Conducting research in the time of COVID-19

By Mónica Reis (Twitter @MonicaReis214)

SeNSS Researcher

University of Kent, Psychology Pathway

One of my most recent research projects looked at everyday coping and sexual risk-taking behaviours. Specifically, we aimed to use experience sampling methods to examine state-based emotion regulation and coping strategies and how these may have a knock-on effect on sexual risk-taking related behaviours. We aimed to do this in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic which presented itself as an inherently stressful situation. This meant that there was a tight turnaround window in which we had to not only launch the study but also to recruit participants. Recruiting participants was made slightly more challenging by the complex nature of our research design, which involved asking participants to commit to not only completing an initial 10-minute survey, but also to completing 2 short surveys everyday for 2 weeks through a mobile survey application.

Initially we planned to recruit through convenience sampling, via mine and my supervisor’s own social and academic networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.), as well as through survey exchange forums. This seemed quite daunting at first given that our data analysis plan indicated that we would require approximately 200+ participants as a safe benchmark. Although this sample size was an ideal upper threshold to account for dropout rates and missing data, it still seemed like an impossible target. I reached out to Paul as the SeNSS Coordinator to see if there was any help that SeNSS could offer in terms of helping to promote the study and the response I got was amazing!

Paul and I had an initial meeting where I told him all my plans for promoting the study and participant recruitment. Paul then provided insight into what SeNSS could do and how they could help whilst suggesting really useful ideas into how to go about promoting the study. For instance, one of the ideas that came about following this meeting was to design a promotional flyer which could garner a lot more interest and attention. The help I received from the SeNSS team was invaluable in my research effort. Not only did SeNSS retweet any posts I put out regarding my study, but Paul also helped me put together an email which he then forwarded to all the academic leads (and later the administration leads) from the 10 partner universities associated with SeNSS. The response I got was amazing, not only did I manage to reach my target sample size (with 251 responses to the initial survey and counting!) but I also got a really positive response from the wider academic community who noticed and engaged with my research.

Recruiting participants can be hard enough, let alone amid a global pandemic and speaking as someone who usually taps into the RTSG and any participant recruitment funds available to cover the cost of participant recruitment, it’s useful to know that there are alternatives to this if these means are not available. I am glad and fortunate to be a part of the SeNSS community, not only for the help that they provided, but also, as this has helped me realise that SeNSS as a funding body provides numerous resources and aids their student body any way they can.