The Center for Social Science Innovation (CSSI) offers a new text-based recruitment service that can advance social science research by enabling researchers to recruit study participants for surveys, interviews, and focus groups via text message.

The service helps researchers reach large samples of potential study participants in a short amount of time and at a relatively low cost while. It also enables easy follow-ups with participants over time in longer studies.

“Researchers might use text messaging to follow up with participants or for momentary assessments where they want participants to check in,” says Cassidy Branch, manager of research services at CSSI. “For example, we could send a daily text directing them to a survey to record their responses in real time.”

At a time when reaching study participants is becoming increasingly difficult or expensive, the service addresses the challenges associated with traditional study recruitment methods, such as mail, phone calls, and email.

Text messaging allows researchers to reach targeted populations efficiently and with fewer steps for participants. Using UI branding, each text message provides a brief description of the study, invites recipients to participate or opt out, and includes a link to enroll.

reach out to learn more about text-based recruitment

How CSSI’s text-recruitment service works

CSSI facilitates text-based recruitment through its account with RumbleUp, a private text-messaging platform. 

Through the service, CSSI can help:

• identify a sample source to reach a target audience;
• obtain IRB approval for the study; 
• draft text messages using customizable templates branded with the University of Iowa logo; and
• manually send text messages one at a time – up to 8,000 per hour – from the messaging platform. 

Navigating regulatory challenges of text recruitment

Branch said text recruitment isn’t widely used yet by researchers on college campuses, in part because regulatory guidelines require careful navigation. For example, automated dialing is prohibited by law, so CSSI worked with the Human Subjects Office to maintain compliance for this new methodology.

"You can’t hit one button and blast out 30,000 text messages. Each text message needs to be sent one at a time,” she says.

CSSI went through a yearlong vetting process to ensure its procedures complied with federal laws. The center developed a privacy policy webpage, opt-out language and text replies confirming that someone has opted out.

Branch adds, “We’ve already done that background work, so we’re a resource on campus that researchers can come to for quick access to the service.”

CSSI is now piloting the service with Kristi Hendrickson, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders. Hendrickson leads a project that involves communicating with individuals who originally participated in a long-term study spanning the early 1990s to the early 2000s. 

Lindsey Nichol, the research associate who manages the project, said, “Many of these individuals completed their participation more than 20 years ago, making it difficult to reconnect using traditional recruitment methods." 

"CSSI's text-recruitment service has provided us with an additional way to reach these participants, and their team has been helpful in making the process easy to implement.”

To learn more, email cassidy-branch@uiowa.edu or visit our Survey & Multimethodology Research Services.

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