Abstract
One third of all schools in the United States are located in rural areas, sharing characteristics that affect the way education is delivered. These include smaller average class sizes, geographic isolation, and reduced access to professional development for teachers. Despite their numbers, rural schools have historically been underrepresented in education research, particularly in rigorous studies. This chapter examines the recruitment of rural schools for education research, including an approach used to recruit Idaho schools for a cluster randomized trial. The authors describe how their approach addressed many of the unique features of rural schools. The focus on understanding local context, establishing personal connections, and offering high-quality professional development aligned with regional needs allowed the study team to recruit a sample that reflected the proportion of rural schools in the state. This proved to be an effective approach, although more expensive and time-consuming than recruitment efforts in urban and suburban settings. The authors conclude by discussing some considerations for researchers, as well as for funding agencies that wish to include rural school perspectives in future education research.
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Notes
- 1.
We also experienced a particular situation in which Bloom’s (2006) hypothesis that moderator analyses often have more statistical power does not hold true: that is, when the interclass correlation of the subgroup is very low.
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Acknowledgments
The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A100583 to Education Northwest. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.
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Autio, E., Deussen, T. (2017). Recruiting Rural Schools for Education Research: Challenges and Strategies. In: Nugent, G., Kunz, G., Sheridan, S., Glover, T., Knoche, L. (eds) Rural Education Research in the United States. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42940-3_5
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