Table 9 School recruitment strategies
School recruitment strategy | Successful or unsuccessful |
|---|---|
Use of personal contacts based in schools | Successful |
Use of school contacts held by recruiting universities | Successful |
Asking schools to recommend the study to other schools | Successful |
Engaging local or national educational organisations such as local authorities and teacher groups’ educational events | Successful |
Making use of local authority education networks for head teachers and senior management teams | Successful |
Communicating with academies with several schools in local area | Successful |
Face-to-face meetings with school staff | Successful |
Approaching schools who had already taken part in similar research studies, such as the children’s dental health survey and a smoking prevention study [35] | Successful |
Involving local school nursing teams | Successful |
Making contact with schools via letter from the local principal investigator | Successful |
Making initial contact with schools via email | Unsuccessful: Schools rarely responded to emails from unknown researchers. Not relied upon for further recruitment |