Dual-Channel Branch and Intercept Recruitment

Picture this

Imagine trying to sample coffee drinkers in a city: if you only stand inside a high-end cafe, you get wealthier coffee drinkers, but if you only stand at a public train station, you get a completely different group. Surveying half at the cafe and half at the station yields a balanced sample of the whole population.

What the evidence says

Retention rates remained highly balanced across recruitment channels (56% retained inside MTO branches vs. 52% retained in public areas), confirming observable baseline balance across gender (74% female), age (mean 35 years), and monthly income (55% above median).

Who was studied

8,248 total recruited Filipino migrants (85% in Dubai, 15% in Sharjah), split 50% from UAE Exchange branches and 50% from public intercept locations.

How

Comparative two-arm recruitment protocol evaluating sample demographic and behavioral retention balance between MTO branch participants and public gathering space participants.

What to do

Implement balanced dual-channel sampling across commercial MTO branches and community intercept locations to minimize recruitment selection bias in migrant economic studies.

From the source

"Half of our study sample was recruited via face-to-face intercepts of Filipino migrant workers (OFW) in the UAE at locations frequented by Filipino migrants. The other half of the sample was recruited in the context of a partnership between Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and UAE Exchange... The screening criteria of this study has not led to the exclusion of potential participants of certain observable characteristics..."

A Field Experiment among Filipino Migrant Workers in the UAE

Tags

• sampling bias
• recruitment methodology
• field experiment