Participant

How it is used

The standard, respectful term in most fields today; older texts and some experimental work say subjects. Researchers recruit participants, obtain their consent and protect their identity. Qualitative reports often refer to participants with codes such as P1 and P2.

Example sentences

1. Participants were recruited through social media and university mailing lists.

2. All participants gave written informed consent before the interview.

Common collocations

• recruit participants
• research participants
• participants were asked to
• withdraw participants

Related terms

• sampleThe smaller group of people, items or texts selected from a larger population for a study, so that conclusions can be drawn about that population.
• informed consentA participant's voluntary agreement to take part in research after being told about its purpose, procedures, risks and their right to withdraw.
• questionnaireA set of written questions given to many people to collect information about their opinions, experiences or behavior.
• confidentialityThe duty to keep participants' personal information private and to store and report data so that people cannot be identified.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• participant · UX/UI Design
• participant · Psychology

More terms: Research Design

• research
• research question
• hypothesis
• methodology
• qualitative
• quantitative
• case study
• carry out
• validity
• reliability
• mixed methods
• variable