Orientation
Materials for Experimenters:
Information
on the PSYC 103 Research Experience Requirement
Table of Contents
|
How to use this manual |
……..1. |
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Step-by-step procedural checklist |
……..2. |
|
The rationale for the requirement |
……..3 |
|
The specific requirement and related policies |
……..4. |
|
Journal article review as an alternative |
……..5. |
|
Using the experiment scheduling system |
……..6. |
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Frequently asked questions about the participant pool |
..…..11. |
How to use this manual
This manual is intended for members
of the
The general flow of procedures require that you (1) Prepare a
journal article review as an alternative for PSYC 103 students who do not wish
to participant in research; (2) Make an official request to use the participant
pool mechanism; (3) Request a the necessary password to use the web based
experiment scheduling system; and (4) Use the Experimetrix
program to post electronic sign-up sheets and to subsequently assign credits
and penalties to participating students.
For those of you who wish to get started right away and do not care to read the detailed information about the PSYC 103 research requirement, participant pool mechanism, etc., you may go right to the step-by-step procedural checklist. Most of the procedures are self-explanatory and the necessary computer programs have help menus to assist you with each process. If you encounter a problem or need more information with a particular step, then you can consult the relevant section of this manual on an “as needed “basis.
For those of
you who would like more detailed instructions, the following sections of this packet will provide experimenters
with the necessary information to utilize and abide the procedures of the
participant pool. Efforts were taken to
minimize the impact of the policies on researchers’ workload. By making these procedures standard for all
investigators, we sought to ensure an enriching (and consistent) research
experience for each participating student.
The Psychology Department’s Participant Pool Committee, under the charge of the voting faculty, authored these materials. Please direct any comments/suggestions or concerns to:
Carol Toris,
torisc@cofc.edu, 953-8198
Vince Spicer, spicercv@cofc.edu, 953-6785
An electronic version of this document is available at our departmental web site at http://www.cofc.edu/psychology/. From this web site, simply click on “PSYC 103 Research Requirement” on the top navigation bar, click on “Experimenter”, then click on “Experimenter Orientation Packet” link. You may also request a word.doc file of this document by contacting Carol Toris, torisc@cofc.edu. Thank you for supporting our teaching and training through the execution of your research!
CHECKLIST
FOR EXPERIMENTERS USING THE PARTICIPANT POOL AND THE EXPERIMENT SCHEDULING
SYSTEM
1. Prepare your experiment
____ a. Design your experiment and, if required,
obtain appropriate IRB approval.
2. Prepare a research alternative for PSYC 103
students
____ a. Select a
short empirical article for the PPC to place on electronic reserve
____ b.
Download the Journal Review Form by going to http://www.cofc.edu/psychology/, clicking on “PSYC 103
Research Requirement,” then “Experimenters,” and then “Journal Review Form.”
____ c.
Complete the Journal Review Form for your article and be sure to provide
answers to questions at a level appropriate for PSYC 103 students. Please complete the Review Form and save
it to .html format. Please print a
test page to be sure the format is still intact.
____ d. Turn in the following items to the
Participant Pool Committee (PPC):
(1) Place a hard copy of the entire article in Dr. Carol
Toris’s Psych. Dept. mailbox
(2) Email a file of your completed Review Form Key
(in html format) to cortesem@cofc.edu.
3. Gain access to Experimetrix
and enter your information on the website
____ a.
Complete the Experimetrix Subscriber Form by
going to http://www.cofc.edu/psychology/, clicking on “PSYC 103 Research Requirement, then
“Experimenters,” and then “Experimetrix Subscriber
Form.” Complete the form, save it, and
then email it to cortesem@cofc.edu.
____ b.
Wait for your experiment number and password from the
PPC. Note that after you turn in your
materials to the Participant Pool, it may take up to 4 days to receive your
number & password for Experimetrix. This time is essential for the PPC to process
each request, to ensure that all materials are available on Electronic reserve,
and to make the necessary additions to the website. Please don’t wait until the last minute to
submit your requests.
____ c.
Go to the website: http://experimetrix.com/cofc/ and select "experimenter
area" from the main page. Your logon is the experiment
number. Use the password(s) that you were issues by the committee. Select "edit header" to
provide details for your experiment posting.
____ d.
In the description box under edit header, please be sure to include the
amount of time (in minutes) required to participate in your experiment
____ e.
In the credit box, be sure to indicate the correct number of credits
your study is worth (1 credit if less than 30 minutes, 2 credits if 30 minutes
or greater).
____ f. Select "add new times" to add sessions that
participants can sign up for.
____ g. Select "view schedule" to
look at the current schedule and be sure to check the box labeled
"Display experiment to students"
____ h.
After the experimental session, select "view schedule"
to award credit (or penalty) to the participant. Please assign credits and
penalties promptly.
4. Begin collection data when ready!
The Research Experience Requirement for
PSYC 103 – Intro. to Psychological
Science
I. Background and Rationale of Requirement
The psychology department at the
As the result of a curriculum policy
changes, PSCY 103 instructors now must require that their students participate
in approximately 1.5 hours of research conducted in the psychology
department. This requirement will be
designated as 3 experimental credits that must be acquired, and at least 1 of
the credits must be earned prior to midterm. Students
who do not wish to participate as a human subject will be offered an equitable
alternative (see Journal Article Review alternative). In addition to supporting the research
mission of the department, PSYC 103 students will benefit from getting
first-hand experience with psychological research.
All instructors now recognize that the research experience is a
course requirement for every section of PSYC 103. Please know that the development of this
policy was not undertaken without careful consideration for the welfare of PSYC
103 students. Following the ethical
principles for psychologists (6.14.b), a requirement must not represent a
portion of a student’s grade so large that “such an inducement might tend to
coerce participation” (APA, 1994, p. 1609).
Therefore, by a departmental vote, the research requirement for all
sections of PSYC 103 will constitute exactly 5% of the student’s total or final
grade. This assigned weighting (5%) is
intended to adhere to A.P.A.’s ethical code and also
facilitate the teaching and research mission of the department by ensuring
sufficient incentive for student participation.
II. The specific requirement and
related polices (e.g., penalties for missing appointments)
In order to satisfy
the research experience requirement for PSYC 103 (and earn points toward their
final grade), students must earn a total of 3 experimental credits. Students will earn 1 credit for each
experiment in which they participate that is 30 minutes or less in length, and
2 credits for any study greater than 30 minutes. For example, a 20-30 minute study will earn 1
credit, a 45-60 minute study will earn 2 credits, and
so forth. Students must be sure to
attend experiments for which they sign up or call to cancel ahead of time or
they will be penalized (see below).
Students who do not wish to participant in experiments can satisfy the
requirement by completing reviews of 3 empirical journal articles (see page 7
for a description).
1.
The research requirement
(designated as three experiment credits) must be satisfied in an all or none
fashion prior to the last day of scheduled classes for that semester. One may not receive partial credit or
points toward their grade for participating in less than the required amount of
research. Therefore, since the research
is worth 5 percent of the final grade, a student may not earn 2.5 percent of
their final grade by participating in half the amount of the required
research. That student would instead
receive a zero for not satisfying the requirement.
2. Students must earn one experimental
credit prior to midterm. The course instructor reserves
the right to penalize students (i.e., deduct a portion of the five percent of
their final grade) if they do not earn 1 credit prior to midterm. This midterm penalty would be executed even
if a student eventually earns three credits, as 1 credit was not earned before
midterm.
3. Students
may use the experiment scheduling web site (http://www.experimetrix.com/cofc) to cancel an appointment up to two hours before the
experiment time. Those students who
cancel their appointments within this time frame will not incur any form of
penalty.
4. Students
who fail to show up for an experiment for which they are scheduled (without
canceling) must then complete 1 additional credit (approximately a half-hour)
of research participation. Thus, a total
of 4 credits are required. Students may
do so by participating in additional experiments, completing a journal article
review, or by doing some combination of both.
5. Students
who fail to show up for a second experiment for which they are scheduled must
then complete 1 additional credit of research participation. Thus, students who failed to show up for a
second scheduled appointment without canceling it must complete a total of 5
credits for their research requirement.
In these instances, students will no longer be allowed to sign-up for
additional studies and therefore must satisfy any remaining portion of the
requirement by completing the journal review alternative.
6. Most
experiments end just prior to the last week of class. There is no guarantee that experiments are
available to accommodate research participation extremely late in the semester
(e.g., the last week of classes or final exam week). Students who procrastinate
in signing up for experiments run the risk of having to satisfy the requirement
by completing the journal review alternative.
When students fail to participant in experiments for this reason and
fail to satisfy the requirement through alternative means (i.e., journal review
option), they will receive a zero and forfeit five percent of their final
grade.
Note
to Experimenters. All students are provided with access to this
information on a 24-hour basis. This and
other information about the research requirement can be obtained at http://www.cofc.edu/psychology/. First, click on “PSYC 103 Research
Requirement,” then click on “Student,” then select the document you wish to
view.
III. The Journal Article Review as an Alternatives to Research
Participation
Students who do not wish to participate in
experiments offered by the department may satisfy the PSYC 103 research
requirement by completing the following alternative assignment:
Journal Article Review
Approved
journal articles are available via electronic reserve. Interested students will go to the library
web page, and from there, access electronic reserves. Approved articles are found under the course listing,
“Research Requirement.” Using the
password “knowledge,” students may access the web page to download and
read approved journal articles. In
addition, students may download the “Review Form” from the reserve website and
complete it after they have read the article(s). Students will turn in the completed Review
Form to their introductory psychology professors.
Responsibilities
of all Experimenters:
Before receiving access to
the participant pool, each faculty researcher, each lab class, and each
independent study/bachelor’s essay student who wishes to use the pool is
responsible for selecting at least one short, accessible journal article to be
placed on electronic reserve at the library. Articles should be short (2-5 pages), and should
be accessible to students at the introductory level (American Scientist,
Psychological Science, Current Directions, and Scientific American are
excellent journal choices). The reports should include one or two (maximum)
studies, the nature and purpose of which should be easily discernable to naïve
readers.
Experimenters are also responsible for completing
the Review Form Key so that PSYC 103 instructors can quickly and easily
evaluate the reviews completed by students.
Of course, course instructors also have the option to select their own
articles for review, but experimenters must provide at least one article
so that the onus for this alternative is not placed solely on individual
instructors.
The participant pool believes that students involved
in research (either via lab classes or independent study) should be required to
provide articles as research alternatives so that students can fully appreciate
the ethical and pragmatic considerations involved in conducting research. Access to the pool is viewed as a privilege
and a responsibility, and it is imperative that student researchers who use the
pool understand the necessity (i.e., ethical imperative) for providing
alternative research experiences.
Procedures for Experimenters to Follow:
1. Select a short empirical article for
the Participant Pool Committee to place on electronic reserve
2. Download the Journal Review Form for the Psychology
Department’s web page by going to http://www.cofc.edu/psychology, then clicking on “PSYC 103
Research Requirement,” then “Experimenters,” and then “Journal Review Form.”
3. Complete the Journal Review Form for your article; be sure
to provide answers to questions at a level appropriate for PSYC 103
students. Please be sure to complete
the Review Form and save it in .html format. Also, please make sure that the format of the
document was maintained by printing a test page.
4. Turn in the following items to the
Participant Pool Committee (PPC):
(1)
Place a hard copy of the article in the mailbox of Dr. Carol Toris (
(2) Email an html file of your completed Review Form
Key to the Experimetrix Web Master: torisc@cofc.edu.
IV.
Information on Using the Experiment Scheduling System
“Experimetrix” by MomentumTM
This document explains how Experimenters
can use the MomentumTM software
to accomplish the scheduling of subjects and the awarding of research
credits. The staff at MomentumTM software
authored most of the following pages. Additional explanations and instructions
are available on the website when you attempt to perform many of the procedures
described below.
Experimenter
area of the website
To
post an experiment, check the schedule, or award credits, and for all
experiment bookkeeping you should enter the research
participation web site the same way that all of your participants enter the
site. This will be an address of the form
http://experimetrix.com/cofc/. Next, select "experimenter.area"
from the menu (depending on your customized settings, the exact wording of this
link may differ). You will be asked for a logon and password. Your
logon is the experiment number. Use the password that your administrator
gave you. (Your department administrator will assign you an experiment number
and a password.)
Quick
start
For
those of you who can't stand reading documentation, here's all you need to get
started quickly:
1. Get an experiment number
and password from your administrator
2. Select "experimenter
area" from the main page. Your logon is the experiment
number. Use the password that your administrator gave you.
3. Select "edit header"
to provide details for your experiment posting.
4. Select "add new times"
to add sessions that people can sign up for.
5.
Select "view schedule" to look at the current schedule and be
sure to check the box labeled "Display experiment to
students". (You may need to select a view that lists at least
one session in order to see the "display experiment to students"
checkbox.)
6. After the experimental session,
select "view schedule" to award credit (or penalty) to the
participant.
Slower
start
Here
are all of the things that you can do as an experimenter. These options
can each be selected after logging in to the experimenter area. For specific
situations, also see the Common scenarios section below.
View
Schedule (This
is the option typically used for awarding credit for past sessions)
This
option displays the schedule for your experiment. A drop-down list
provides several filters that you can use to show specified subsets of the
sessions in your experiment. You can see past sessions, future sessions
that are taken (i.e., for which a participant has signed up), and available
future sessions. For any past sessions you have the option of awarding
research credit, applying the penalty (for the participant failing to show
up for an appointment), or canceling the session and removing it from the
schedule all together (with no credit or penalty). Each of these options
has help associated with it, which you can access by clicking the symbol. Future sessions can be removed
from the schedule from this area also. Note that on this screen the
participant names are links that permit you to send email to them (if you are
using a browser that is properly configured to do so). Note also that
changes that involve cancellation of a session will produce an email message
that is sent to the participant informing them of the cancellation (if your administrator
has that option activated, and if the cancelled session is in the future).
The
check box "Display Experiment to Students" at the top of this page
can be used to either display (when checked) or hide the experiment from
students. If the box is checked the experiment will be visible to
students only if there are future sessions in the schedule. (There is no
need to display an experiment if there is no scheduled or possible future
activity!) If the box is not checked, subjects who are looking for an experiment
in which to participate will not see the experiment. (You may need to
select a filter that produces a list of at least one session before you will
see the "display experiment to students" checkbox.)
Add
New Times
This
is the option to choose if you want to create new sessions in your
experiment. You can pick a date and time for the session, and you can add
multiple sessions all at the same time. By default, a session is an
"open appointment" in the sense that it will be an available time for
which a student might sign up. However, it is also possible to sign up on
behalf of a specific student when you create the appointment. For
example, you might have ascertained through a telephone call that a particular
student is able to participate in your experiment at a specific time. You
can simply create that time slot for them and add them right to the schedule as
you are creating it. To do this, specify the date and time, and in the
"participant" box, select the participant who you would like to
schedule. Note that only registered members who have activated their
account (that is, logged on within 3 days of receiving their password) will
appear as a potential choice in the participant box.
If
you do plan to add a participant directly to the schedule, we suggest that you
do so as soon as possible after having agreed on an appointment time.
This will help prevent possible future scheduling conflicts. We urge you
to NOT use this option to create "phantom" appointments for participants
who are not expected to attend an actual session. Instead, use batch credit or direct credit to award credit to a participant
who has not signed up for an appointment.
Batch
Credit
This
is a way to award credit to students who have participated in your experiment but
who did so without having signed up for an appointment. (If the
subject signed up for an appointment, credit should be awarded to them through
the "view schedule" page, as described above.) This feature may
be useful if you conduct "batch testing sessions" or other situations
in which people participate in your experiment without having signed up through
the web site. In these situations you should obtain the student ID
numbers of the participants. (If you do not have the student ID numbers,
then you can assign credits using the direct credit option described below.)
The
student ID numbers can be typed directly or pasted into the box on the batch
credit page. The batch credit page provides additional information about
this option. Note that any ID numbers that the software does not
recognize (if, for example, a student has not yet registered and activated
their account) will be displayed to you after you submit the numbers. So,
you can be confident that the credit has actually been awarded unless you
receive a message to the contrary.
You
can use direct credit to award credit to a student who participated in your
experiment but who did so without having signed up for an appointment.
(If the subject signed up for an appointment, credit should be awarded to them
through the "view schedule" page, as described above.) Here you
need the participant's name, but not their ID number. (If you have only
their ID number, use batch credit, described above.) The
procedure is very simple--select the option from the experimenter page to see
more details. (If you have a large number of participants to be awarded
credit you may find that the batch credit option is more convenient to use than
direct credit.)
Edit
Header
This
may be the first thing you will need to do--but then you may never need to do
it again. The header contains the description of your experiment
that is displayed to potential participants when they are searching for an
experiment in which to participate. The information required is
straightforward. A subset of the information is shown on the "sign
up" page that contains the listing of all current experiments. The
remaining information from the header is visible when the participant selects
"view schedule".
Change Password
You can change the
password for your experiment. Select this option to do so.
Set
Eligibility
You can restrict participation in your
experiment to students who have not been in certain specific other
experiments, or to participants who have participated in other
"prerequisite" experiments. Do so by selecting this
option. By default, students are not permitted to participate in your
experiment more than once, and participation in any other experiment has no
bearing on eligibility for the current experiment. The instructions on
the page are easy to follow.
Set
Authorization Code
You can use this option to restrict sign ups
for your experiment. If you enter a value for "Authorization
Code" on this page participants will be required
to provide the code when they sign up for your experiment. This can be useful
if you wish to restrict potential participants based on some known
criterion. For example, if you previously performed mass testing and wish
only to allow people who attained a particular score to participate in your
experiment you could set an authorization code for your experiment and then
provide that code only to people who meet your eligibility criteria, perhaps
with a mass e-mailing. Then if they decide to participate they can sign up for
times you have posted, but no one else can.
Set Lead Time
With this option you can prevent participants from signing
up at the last minute, perhaps catching you unprepared to conduct the
experiment on short notice. On this page you can specify a "lead
time" (in days, hours, and minutes). Any open appointments that are
not taken within that lead- time of the scheduled start time will be
automatically removed from the schedule. If a subject cancels within the
lead-time, their time slot will disappear from the schedule. Note that
the lead- time is not the same as the minimum time needed for a participant to
cancel; that time is set by your administrator.
Common scenarios facing experimenters:
How
do I make my experiment visible in the listings?
For an experiment to be visible (1) there
must be some future appointment times, either open or taken, AND (2) in the
"view schedule" option from the experimenter page you must check the
box "Display experiment to students".
How
do I create a session for a particular participant?
Select "add new
times" from the experimenter page. Select
the date for the session and the start and stop times. In the
"participant" box, select the participant who you would like to
schedule. Click "add new times". (Only participants who
have registered and activated their accounts will be available to choose
from. Accounts are activated when the participant logs on within 3 days
of registration.)
How
do I cancel a session for a participant who phoned-in to cancel?
Assuming that the participant called soon
enough to cancel without penalty, you can cancel their session from the
"view schedule" page. Find the session in question and press
the "cancel" button. All records of the appointment will be
removed--the effect will be as if the participant had never signed up for the
experiment.
How
do I award credit to a participant who served in an experiment "off the
books" (i.e. someone who served but did not sign up through the web site)
If you know the participant's ID number:
use "batch credit".
If you know the participant's name use "direct credit".
(Either method will be effective only for participants who have registered and
activated their accounts. Accounts are activated when the participant
logs on within 3 days of registration.)
We urge you NOT to create
"phantom" sessions for participants if you do not expect them to
actually attend. One reason is that creation and cancellation of such
sessions often results in email to the participant reminding them of their
"appointment", many of whom will forget that it was not to be a
"real" appointment. Instead, batch credit, or direct credit
should be used.
How
do I remove my experiment from the listings?
Go to the "view schedule"
page. Clear the checkbox marked "Display experiment to
students".
How
do I award extra credit for a session that was longer than expected?
Depending on the rules governing the use
of your participant pool, you may have the option of awarding
a participant a number of credit units other than the default for your
experiment. When credits are awarded from the "view schedule"
page, a box is available in which the number of credits can be entered. The
default value for your experiment is set on the "edit header" page.
How
can I restrict signups to certain people who qualified based on some external
criterion?
If you have a subset of participants who
are eligible for your experiment perhaps because of some score they obtained on
some test, or because they are enrolled in a particular course, you may set an authorization code for your experiment.
The code might be announced in class (if all present are eligible), sent via
email, or delivered via telephone. In any case, the scheduling software
will handle the details of scheduling the appointments, and you can be assured
that only members who know the authorization code will be able to sign
up. An alternative to the authorization code is to credit all eligible
students with zero credits in a "screening experiment". (The
zero credits will not affect their credit total.) Then select "set
eligibility" and make participation in that screening experiment a
requirement for participation in your experiment.
How
can I schedule a multi-session experiment?
One way to do this is to use two
experiment numbers--one for the first session and one for the second
session. Participants can be informed (perhaps through the experiment
description in the experiment header) that both sessions must be scheduled to
receive credit. After having served and received credit for the
first session, subjects can be asked to sign up for the second.
Importantly, the eligibility for the second
"experiment" (session) can be set to require participants to have
completed the earlier experiment.
What
if my experiment meets in different places on different days?
The easiest way to deal with this is to
use unique experiment numbers for each location of your experiment.
Eligibility can be set so that no student can sign up for any one of the
experiments if they had been in any of the others. Using unique
experiments for each location can help to eliminate confusion regarding the testing
location.
What
if you need help?
If
you have questions, you should contact the any member of the participant pool
committee. (Usually the person who provided you with an
experiment number and password.)
V. Frequently asked
questions about the participant pool mechanism and related topics
Who may request use of PSYC
103 students as potential research participants?
Only
faculty members and psychology students under faculty supervision in the
College of Charleston Psychology Department may utilize the participant
pool. Because the PSYC 103 research
requirement (i.e., 3 credits) is modest, the size of the pool is modest and may
wax and wane with enrollments. This
policy is intended to avoid the over-use of the participant pool so that
faculty investigators and their students will have a population of participants
available for class-based and independent research projects.
Does the Participant Pool Committee approve or sanction the offering of
my research project to students?
No, the Participant Pool Committee (PPC) does not
function to approve or regulate research projects. The PPC develops policies and oversees procedures that
relate to the operations of the PSYC 103 participant pool mechanism only.
I am a faculty member who wishes to use the participant pool for my own
research project. I plan to conduct the
project on my own, although I might get a student to help me gather and score
data. In any case, the research is
clearly faculty-driven. To whom do I go
for a review of the project?
APA guidelines specify that
you should have a research project reviewed by colleagues before you begin
gathering data. The appropriate vehicle
for reviewing faculty research, even if the research is minimal risk, is the
College's IRB.
IRB review, however, is not
necessary if the research project involves only minimal risk and is an
integral part of a student's coursework.
The IRB agreed in February of 1994 that minimal risk research conducted
by psychology majors as part of their coursework is exempt from IRB
review under a federal regulation exempting "Research conducted in
established or commonly accepted educational settings, involving normal
educational practices....". This was interpreted to refer to laboratory
coursework, independent studies, and bachelor's essays that have clear research
requirements. However, the IRB noted
that projects that are faculty-initiated and use students largely as research
assistants do not fulfill the educational exemption requirement and thus
require IRB review. In general, we would
like to encourage all students completing independent studies to get IRB
approval, as this procedure is a very important learning tool.
I am unsure whether my project fits the description of placing
participants only at "minimal risk".
What should I do? Whether you are a student or
faculty member, any project that is not clearly a minimal risk project must be
submitted to the College's IRB for a full review by colleagues. Whenever you
are unsure about whether or not you need IRB approval, contact the IRB at
953-5673.
I want to test children outside of the College for a lab project. What should I do? The
What if investigators outside of the
Please
explain that the use of participants from PSYC
103 classes is reserved for laboratory courses and department faculty. Ask them to contact the any member of the
participant pool committee if they have additional concerns.
What if I am approached by
investigators outside of the College asking to recruit my students as
participants from courses other than PSYC 103?
Researchers
not affiliated with the
Does
imposing a research requirement constitute an unfair form of coercion?
No, not if
we provide students with an equitable, non-experiment based alternative. This practice is consistent with the ethical
principles for psychologists (APA, 1992).
Furthermore, it is a practice common to many psychology
departments across teaching and research institutions nationally.
Is it
appropriate to base a portion of a student’s grade on their willingness to
participate as a research subject? If so, how should this be
done?
Yes, this is the primary means of
promoting and ensuring participation.
Ethical principle 6.14b cautions that any research requirement (or
equivalent experience) should not constitute such a large portion of their
grade as to promote a form of coercion (APA, 1992). Therefore, the research requirement will
represent no more than 5% of students' grade in the course. This is consistent with our current policy
about providing extra-credit incentives.
Extra credit must not exceed 5% so as to avoid undue pressure or
coercion to participate in research.