An Experiment in Panel Recruitment for Spanish Speaking Populations: The AmeriSpeak Case Study
Ilana Ventura
NORC at the University of Chicago
Rene Bautista
NORC at the University of Chicago
Erlina Hendarwan
NORC at the University of Chicago
The objective of this research is to provide insights to guide the development of targeted recruitment materials for Hispanic and Spanish speaking populations. This paper presents results from a field experiment conducted in geographies with high Hispanic populations, where three versions of recruitment materials were tested with varying order and extent of Spanish and English languages. One version presented text in Spanish first, followed by English. A second version presented text in English first, followed by Spanish. A third version of the materials presented the majority of text in Spanish and some text in English. Three outcome metrics are examined to assess the impact of experimental conditions: sample yield, percent of sample yield that self-identified as Hispanic, and percent of yield that reported preference for answering surveys in Spanish. While this experiment was a case study for printed recruitment materials for NORC's AmeriSpeak Panel® , conducted as part of recruitment improvements-and more research is needed- researchers might find the findings useful to inform decisions on recruitment and retention of Hispanic, Latino and Spanish-speaking populations.