Participant Pool Information

If you are a student in Psyc 100, you are eligible to sign up for studies and earn course credit. Students in most Psyc 200-level courses are also eligible. Please check your course syllabus.

The following link will take you to SONA, our online Participant Management Software where you can sign up for studies.

1. To be in the Participant Pool, you have to be enrolled in a course offering extra credit for research participation

2. You will receive your SONA login information in an email around the 3rd week of classes. You must have your student number and SONA password to sign up for studies (Note: this password is NOT your Queen’s email account password). For more details on registration, go to 2:31 of the SONA instructional video.

You can start signing up as soon as you receive your login information. Some research studies are usually already posted the third week of the fall term and new ones are added throughout the year. The last day you can earn extra research credit is the last day of classes for each semester. This cut-off is necessary so that we can distribute the credit information to instructors in a timely manner.

Your final mark will increase by 0.5% for every half hour of research participation you complete. For example, if your mark in a course is a 78%, but you completed two different hour-long studies, your final mark for the course will be a 80%. Thus the grade on your transcript will be an A- instead of a B+. Your instructor will list the amount of extra credits allowed in their course on the course syllabus. For PSYC 100, students can earn a maximum of 5% toward their final course grade. For participating PSYC 200-level courses, students can earn between 2%-5% depending on the course.

If you are enrolled in more than one eligible course, you can complete studies toward each course. However, the same credits cannot be applied to more than one course.

Note that if you are in the on-campus PSYC 100 course, there is a 2.5 credit cap for online studies. This means that of your total of 5 credits, only 2.5 of those credits can be from online studies. There is no cap for in-person studies.

Note that research credit cannot be used to improve a failing mark into a passing mark.

We understand that unexpected events do occur, and you may be unable to attend the session you sign up for as a result of extenuating circumstances. Cancel your research appointment in SONA as soon as possible (no later than 3 hrs before the appointment time), so that another student can be recruited to fill your spot. Please contact the researcher via email if you need to cancel an appointment within 3 hours of the appointed time. An “excused no-show” is guaranteed if you contact researchers 3 or more hours in advance of your appointment.

We understand that unexpected events do occur. You should contact the experimenter with a brief explanation. If further appointments are available, and you are able to reschedule, the no-show will be excused. If you are not able to reschedule, but there are clear extenuating circumstances, again the no-show will be excused.

There are no penalties for a missed appointment (either for a study or an alternative assignment). However, after two unexcused no-shows you will not be able to sign up for any more studies and alternative assignments until the end of the semester.

If you have reached the limit of two unexcused no-shows you will not be able to sign up for additional studies or alternative assignments until the end of the semester. If there were extenuating circumstances, please contact the researchers first. You can follow up with the Participant Pool coordinator at participant.pool@queensu.ca.

You will be automatically granted the ability to sign up for studies to earn research credit the following academic semester.

Some research is designed with a particular population in mind, e.g., women, individuals in relationships, etc. Prescreening is a process that allows researchers to reach that population. As part of your SONA registration, you can complete four demographic questions. In addition, during the first week of the fall semester you will be emailed a link to a separate online prescreening questionnaire that contains more than just demographic questions. You can complete the SONA prescreening at any time (for more details, go to 8:45 on the video), but the larger prescreening questionnaire will be due by the end of the drop/add period. If you complete the prescreening questionnaire, you often become eligible for additional studies. The those researchers will contact you directly to find a time to participate. Please note that you will never have to sign up for the offered studies; completing the prescreening questionnaire simply gives you additional opportunities to complete your credits as you prefer (for more details on how to sign up for studies, go to 3:41 of the instructional video).

For details on individual studies, such as your eligibility or finding about the results, please contact the researcher in charge listed on SONA or in your letter of information.

To report any ethical or procedural concerns regarding an experiment or the conduct of an experimenter, follow the instructions from the letter of information you have received (LOI). For the Queen’s University Health Sciences and Affiliated Teaching Hospitals Research Ethics Board (HSREB) call 1-844-535-2988 (Toll free in North America) or clarkaf@queensu.ca. For research conducted outside of North America use: 1-613-533-2988. For Queen’s General Research Ethics Board, please call 1-844-535- 2988 (Toll free in North America) or chair.GREB@queensu.ca. Call 1-613-533-2988 if outside North America. Do NOT contact your course instructor(s); they are not involved in administering the studies.

Participation in research is entirely voluntary. If you want to earn credit but don’t want to participate in studies, you have the option of completing an alternative assignment instead.

The “alternative assignment” is an alternative to research participation that offers similar learning benefits. For an alternative assignment, researchers either will offer a walk-through of their experiment (without collecting data from you), or they will have you read an article or blog post, listen to a short podcast, or watch a short video and then answer questions about it. For all on-campus students, alternative assignments are administered in the lab.

Although the length of studies will vary, the alternative assignment will take less time (approximately 30 minutes), so you will earn 0.5% for each alternative assignment that you complete.

In order to complete an alternative assignment, log on to SONA and then click on ‘studies.’ When you select a study, scroll down to find the ‘Principal Investigator’. Right Click on the mailbox icon on the right side of the screen, and select ‘copy email address’ to copy the Principal Investigator’s email address. Send that PI an email requesting to complete an alternative assignment. To complete more than one alternative assignment, you have to contact different Principal Investigators. You can request to complete an alternative assignment anytime before the last week of classes. Please note that your course instructor is not involved in the administration of alternative assignments.

Each lab offers a single, unique alternative assignment. Thus, you may contact a PI only once per year.

Yes! Look for studies with (ONLINE) in the title. They do not require your physical presence on campus.

Yes! Follow the directions under "How do I sign up for an alternative assignment?" above. In your email to the PI, please specify that you are a distance student and that you need to complete the assignment on a computer. Please note that some assignments may not be feasibly completed via a computer, and thus PIs may direct you to other labs. However, there should be plenty of assignments for you to choose from.

Please see your syllabi.

The participant pool is set up as a learning opportunity for you, a training opportunity for advanced students, and a research resource. When you don’t show up for an appointment for a study or an alternative assignment, you miss a learning opportunity; however, this also disrupts the broader system. It prevents other students for being able to participate in your place and wastes the time and resources of student trainees and researchers. It also contributes to waste of public funds as most research is sponsored by federal funding agencies. These funds pay for equipment, supplies, and researcher salaries. To maintain the integrity of the system, there is a limit of two unexcused no-shows per semester.

If you are interested in participating in research outside of the framework of the Psychology Participant Pool, please contact individual labs or researchers. Notices are posted on billboards in Humphrey Hall.

Go to ‘Forgot your password?’. You will be sent instructions on how to reset your password so you can log in to SONA.

If you find that the number of emails or calls that you receive excessive, you may opt to have your name removed from the pre-screen list where you provided your contact information. Please email Dr. Lee Fabrigar, at the Department of Psychology. Note that you still can sign up for studies listed on SONA.

A short description of each study is available on SONA. The studies represent many areas of psychology: social, cognitive, neuroscience, clinical, and developmental. They also employ a wide range of research methods and tools.

You can participate in a study only one time. Note, however, that some studies have more than one session.

No. You cannot get credit more than once for the same study, i.e., you cannot use the same credit toward more than one course.

You will be able to get this information from the SONA dashboard. For more information, go to 3:53 of the SONA instructional video or https://youtu.be/_1OnT2ZU6QQ?t=3m53s.

If you have participated in a study but haven’t received your credit, first contact the researcher in charge of the study (listed on SONA). If that does not resolve the problem, then contact participant.pool@queensu.ca stating your name, student number, the name of the study, and the date you completed it.

No – some studies have restrictions, e.g., language background, not in a relationship, etc. It is important that you are mindful of these restrictions. They will be listed in the study description box in SONA. If you are unclear if you are eligible for a particular study, please contact the researcher.

If there is anything special that a study requires, e.g., no sex in the last 24 hours, you will be informed by the researchers. Otherwise, no preparation is required. Researchers appreciate it if you arrive on time and are in good physical and cognitive condition to be engaged with them for the duration of the study.

At the end of a study, you should be “debriefed.” Debriefing can be verbal, on the computer screen, or through a debriefing letter and it should help you make sense of the research experience you’ve had. In some cases researchers may explain in more detail the question they are working on, in others what the variables in the study are, or yet in other cases how the tools they use work. If something picked your interest or raised a question, don’t hesitate to ask. What you receive – or learn – is partly in your hands!

Debriefing is also ethically required when there was deception or the study presents emotional, psychological, or other risks to participants. These risks and deception should be fully explained to your satisfaction .

No. For half-year courses, we send the extra credit information to the instructors at the end of the term. For full-year courses, credits are sent at the end of the school year.

Yes. Ethical concerns about the research should be directed to the Queen’s Ethics Board that has reviewed the research, HSREB or GREB (see your letter of information). Concerns about credits, no-shows, and other matters concerning the pool should be addressed to the Participant Pool Coordinator at participant.pool@queensu.ca. In the case of an unexcused no-show, if there were extenuating circumstances, please contact the researcher first.