What are some pressing methodological issues regarding the recruitment of different -aged

adults for research?

What will be an ideal response?

One difficulty is that researchers often recruit younger and older adults from different
contexts, and older adults are often recruited from more varied contexts as well. Older
adults are frequently recruited from senior organizations, health care systems, and
retirement communities, whereas younger adults are often accessed from college
campuses.  Also, one of the primary goals of researchers that work with adults is to
ensure that different-aged participants are as similar as possible, outside of the variable
of age. This tactic somewhat lessons concerns regarding cohort differences, although
this confound cannot be completely eliminated in cross sectional research. The concern,
however, is that in ensuring that our participants are equated on demographics, we
have lowered the external validity of the study. For instance, now the participants in a
certain age group may not be representative of people of that age group in the
community. Of course, this may not be true, it's simply a matter of comparing
demographics. Also, some experts recommend that we give participants short IQ tests.
These scores can then be contrasted to national norms. If the scores are similar, then the
researcher can better claim that the sample is representative.