Theses Doctoral

Seeking participants for a study: A qualitative exploration of NIAs’ barriers and motivations to research participation

Lim, Karissa Ysabel Sayo

Over the past 60 years, the immigrant population in the United States (U.S.; i.e., those born outside of the U.S.) has grown significantly. Included in this group are newcomer immigrant adolescents (NIA), who immigrated to the U.S. within the past 5 years. Upon arrival in the U.S., NIA experience a multitude of unique systemic and psychosocial stressors and protective factors, placing them at risk for negative social emotional and academic outcomes. Despite this, culturally-informed, evidence-based interventions addressing the needs of NIA are limited due to the widespread underrepresentation of this marginalized group in research, underscoring a need to understand and conduct research with NIA. Despite multiple calls and efforts to improve representation of minoritized populations, including NIA, in research, researchers have noted challenges in recruiting NIA.

Literature on barriers to participation, motivation to research participation, and strategies to navigate barriers to participation exist but have yet to be explored with NIA. This is despite research underscoring the need to consider research participants’ culture and developmental level when developing informed strategies to improve recruitment efforts. Thus, the current study qualitatively explored the barriers to participation in research among NIA, examined their motivations to participate in research, and elicited recommendations from NIA and relevant stakeholders (i.e., community partners who work in NIA serving organizations) on how to increase their research participation. Twenty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted with NIA from Latin America (n = 3), South Asia (n = 1), Southeast Asia (n = 7), and West Africa (n = 3) and community partners who serve NIA (n = 12). Implications for stakeholders, researchers, and health equity are discussed.

Files

  • thumnail for Lim_columbia_0054D_18831.pdf Lim_columbia_0054D_18831.pdf application/pdf 1.54 MB Download File

More About This Work

Academic Units
School Psychology
Thesis Advisors
Arora, Prerna G.
Degree
Ph.D., Columbia University
Published Here
October 16, 2024