The Hardest Part

If you ask any scientific research the most difficult aspect of experimentation, many times they will unanimously tell you that finding participants for their study is the hardest part. Psychology experiments (among other scientific studies) can sometimes take a considerable amount of time, which leads potential subjects to shy away from the study. For this reason and others, subjects are usually drawn from the population based on convenience or by volunteering though newspaper ads and word of mouth. Many times the convenience sample consists of white, female, college students who are in psychology classes because much psychology research is done by professors and researchers on college campuses. This type of sample may not always provide adequate and relatable results for experimenters, which can be difficult and frustrating. Thus, recruting a good sample size and an evenly distributed participant group make scientific research especially hard.
I have always known that recruiting subjects is a difficult task, but today as I began to notice the number of subjects I had booked for testing dwindling...how do I keep a steady stream of participants coming to take my test? Today I tapped into my email, classmates, more friends and just aboout anyone I could find. I have people booked for the experiment through the end of the week, but its looking like I'm going to have to dig even deeper into my data base to find subjects. Especially male subjects, who are the hardest to come by. So, if you're a man and you would like to help with a psychology study... HOLLA!
Other than that, research is coming along nicely. I'm pretty much caught up on the data analysis so far and charts and graphs are starting to show some interesting results... Stay tuned!

Reagan