Accessing Fellow Academics as Research Participants: Constraints, Collegiality, and "Academic Citizenship"

In this paper I discuss some constraints and implications in accessing fellow academics as research participants, a topic that has rarely been addressed thus far in the literature. I will point out that a lack of cooperation from fellow academics may defeat our research purposes, and will survey some studies involving U.S., European, and Chinese academics as research participants to illustrate education researchers’ efforts to work with fellow academics against the odds. By referencing my personal experience of engaging with Chinese academics, I will then discuss the role of personal contacts in research and reflect upon various constraints in accessing fellow academics as research participants. I will suggest that, when we do participate in a fellow researcher’s project, the incentive is a desire to support our peers in the spirit of “academic citizenship.”