Recruitment/Scheduling

NSF- specific protocols

Recruitment for SPACE primarily occurs via email by contacting potential participants in the NSF Recruitment spreadsheet on the CISL server. Participants highlighted in green have already been contacted. It is imperative to keep track of which individuals have already been reached, especially given the longitudinal nature of the study.

Recruitment emails should follow a consistent script. For this study, the 36-month-old script is as follows:

Dear [parent name],

My name is [your name], and I am the [your position] of the Play and Learning Lab at Cornell University. We have a new longitudinal study exploring how children’s spatial skills may relate to their play, fine motor skills, and visual processing. Would you be interested in having [child name] participate? Children are invited to play with toys, view events on a monitor as we track their looking, and complete measures of spatial skills.

The study takes place in our Play and Learning lab in 201 Beebe Hall, by the Botanic Gardens Welcome Center on the Cornell campus. The study includes 3 visits to our lab over the course of 1 year, with each visit occurring at 6 month intervals (ages 36 months, 42 months, and 48 months). Each visit will last approximately 2 hours. In appreciation for your participation, you will receive a $50 gift card for each visit to compensate you for your time, transportation, and effort.

If you are interested in participating, I can schedule you within 2 weeks of [child's] third birthday. We are fairly flexible with scheduling, and I can schedule the following visits as we approach them in order to accommodate changing schedules.

Please reach out with any questions. We would really appreciate your participation!

Thank you!

[Your Name]

Recruitment emails need to clearly convey that this study is not a one-time visit. They should also be changed to reflect the ages of the child at each visit (12, 18, 24; 24, 30, 36; 36, 42, 48).

Once you receive an interested response, you will have to conduct a phone screening to ensure that the child is eligible to participate. The phone screening script is extremely important. If a child is ineligible to participate, you have a few options:

  1. You may stop the screening early. Apologize to the parent, explain that their child is ineligible for this particular study, and ask if they would like to be contacted for future studies. This method saves time for both you and the parent.

  2. You can complete the full screening. Tell the parent that we will be in touch, and email later in the day to thank them for their time, apologize that their child is ineligible, and ask if they would like to be contacted for future studies. This method allows you to gather more information about the participant that may be relevant for other studies that are recruiting (ex. if we are specifically looking for children with cognitive delays).

The phone screening script is attached here:

SPACE Phone Screening

Once a child has been verified as eligible for participation, you may schedule them within 2 weeks (either before or after) his/her birthdate. Time is important, as we want participants to be as close to our target ages as possible. Participating family information is stored in a private, secure spreadsheet (email Deaven for access). It is imperative that no information is stored on this spreadsheet that connects the participant to their SID. We use this to keep track of follow-up appointments, however for privacy reasons we cannot list specific participant numbers. Longitudinal pilot participants are highlighted on this sheet. Note that these are DIFFERENT than the MaLiVa pilots, and should be treated the same as the longitudinal sample. Longitudinal pilots provide the opportunity for us to practice protocols for age groups who have not yet visited the lab.

For additional participant recruitment information, parking calendars, and room reservations, visit the Participant Recruitment and Scheduling tab.

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