Knowledgeable, fully-contributing respondents are what all researchers want to see in any given research situation. And for those studies considered that little bit more creative, received wisdom tells us to recruit ‘creative’ respondents. Not artists or musicians, but respondents with a pre-disposition to creativity. Presumably.
But is ‘creativity’ what we really want? Do we not need to recruit physicians on the basis that they are willing to participate in role-play exercises; that they have an affinity to patients or have a degree of emotional intelligence; that they are prepared to help us critique, assess and develop communications concepts?
For research that necessitates the development and or assessment of Patient Profiles for example, we would propose an alternative recruitment criterion. In this instance, recruiting physicians with emotional intelligence, or an innate empathy with patients is more apt than recruiting physicians who are maybe more creative (even if the research uses ‘creative’ approaches). But how do we design such a series of questions? Well, that probably requires some degree of creative thinking…