Table 5.
Strategy Type | Strategy | Rationale |
---|---|---|
General strategies to enhance success of study activities | Include active control program in RCT design | Provide potential benefits to all participants |
Build capacity of partner schools to continue offering programming after the study ends | Sustain long-term intervention benefits | |
Hire staff with experience working with adolescents and/or schools in urban contexts | Maximize likelihood that staff will be skilled in interacting with stakeholders and participants | |
Educate staff regarding local university-community history and context | Sensitize staff to issues of structural racism in the study context | |
Train staff to be friendly and respectful in all interactions with parents, students, and school staff | Promote positive research team-community interactions | |
Strategies to facilitate school recruitment | Meet individually with interested principals to assess potential for school partnership in detail Use a screener or checklist to assess school/partner readiness for collaboration |
Realistically assess partnership potential to avoid failed alliances Reduces the likelihood of schools dropping out right before/during programming |
Strategies to facilitate student recruitment | Use multiple methods to provide consent forms from parents (i.e., mailings, sending home with child) and send forms multiple times | Increase likelihood of parents receiving consent forms even if addresses are not current or parents misplace initial forms |
Attempt to follow up with all parents by phone | Develop personal connections, with families, maximize likelihood of broad participation across different types of families | |
Provide parents multiple ways to return signed forms (mailing, child returns to teacher, photograph and text signed form, Adobe sign) | Facilitate ease and return speed | |
Provide pizza party incentive for classrooms in which most parents return a signed (yes or no) permission form | Motivate student and parent return of forms in timely manner | |
Strategies to facilitate follow up survey participation | Collect multiple types of contact information for participants (i.e., phone, email, social media handles, multiple parent contacts, two additional contacts, high school name, address) | Enhance likelihood of reaching participants at follow up |
Use consistent protocol for contacting participants, with detailed log of contact attempts to avoid duplicating prior attempts | Maximize efficiency and minimize annoyance to participants | |
Provide $25 honorarium for completed surveys | Enhance student motivation to complete the follow-up survey |