Improved representation of diversity in panel studies: Tailored recruitment strategies ("TaRec") , Date: 22/08/2025, format: project (current), area: Authority

The problem of declining response rates is becoming increasingly prevalent in survey research. To reach enough participants and collect meaningful data, survey research is focusing more than ever on the needs of respondents. The aim of the "TaRec – Tailored Recruitment Strategies" project therefore aims to gain insight into how people with a migration background can be successfully recruited for population surveys and panel studies and, based on this, to develop tailored survey concepts and survey designs. The TaRec project is being carried out in cooperation with the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) and the German Centre for Gerontology (DZA).

The TaRec project focuses on developing tailor-madesurvey documents for specific target groups. To this end, adult Turkish nationals living in Germany are surveyed to determine the best way to address and motivate them to participate in a survey. Qualitative methods (expert interviews, focus group interviews) with members of the target group and/or community re-presentatives will be used to gather information for the creation of the survey documents. The survey documents developed from this (including the cover letter) will then be used to conduct cognitive pre-tests to identify and resolve any problems in understanding the questi-ons. In the second step, the developed documents will be used experimentally and tested in a quantitative study.

In addition, the survey will examine which survey mode (face-to-face, written or online survey) is best suited to reach which subgroups (e.g. older vs. younger people). To this end, the survey modes will be used experimentally in the survey.

The TaRec project aims to answer the following questions:

• Are survey documents that take into account the feedback from the members of the target group more promising than documents that were created without this feedback?
• How does the survey mode influence response rates? Are there group-specific differences?
• How can respondents best be motivated to participate in a longitudinal study?

The TaRec project’s results can provide information and a basis for the development of specific research designs for other studies, for example by the BAMF Research Centre (e.g. Muslim Life in Germany 2028).

The research project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Priority Programme SPP 2431 'New Data Spaces for the Social Sciences '. The project will run until mid-2027.