Inviting Participation: From Sample-Building to Relationship-Building in Participant Recruitment Processes

Introduction: Participant recruitment is a difficult stage of the research process, often resulting in considerable time and cost, with challenges in the diversity, quantity, and quality of participants. Existing scholarship on recruitment focuses on recruitment outcomes, specifically the development of a useful sample. This article directs attention from outcomes to processes by reconsidering this transactional, sample-building process as a relationship-building process through the lens of invitational rhetoric. About the case: The study analyzes the advertisements used on university study discovery sites (SDSs) to initiate participant recruitment and build sustainable relationships with the community. Universities rely on study advertisements to initiate recruitment on SDSs, which can serve as the foundation for the participant-researcher relationship. Situating the case: This case is situated in larger calls for research efficiency and the technical and professional communicationdiscipline's call for less transactional and more personalized recruitment processes. Methods: After tracking and defining the rhetorical moves in study advertisements, the moves are characterized through invitational rhetoric to assess how they create conditions for value, safety, and freedom. Results/discussion: This study finds that the main rhetorical moves of the advertisements are establishing credentials, introducing the offer (offering the product or service, essential detailing of the offer, indicating value of the offer), including study identifiers, and soliciting responses. The moves enacting invitational rhetoric are attentive to building reciprocity, transparency, and agency. Conclusion: To avoid transactional relationships with participants, researchers can incorporate invitational rhetoric into their recruitment materials by creating the conditions for value, safety, and freedom.