-binary, low-income refugee population. I mean, it may not necessarily be Twitter that you can do recruitment from. I'm just saying, I don't know, I don't know, but let's just keep it real. So we have to think about these types of recruitment practices. Oof. Should we just stop now? I'm just kidding. That was just an incredible answer from both of you. I'm also not a qualitative researcher, so I'm just absorbing all this information. Drop mic, we're done. Yeah, exactly. No, but this is so interesting because I've often, I'm the program and events coordinator at CTRL, but I see like qualitative research and I have no understanding of how you even start a project that's this vast. And so... This is incredibly interesting to me. And speaking about recruiting, how have you both recruited participants in the past for your research? Sure, I'll start. So one of I tend to use a lot of social media when I do my recruitment. So I have done Facebook, I have done Reddit, I have done Twitter, I have done Instagram, never used TikTok yet. You know, who can say maybe that day is coming? Do a bust out a fun dance video to recruit people? I don't know. No one would come to my study. But I think a lot of it is that, but a lot of it is also community centers or knowing who the influencers are on those spaces. Like I've never used Mastodon or Pillow Fort, but I use them for recruitment. Y'all don't know what those are. Think of Pillow Fort like new modern live journal for our older listeners. For our younger listeners, think of it as open source Instagram. for Mastodon, it's like open source Twitter. So you're not supporting all sorts of different advertisements and companies and capitalism when you're using those programs. Not as many people are on them, but they are open source. So that's kind of exciting. I don't really use those all that much in my own life because I don't really use social media all that much in my own life, but I know people who do. And you tap your networks and you say, hey, you're on this platform. You have a lot of followers. Can you send this out? or, hey, I know you're on this platform, do you know who the movers and shakers are that I could ask to send this out? And you get people in your social web to send things out, even if you're not the one who is on those platforms all the time, because I think we assume that we have to be on there all the time. But just because even if I was on there all the time, like the people I follow are other academics, they don't know my population, right? So like... Finding the people who do know your population and figuring out how to use them to share out your message is really what it's all about. I was sitting here and I was thinking about the color me bad song when you said TikTok. So in the words of the lyrics to the color me bad song, TikTok, you don't stop. So I just want to say the way that I've recruited my participants in the past, I feel like I've been very fortunate in thinking about the people that I work, that are in my circle because as we like to say there's minimal research, because there is minimal research discussing black women in certain spaces that I have been in, I realized I was like, wait, why not just interview those individuals and then like, let's see how far we can go. So that's how I have personally done it. So. Some people will call it snowball sampling, which we'll talk about a little later on. I don't use the terminology snowball sampling. I use network sampling. So yeah, I mean, so there's then that because of the work that you and Dr. Deanna Williams, who we've had on the show in the past and myself, that was my first, that was my introduction to... social network and recruitment. And so that was really, really interesting. It was a lot of fun. It's pain. That was really, really painful, which I mean, I'm sure we're, you know, you know, we'll talk about more, but it was just, you know, I think, again, for me, the people who really wanted to be a part of my research, they just... they just understood the need to have their voices elevated. So it was just really, it was just, I don't know, I didn't have as many challenges. I think the challenge that I had with my, particularly with my dissertation was that my committee was like, how many can you get? And how many black women, collegiate swimmers can you get? And so that was definitely the question. So yeah, I think it's always thinking about that number. What's the magic number? I think that's the question. That's the question I know I've said to you in the past. What's our magic number? So yeah. Well, and that is that is the question that I feel like you have to specify for grants and you have to specify for sometimes others on the research team or for your dissertation or things like that. Like, what is this magic perfect number? In some journals are really persnickety and like you have to have 30 people before you can publish in this journal. And it is such a quantitative mindset y'all it is such a quantitative mindset. Qualitative work is not about numbers like sure is it nice to have a certain amount of people perfect yes great. But that's actually not how we think that is really using your quant brain and doing qual and if you're really using your qual brain you're going to say okay. have I had somebody from all of the different iterations of the population I'm trying to understand? So for instance, if your question is on what it was like to be a nurse during COVID, did you get somebody from a large city? Did you get somebody from a small town? Did you get somebody from a suburb? Did you get somebody who was a home healthcare aide? Did you get somebody from a nursing home? Did you get somebody from a health center versus a hospital? Did you get somebody from a coroner's office? And so like, yes, demographics are always important, but you also want to think about the types of people that you're recruiting, and how are those stories being different? And have you fully hit that saturation level, which is like this word we use that is really nebulous until you've done it a couple of times, and then you go, oh, actually, I feel like I'm really missing this chunk of the population. And so can I address that in the limitations of this study, or do I need to keep recruiting to hit that before I can publish this study? And that's something you really want to work with, um, mentors or others on the research team to try to figure out, because each individual study is going to be a little different and how that feels. Great, thank you. Yeah, you talked a little bit about saturation and Dr. Tiffany talked a little bit about her challenges when recruiting participants. Dr. Lizzie, did you have any specific challenges with social media other than the fact that maybe you're not active on your own personal accounts? Oh my gosh, yes. Please, please go on. So. One of my first independent research projects never even got published because I had such bad problems with recruitment. And it was a quant study, believe it or not, listeners. We've all done them in the past. And it was with LGBTQ plus youth and between Indiana and North Carolina, because I was working with a colleague in North Carolina. And so we set up parameters so that GPS you couldn't fill out the survey if you were outside of those states in theory. First of all, that did not work out. Second of all, we were trying to track, we tracked IP addresses to make sure that the same person wasn't filling it out because we were paying everyone $10 at the end of the survey or something that was fairly nominal, but to a teenager at the time was not nothing, right? Like it wasn't going to be everything, but it maybe was, I don't know, half a tank of gas at that point. um you know back in the dark ages when gas was cheaper um so anyway uh it was like okay this is this is a nice little bit of money for folks because of that i think i had one ip address um fill out the survey 300 different times and that i found out and so like going through and trying to clean the data and figure out who was a repeat person and who wasn't and people would spend like, like use some kind of email generator, so that like the gift card would go to their email address, right? But you could tell that they were fake email addresses and they would be with the same IP address, but they would all be different emails. But then you started going, well, but what if it's this queer kid in rural Indiana who doesn't want like their browser history checked, but their friend's parents are cooler, so theirs can be checked. So maybe they're just using the same browser and like maybe it's legitimate. And then you're like, but it's probably not. And so like, it was such a nightmare to try to figure out what was actual data and what wasn't and who was really filling that out and who wasn't. So that was a really, oh, that was a wild ride to try to analyze that. And like I said, we eventually had to just set it aside because we couldn't figure it all out. It was just absolutely a nightmare. Then for my dissertation study, this is, you know, in the days before this year. and all of the political stuff that has happened this year. And I was doing a study on abortion and abortion experiences. And I had somebody fill out the survey, like my initial screener is qualitative study, but I've had somebody fill it out at least three different times. Again, I figured it out from same IP addresses, different emails. And I was doing the study via Zoom, but not everyone knew about Zoom then. So most people, I would just have call into the number. And so then it could still record. Right. But and it was the way I recorded for my dissertation study. But people didn't have to be on camera. It was a great way to do a study. But this particular person would just slightly change their voice and did. an hour and a half interviews three different times so that they could get a $50 check. And it was towards the beginning of the pandemic. And so you knew that like all of this stuff was going on and people were really hurting. And I was going through this thing of like, well, I don't wanna hate on my community, but like also like I finally realized that this person was the same person. And I was like, I can't, their stories are really similar even though they're trying to change their voice and even though they're trying to change demographics, but like So they changed how they were describing themselves as biracial each time, but I was like, well, but somebody who's biracial in this way would have different life experiences than somebody who's biracial in this way. And then I was like, wait, am I just thinking about this wrong? Cause I'm white. And then anyway, it took a lot of unraveling to figure all of that out. And I finally had to say like, no, I can't give you this because you've already done the interview. And the person was like, no, I have it. And contacted the IRB and tried to get my study thrown out for being unethical. And it was this whole long chaos thing and back and forth and legal stuff. It eventually got a lot ironed out, but, um, again, all over $50 really was what the person was upset about. So I ended up giving them like paying out of my own personal account, which I was making $8,000 as a PhD student. I had no money and I paid them. Cause I was like, I can't justify not. I'm giving somebody an extra bit of money right now because they are hurting so bad. And this is the hoops that they are willing to jump through to get $50. Like I'm gonna send them a $50 gift card out of my own personal pocket. And so that's what I did to resolve it and it worked out. But yeah, you do really have to be careful. So pay attention to those IP addresses. That's a big piece of advice I have. Well, that brings us to our next question, which I think will be a fun one for everyone. Dr. Tiffany and Dr. Lizzie, how do you determine whether or not to incentivize your participants? Because from what I'm hearing, it seems like you can run into some real problems, but at the same time, you want people to think that your survey is worth doing. Hmm. I think I've kind of lucked out to be on and I know I'm the complete opposite, like my research is it's not that it's complete opposite of Dr. Lizzie's but in terms of recruitment in terms of incentivizing. Everybody just wants their story to be heard. And again, I think it also depends on who you're talking to and who you are in relationship to the community. So between my dissertation, well, with my dissertation, and even my master's thesis, I am a part of the community. So my master's thesis, it was on the experiences of Black women athletic administrative interns. And I, at the time, was an NCAA intern. And the demographic, they were also NCAA interns. And so it was like, hey, y'all, listen. And at that time, there was nothing. There was legit nothing out there. And the research that was out there at the time was, like it was women in leadership, but it was not a lot of like women, like black women, the sense of intersectionality, even though Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw had already defined it for us. There was nothing out there about black women who were interns and also serving in these administrative roles in athletics, nothing. And my colleagues and I, we were all making the same amount of money. We were all, you know, pretty much had the same resources, different mentors. So I will say that was a little different. And when it came to incentivizing, you know, it was like, no, you know, never didn't do it. When it came to my dissertation, didn't do it, you know. And I asked, I asked, you know, I mean, I, the people, the women that I was interviewing, is, you know, the women that I was interviewing, you know, they were just all like, hey, you know, I don't want to be financially given money. And again, there's like this negative connotation historically about Black women being exchanged, like voices in exchange. I mean, there's this, it kind of rubs you the wrong way. you know, so that I'm just kind of keeping that in mind. And, but my sisters, they just wanted to, they just wanted to have the honest conversation about what was going on in their experiences. So yeah, I never, I've not incentivized, we've not incentivized for our current study, which, you know, we got a little bit of kickback from, which was new to me. not new to Dr. Lizzie or Dr. Williams, you know, Dr. Diana Williams. So, yeah, Dr. Lizzie, I mean, I guess, how have you determined incentivizing? Yeah, really good question. So for me, part of the equation, particularly as a white person, when I'm doing work, With marginalized communities, it's always been really, really important to me to be able to give something back for stories because if I'm making my career on people's stories or people giving me any kind of data, it feels really, really critical to be able to pay them back. So at least they're getting something. You can't give them too much because otherwise it's deemed unethical by the IRB, so it has to be small enough to not be manipulative or coercive in any kind of way. So, you know, $10 for teenagers $50 for adults seems like a pretty normal kind of way of going about that for how I've operated in the past. However, that does depend on grant funding and other streams of income and whether or not you can actually do that. But if like we both know people, and I'm sure listeners, dear listener, you know people too who have made their career by getting stories from people who are marginalized in some capacity and publishing all of this data on them. And then that. catapults them to getting tenure and everything else. And of course, they're not getting direct money off of this, but they are making their life on this. They are making higher salaries. They are making career goals. They are getting job security. And if they aren't giving anything back, I have a real hard time without. And so I try really hard to find ways to give something back to my participants, whether it is... money or some kind of a claim or acknowledgements or co-authorship or all sorts of other things that you can find ways to make sure that your participants are valued and you're not just using them to make your own career, while not actually fixing the systems that you're purporting to by doing the research on them. But I also want to let everybody, the listeners know, in addition to what you just said, it is not white guilt that we are talking about. I just want, I want to, I want folks to know Dr. Lizzie does not have white guilt by saying, oh, I need to give, she's acknowledging the fact that, hey, listen, I am in a space of a majority, and this is something that I can do. I will say Dr. Lizzie and I were making about the same amount of money, give or take, give or take, you know, and in... she was able to do a lot more in certain spaces than I was. So let's state again that by her being able to incentivize participants, it is not based on white guilt. Those who are making above a certain amount of money who do have tenure, who are looking at anywhere between 90,000 and up because those faculty members do exist and they don't give back, they don't acknowledge, they don't. We could go on and on and on. Those are the ones that we need to go back to and say, this is what you should be doing. So I just want to state that. Now granted, if you come from my friend, Dr. Lizzie, I will come for you, but I'm just. I'm just saying. But I mean, but I think it's just really, really important. There's a difference between doing, knowing when you are going to, it's not just about giving back to the community, but knowing what your positionality is. There's a difference between that and being able to say, I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna take it, and then I'm gonna walk away and not give back at all. There is a difference. So I just need to say that. Thank you both. Well, I don't have much more to add to that since I'm not a qualitative researcher and I don't do research. So I'm going to just keep asking questions if that works for you guys. Dr. Lizzie, you mentioned a word saturation, and I think I understand what it is. But can you just give me a brief little description of it? And then maybe you could talk to us about how do you know if you've reached saturation with your participants? Of course, thank you for that um so saturation is essentially making sure think of it kind of like a sponge you can put a sponge underneath water. yeah underneath the faucet and it drips and it drips and it drips and eventually it just starts trickling out below right it just kind of starts dripping below that sponge. And so essentially with qualitative research, rather than saying I'm going to fill this jar with a certain amount of participants and that's how I'm going to know I have enough data because this allows me to do the fancy stats that I'm going to do. Usually we say about 100. With qualitative work, on the other hand, we're trying to see how long we can hold the sponge under the water before drips start coming out below it. And so we're trying to saturate the sponge with the right amount of participants so that we can say our data is reflective of this community or this experience. With qualitative work, we're trying to answer the how and the why questions. We wanna have enough of a sample to be able to say, we have saturated this population, so we know that our data feels like it is reflective of this community. And we might do another sample and we might get a whole different set of experiences, and that's okay. as long as we're still kind of getting saturation. Because if we're hitting in saturation, they're gonna have similar enough stories. They might not be the exact same, but they're going to be very similar. And we're going to be able to look at those two qualitative studies and say, okay, this is what the quant study needs to answer next so that we can understand a little bit more on a wide scale and how applicable these stories are to a wide range because we had hit saturation in the smaller groups. because qualitative research, you're gonna report out and you're gonna say largely participants felt that wearing masks were slightly uncomfortable but overall made them feel good. I'm giving you a COVID example because it's in my brain right now, I don't know. And I feel like it's an easy one for folks to grab onto. But so like largely we're gonna say that, but there are... Two participants who loved wearing them felt like they were really comfortable. They didn't have as many smells that they were smelling as they were walking around, and it actually really helped their allergies. They didn't get cold. They were really excited to wear their masks, and they're going to happily wear their masks forever when they're out in public just because it was such a comfortable experience for them. Most of the population didn't say that, right? But there are some who do. And that might be a really important finding to look at a quant so that we can have a counter narrative instead of saying like everyone hates these like well actually that's not true right like we all know people who are just like yeah whatever this isn't a big deal. Most people do hate them, but not everyone and how powerful is it to have that other narrative going on as well, so that we can encourage other people to view them or think about them or frame them in a different light to make them more of a public health tool right. So this is what we mean when we say saturation that we're trying to get all of those stories so that we can have better data and we can use that data for other stuff. Tiffany, Dr. Tiffany is that? I was just thinking about your example earlier about the nurses from different spaces. I mean, we really, it's something that we have to think about. I think people right now when we're thinking about the word diversity, the first thing they latch onto is race. And it's like, let's expand that definition of diversity of participants. So I mean, I think it's really, really important. Of course, I love your COVID examples. It's relevant. It's, we understand, we get it. So I think what you're saying is spot on, to be honest. Speaking about saturation, so then how would you know if you've reached saturation? Would you say like number of participants? You talked a little bit about diversity, but for both of you, what is your indicator of saturation? Dr. Lizzie, I'm looking at you because again, my brain is still, I think it's because we had a meeting today of talking about our work. But I feel like something that kind of goes off for me when I realized I've hit saturation is number one, we all know that everybody has their individual experiences, but when the experiences start to sound, I'm gonna do air quotes the same. and are similar. Number one, number two, when you can't get enough, like you don't have, you know, it's like you're stuck and you haven't gotten your magic number. You haven't gotten your magic number and it's like, okay, like maybe this is just saturation. Maybe you're looking for you know, a certain number and it's like a number five out of a very subset of a group. And you can't, you only got two and you try, you keep recruiting and recruiting and recruiting and you're doing your online, you done, you reached out via networks, you reached out, you've called your best friends, mothers, cousins, sisters, uncle, aunt, you know, I mean, and their friend and their friends, you have, you've asked your dog, your cat, your turtle. I mean, you've asked everybody, right? like what to do. And I think at some point you're just like, you know what, this is it. You know, this is it. And you just gotta kind of keep it moving. And I think that's okay. I think that's okay. Dr. Lizzie? Yeah. I kind of think about it like when I first started teaching. So when I first started teaching, I was teaching sex ed, right? And the first program I ever did was on contraceptives. And I got this question, you know, like towards the end of it. And they're like, well, what happens if you miss a pill? And I was like, okay, you know, here's da da. The next time I was doing a program, I got that exact same question. And then I got another question about like, what happens if the condom breaks? It's like, okay, blah, blah. After doing this for about a year, I was like. in the middle of a program and somebody didn't ask either one of those questions and I was like, well, that's really weird. Those are my two standard questions. And then I like, went over something again and then I got those questions and I was like, aha, okay, we've hit saturation because I got the two magic questions that I get every single freaking time I do this program. And after you've done it for, you know, 20 times, 50 times, 100 times, you start to know. like where the rhythms are and what questions you're going to get asked at certain points, right? So, or it's like I've taught a lot of people how to make pie dough, right? And after a while, you learn which questions they're going to ask at what point, like should it be stringy? Should it be really crumbly? How should it feel? Well, okay, this dough needs to feel like this, this dough needs to feel like this, right? But you start to learn what those questions are after a while. The same thing is kind of true with every qualitative project I've ever done. It's not that it's necessarily the exact same question in the exact same way, but there is a cadence of similarity of story that you start going, oh, OK, I've heard this before. Oh, OK, this is kind of the same area. It's the same theme. We're going to group this together. I know what my code book is because I've heard the same thing over and over and over again. But I've also heard about five things that are way different than I didn't expect. Could I, if I did 100 more interviews, probably find five more unique things? Absolutely, 100%. But are they going to be so different that I have to keep going in and pulling for those questions, or are they going to be the same kind of group? just like that example of sex ed early on is, right? And like, you're gonna get the same kind of stories over and over again. And so once you hear enough of that cadence, you go, okay, I've hit saturation. And so there's not a magic number, there's not a magic rule. It's just sort of a feeling that you get after doing it for a while because of that similarity. Dr. Lizzie, I have a question for you. Would you also say that after a certain point, you were able to. answer those questions that those students asked in your presentation or in the classroom at a certain point because you knew, okay, that question is going to come up. And let me kind of move in this direction in this moment because I know what's going to come up. Yes, absolutely. But the thing about teaching that is magical is the students will listen to the answer better if one of their peers asked that question than if you tell them. And sometimes even if you've already told them through your little spiel about like, this is the things you need to know about birth control, somebody's still going to ask that question. Sometimes it's like, what happens if my cat eats one of the pills? Sometimes it's what happens if one of them falls down the drain? Sometimes it's various other pieces like that. but it always comes up in some way. And so like after a while you're just like, okay, let me let them ask this because then they listen more carefully because they're like, oh, one of my peers had this happen to them. It's probably gonna happen to me too. So. you know, the older you get, the less they trust you. Like, or the less they think your like little blurbies are interesting, because you're still being like, Bueller, where's Bueller? Why aren't any of y'all talking? And they don't get it, and it's not cute. And you're like, okay, let me just wait for the question. Again, something magical happens at that moment. So yes, of course, sometimes I added those in, but sometimes you have to wait for the question. I almost want to add, find Dr. Lizzie on Twitter. to ask about what happens to your birth control if your cat eats it. I'm just saying, just saying. Should we use CTRL's Twitter account and ask Dr. Lizzie that question? Of course, why not? Kidding, of course. Of course. Oh yeah. Hey, you can ask me, I will answer it. I have an answer for that. Oh God. Go ahead. So yeah, you're good. Let me ask you this. So you all had talked about certain, I guess, research projects or something along those lines needs a certain amount of participants for it to be accepted. What do you do if you haven't reached that number? Do you have any ways or strategies that you can increase the number of participants for your study to meet that number? I'll tell you the first thing that I do is cry. That's the rules of the researcher crying in the shower. Yeah. Because then no one has to know your skin clears up immediately. Yes. It's, it's kind of like, what is it on Tik Tok? No one has to know. Nobody knows. I mean, gosh, I feel like there's so many, when you don't reach saturation, Like we have experienced. Um, I think that there's a point that you just, that you, when you're doing your write-up, you say, these are the things that we've done. We have done the best that we can with what we have. You know, we left the survey open for this amount of time. Not that I'm personalizing this at all. Um, we have, we have done X, Y, and Z. We have done the best that we could. And, um, and then you proceed from there. I think that there comes a point where you just need to close it and move it on. You know, Well, and the other thing I would add to this is like, thank you for that, Dr. Tiffany, cause that was brilliant. Um, and the other piece that I would say is ask yourself, why do you want to publish in that journal if they are really that strict about having an N of 30? Maybe that's not the journal for you. Who is reading that journal? Who needs to hear your research? really have a heart to heart with yourself on that, because the answer is almost never XYZ impact factor. And if that is all you are chasing, because that is what your chair is asking you to chase, or that is what you think your university is asking you to chase to get tenure, reset with that for a minute and say to yourself, what kind of stories could I tell for my tenure promotion, if instead of chasing the impact factor? I actually targeted all of my articles to the people who actually needed to hear them and then could get them to write me letters and tell that story of how much impact I have, not because of a silly little number at the end of a journal, but because I was actually so profound in the field that people would come up to me. and say you changed my life and how much better and more important is that research and the impact of that research than a silly little number at the end of a journal. So for those of you who are asking the question about what is an impact factor, it is not that we do not want to answer that question. It's just that we really, really want to focus this particular podcast on recruitment, but if you really want to know what is an impact factor. go to your librarian and ask them. Librarians are amazing humans. So please, please use your library and ask your librarian what is an impact factor and where to publish. But I am gonna echo Dr. Lizzie and say, definitely ask yourself, is this the journal that I want to publish in, that I want my article published, my manuscript published in? Because I will tell you now, there are definitely journals that are on my, I will not publish list for. personal and professional reasons. So yeah, it's all good. It's all good. Inquiring minds want to know. I'm going to go to bed. He'll never tell on a podcast. I'll never tell on a podcast. I'll only tell you Lizzie. Dr. Lizzie. Any other thoughts on increasing participants for study or, and you already spoke a little about like, if you don't reach that number, questioning why, why do I need to reach that number and is that the right journal for me? But are there any other thoughts on those two questions? Yeah, I think one of the things that strikes me when you're really struggling with recruitment is to ask yourself. if you have worked with community or if you're working on community. And this is a really hard one. Dr. Tiffany and I have talked about this a lot and we spent a lot of time crying about this during our dissertations and saying we are doing work with communities we belong to and on experiences we have had and yet... we are now no longer part of the community because we are doing research on the community, even though we are a part of this community. And so like this duality that you have to hold while you are in this research space, even though you are a part of the community, you still might be doing research on rather than with, even though that should in theory be impossible, because of the hat you have to put on to do the research. you have to pretend like you don't know anything about the community, even though you do and you're part of it. And so it's this weird level you have to be in. And as you're in that space, it can be really easy to go, yeah, but I'm part of this community. I know how to like engage with this community, but you might not because of specific things. And so go back to the drawing board, sit down with people from the community who identify that way and say, okay, What would work for you? What would make you more interested in this study? What would allow you to connect or engage with this? Is it because of money? Is it because of the colors I'm using on this graphic? Is it because of the platforms I'm using to recruit for? Where do you actually hang out in your community? How, and this is hard, right? Especially for things like queer community, because we don't all hang out in gay bars anymore. you know, save the lesbian bar project, but like we don't have that many of those spaces, right? So like, how do you define community? Where is community? Is it online? Is it not? Like, in figuring, going back to the drawing board and asking those questions can be really helpful to used to always say, you know, people will tell you, you can't find XYZ group, but stick a pole in the sand and people will come to you. He was a big believer in the field of dreams effect, which I have a lot of take a lot of umbrage with generally, but there is some truth to that, that you just have to figure out a way to have the community hear you or be able to explain. why this research matters. A lot of communities are really tapped out. The trans community is really tapped out right now. They have been having so much research done on them for so long and every higher ed person and every queer researcher is like, we don't have enough research on the trans community and specifically the black female trans community. And it's like, yeah, of course we don't. But also. please don't just do research on them because you wanna do research on them. Because again, we need to have people on our teams. We need to prove that our research is going to be helpful and not hurtful. And so figuring out ways to do that, I think is the really important piece. Because sometimes when we're having recruitment challenges, we actually aren't being thoughtful about our communities and how we're doing that research. I don't even know how to follow up with that. You know, I mean, it's, you're so right. You're so, so right. And something that you said that resonated with me was, you know, when you're in the researcher role versus like being a part of the community role, not role, but the being in that space, you know? And I think that's, you know, we'll talk about this on one of our future podcasts, the importance of memo-ing. Like make sure and making an understanding the importance of memo-ing and why you should memo and being able to kind of talk to yourself through, talk, write, whatever you need to do, through that process because there is gonna be a lot of stuff that comes up for you and you just need to be able to address it. Yeah, you need to know when to walk away. Just walk away, have a game plan. have a game plan because there's going to be points when you just need to know like, all right, I didn't reach my number. Like, how am I feeling about this? Journal it out, memo it out, walk away, talk to your colleagues, talk to your colleagues. I need to say it again, talk to your colleagues. But definitely when you're done, you're done. And it's okay. Gracefully bow out. You think your people, let's talk about manners. You think the people. that you are working with on this project, make sure you circle back to them. Speaking of which, I need to circle back to my participants, but make sure you circle back to them and say thank you, because that's important. Yeah. Well, thank you both for see what I did there for letting me be a part of this podcast. I've had a blast. And I just want to ask you before we get to our rapid fire questions, any final, final or life, I don't know, whatever you're feeling, I guess, today. I think I really wanna echo what Dr. Tiffany just said in her last answer there is really take accurate notes. You think you are gonna remember why you made all of the decisions you do, but I wanna just reiterate that you will not, you will forget things. I had a friend during grad school who used to say I started a binder for every new research project and I write down literally everything why I'm making that choice. Well, what was about it, and so that way, when I go to write the papers I just flipped to the binder and look at it. And every time I go to write up a paper I go, why did I not listen to Dr so and so and create a binder for this project, you can see behind me, I have binders for like virtually everything because I like to pretend to be Leslie know. But here we are and I haven't started a binder for every research project. And I think it's one of the best pieces of advice that I've gotten and never followed. I would say it's particularly with recruitment, I have to echo the binder. I wasn't told about the binder. Now I know, but I definitely was told about journaling. Um, I definitely have extra binders all over this place, but I, you know, the journaling part recruiting, um, and, and just not just, but, and, um, trying to produce a piece of literature, um, research. is very is really hard it's really, really hard, and so I think if I could speak to Tiffany from last week I would her I would say you know you know to have you should have journaled you know I should have journaled or. My wife bought me this 500 writing prompts it's a it's a little journal 400 to 400 I can't see my numbers here. 400 writing prompts, it's a journal. And so it's like, hey, like just kind of thinking about that, to help me with my writing. Because sometimes I can't, I'm not a cold turkey start person, I need to warm up to the plate kind of thing. So just kind of keeping that in mind, like, write, just write. And so I would just, I probably would have said that to myself, just take the time to write anything. That's some solid practical advice, not just for researchers, but I think for every position like write down what you're supposed to do. Okay, we are at the end, and I have some rapid questions for you guys, are you ready. Okay i'm getting some knots. Where we go. Me. When was the first time you recruited someone to do something for you. I recruited my best friend when I was five years old to be on the soccer team with me. So I wasn't the only girl and it was really scary to be like, Hey, come do this thing with me. But it was so worth it because then I had somebody else to pick daisies with when it got really boring and the boys wouldn't let us play. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I recruited my, my brother. Um, we had this band and he. was the guitarist and I was the vocalist. Yes, our two person band. And we had a hit song, Hey, Rock and Roll. And our closet was the elevator. And I was like, listening, you not only have to be, I felt like you have to be the drummer and you have to be the guitarist. You know, and he's like, why? I was like, cause you're my brother. Maybe it's a big sister thing. Maybe that really isn't recruitment. Maybe it's more bullying. I don't know. He's like, can you play an instrument or, hey, listen, he did a great job. You know, our, our hit skyrocketed that day in the closet. Number one hit number one billboard. Did you come out of the closet twice? W top ball. And then when I actually came out. Oh my goodness. What? Okay, okay. This next question is like totally unrelated to the last thing we just talked about, but what was your first social media? I'm in Myspace. Yeah, same. Yeah. With a little bit of AOL chat in there mixed in. God, AOL chat. I love AOL chat. Wait, I'm going to date y'all both. You ready? Yeah. Oh, I do. The prodigy, it was dial-up. And you put it into the landline. Yeah. And they had chat rooms and stuff. Well, I was going to say chat rooms because- Chat rooms. Yeah. You remember Yappi chat rooms? Oh, God, yes. They were the bee is knees. I loved them. But I was actually also going to say live journal. I spent a lot of time on live journal. I didn't see you spend as much- Do you still do live journalism? No, they closed out. Is that the one that you set as sort of like pillow for it? Or it's like a, okay. Yeah, it was basically what it sounds like a journal that was kind of it was like pre blogs. And so like people would just go on there and like journal out random things and you could have it set to private or you could have all of these friends on there and think of it like early blogging. I loved it. I was a really avid user in college. It was where a lot of my initial fan fakes got written. It's fine. It was such a, such a point in time. Nice. Oh my goodness. All right, all right. What was the first study you participated in and what made their recruitment tactics successful? So. I was a psych major and undergrad, and I went to this small little liberal arts school, and we had to complete at least three research projects every semester in order to maintain our standing as a psych student. So I don't actually remember the first one I participated in, but my guess is it was probably something about alcoholism and social psych, and we had to do it in the classroom. We didn't even get a choice, but. Those are some of the early studies I remember of not really having a lot of choice because you had to do it to maintain your status. So I don't think this was never IRB approved. So when I was a kid, I did a lot of observational research. I did a lot of observational research. And I like to look at people. I just like would stare at people, just stare. Like, I mean, we're talking like next level, like looking at people in the airport stare. And so when I was a kid and I was swimming, it was after swim practice and a bunch of parents were talking, you know. And so again, setting the stage, I was the only black kid on this team with my brother and one of our coaches, his kid, and all the parents are white. kids are white and I am up in this parent's face like this. Like my face is like just staring at this parent. Just staring and I'm like acting like I'm really, mind you, the parents not talking to me. They're talking to somebody else. So yeah, so I would say observational research. And so between that and there was this girl, her name was Missy and she had blue eyes. I was like in the fourth grade and she, um, I asked her once, I was like, do you see everything blue with those blue eyes? No, it was not a pickup line, but I'm just saying, I was just going to ask, but I just was really curious because I was like trying to understand like everybody's because everybody in my family had brown eyes. I, we were just getting to like, We weren't even talking like recessive genes or any, I mean, you're in fourth grade, you know? So I was trying to understand like, how did your eyes, how are your eyes blue? And then they change a different color. So does that mean that you see the world differently? Which, yeah, which hints the reason why I probably have those three letters now. So anyway, observational research at a very young age. Oh my goodness. I might, I might use that. I might just use that now at age 31. It's a great pick up line. Hey girl. All right. All right. This is your final rapid question. What is your favorite recruitment tool for the field? I would say my favorite recruitment tool is using those influencers that I have in my life that have really big social media networks and asking them to do that for me and promising them something like ice cream if they do. I'm so jealous that you get to actually eat ice cream. I think maybe this sounds a little self-absorbed when I say this, but my favorite recruitment tool are my ears. So I don't, I mean, yes, you can pick up everything, like what people are saying on a digital recorder. But sometimes how they say things, how somebody will say something is not always articulated through the words, it's how they say it. So the one thing that my wife definitely hates what I say is, it's not how you say it, it's not what you say, but how you say it. And so I always feel like I'm asking that question, is that a statement or is it a, is that a statement or is it a question? Like, can you explore, you know, tell me a little bit more about what you mean? Like, what do you mean? What do you mean? So I really treasure my ears. So the day that I go deaf in both ears, I think I will cry, you know. then I'll have to find another way to communicate, you know, so it's going to have to be touch and, you know, which would be beautiful, like arts based research, I think. So yeah, I just like people's and their people and their voices. Granted, there's certain voices that I can't do, but people and their voices like and how they sound, it's just so beautiful. So yeah. That is your favorite sentence. And you're not seeing that in any kind of ableist way. Like there are lots of devices you can have to increase hearing but it is it is your favorite sense and you talk about that all the time of like how people's voices sound. Yeah, it's definitely not meant to sound ableist. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's definitely not meant to sound ableist at all. It's, it's But I think it's like the rhythm. and the sound and the intensity, it's the power. You know, it's just beautiful. So yeah. Did you tell Missy she had a beautiful voice in fourth grade? You know what, I probably would have told Missy, it's like, hey girl, let me tell you about those eyes and that voice. Hey girl, my ears. Your voice is music to my ears. And those eyes. Well, thank you, Queen Lindsay. Thank you for having me. I have had a great, great time being on the podcast with you. Thank you very much. Thank you for being our guest host. We appreciate you. We really, really do. Dr. Lizzie, anything you want to add as we sign off? No, thanks for another great episode. We'll see you next time. This has been Colorful Outside the Memos with Dr. Lizzie. And Dr. Tiffany, thank you so much, everybody. And cheers.