You will participate, if scheduled, for up to (but no more than) 5 hours of research. Most of this research will be conducted in laboratories, requiring that you come to a designated location at a specified time and date. Some of this research will be in the form of online questionnaires, which can be completed from any computer with internet access.

Most experiments last for 30 or 60 minutes, but experiments that last up to 180 minutes can scheduled. Thus, it is possible, (but not likely) that you may be scheduled for ten 30-minute studies (that's one extreme), or for one 3 hour study plus two 60-minute studies (that's the other extreme). For most students, there will be some mix of 30 and 60 minute experiments.

You will usually be chosen to participate in research on the basis of a "random draw." Hence, it might happen that your name will never be selected over the entire semester/session. If this should happen, then you are considered to have satisfied the requirement. You should know however, that it is highly likely that your name will be chosen numerous times over the semester/session.

Also, it's important for you to know that there is one study that every student who picks this (research) option will be selected for. That study is a 60-minute on-line survey. Early in the semester, you will receive an e-mail at your UDel email address that tells you how to link to the survey on the internet. Once you're at the survey, you will have a choice between completing it or writing a paper. You will be given a deadline by which to go to the survey site and either complete the survey or choose to write a paper.. If you fail to do this by the deadline, it will be considered a "no-show" (see more information about "no-shows" below).

After you've entered your information into the Research Participation data base you can check for your scheduled studies by going to the Students' Home Page and logging in. As you'll see, it's a very simple matter to check your studies, and we urge you to do that at least once every two days. Most experimenters will send an email (to your udel email account) when you've been scheduled for a study, which will contain information about date, time, place, length of study, and so on. However, and we repeat, it's a very good idea for you to check for your scheduled studies at least once every two days, and there are two reasons for this:

(1) this is the only way to be sure that the study you're being asked to come to has been scheduled by faculty members of the psychology department.
(2) the researcher might not have sent you an email.

There is also at least one experiment (mentioned above) that is an on-line survey. Such experiments will be listed on your schedule, but without a date or time for the appointment. This is because you will choose the time you complete the survey, within the deadline we give you. For experiments like this, you will receive e-mail instructions on how to complete it. Please understand that completion of online surveys that are scheduled through our research participation system will count towards the five hours of participation time mentioned above. So, a sixty minute online questionnaire counts towards the five hours, just as much as a one hour laboratory experiment.

There is such a wide variety of experiments conducted in the Psychology Department from semester to semester that it's impossible to tell you what the studies you will be scheduled for are like. Instead, you learn what a given experiment will entail when you arrive at an experiment, before you decide to participate. The experimenter will tell you as much as he or she can about the study, so that you know what activities you will be doing in the study. The experimenter cannot tell you what the hypotheses of the study are yet, because that would bias the results.

Most of the time the initial description of the experiment will accurately indicate what it is really about. However, on occasion the experimenter will find it necessary to mislead you as to the true purpose of the study. Such deception can occur in one of two ways: (a) the experimenter may simply omit some information from the description of the study, or (b) the experimenter may misrepresent the nature of the experiment. Either of these types of deception will only occur when there is no other way for the experimenter to conduct the study in a way that provides meaningful data.

At the end of any study involving deception, it is the experimenter's obligation to describe the deception to you, and also to explain why the deception was necessary.

After hearing about the experiment, you will be asked if you want to participate in it or not. You then sign an "informed consent" form, and indicate on that form whether you have chosen to participate or not. If you choose to participate, the study will proceed. If you choose not to participate, you are free to go, but in place of the experiment your obligation will be to write at least one paper identical in format to the papers written by students who've chosen the Readings Option. (Click here for details.) The number of papers you will write will depend on the length of the experiment.

Length of Study	Number of Papers
1 hour or less	1 paper
more than 1 hour, up to 2 hours	2 papers
more than 2 hours, up to 3 hours	3 papers

If you agree to participate, and then somewhere into the actual experiment you decide you do not wish to participate any longer, the same thing happens (you are free to go but must write one or more papers instead).

Once the experiment is over, you will be given feedback as to its purpose and the hypotheses it was testing. The feedback will usually occur immediately after the experimental session. Sometimes, however, it will occur at a later time. It is the experimenter's responsibility to make sure your questions about the study get answered to your satisfaction.

If you can't attend an experiment, you must cancel it at least 24 hours in advance. It's easy to cancel a study, and below we show you how. However, you must understand that this is the ONLY way to cancel a study. Here's how to cancel:

     1. Go to the Students Home Page

     2. Log in

     3. Click "Study Cancellation" and follow the instructions.

Again, this is the only way to cancel a study. Some students make the mistake of believing they have officially cancelled a study just by sending an e-mail to someone. This is not an official cancellation; you must use the routine described above to cancel a study.

We operate on a good faith system. However, we also reserve the right to move a student into the readings option if we have reason to believe they are taking advantage of the system by repeatedly cancelling experiments. Also, you cannot cancel an experiment that is an on-line survey, since you yourself choose (within the deadline we give you) when you complete it.

Even for on-line surveys, surveys, you will have the option of completing the survey, or writing a paper instead. Specifically, you will go to the internet address (url) for the survey, read the informed consent document, and then (as with experiments) indicate whether you want to complete the survey or write a paper instead. But, and this is important, you must go to the internet address for the questionniare (within the deadline we give you). Failure to do that will lead to your receiving a "no-show".

This is referred to as being a "NO-SHOW." This is a serious problem because both other students, and the experimenters are depending on you. And given that our research pool system makes no-shows very easy to avoid, there is a consequence for a no-show. Specifically, if you receive a no-show, then you will be required to write at least one paper, each identical in format to the papers written by students who've chosen the Readings Option. (Click here for details re' paper requirements and formatting.)

The number of papers you will be required to write will depend on the length of the study for which you were a no-show, as follows:

Length of Study	Number of Papers
1 hour or less	1 paper
more than 1 hour, up to 2 hours	2 papers
more than 2 hours, up to 3 hours	3 papers

 

For students who are chronic no-showers, we reserve the right to move them to the readings option.

We know that sometimes things happen right before an experiment that you can't control. Maybe you got a flat tire or woke up very ill. If something like this happens to you, causing you to miss an experiment that you were unable to cancel, you should e-mail the research participation requirement administrators as soon as possible and tell us what happened. The email address can be found here. Also contact us if you feel an error was made or you have other concerns not answered in this document.

We operate on a good faith system. We will believe you when you contact us. However, we also reserve the right to move a student into the readings option if we have reason to believe they are taking advantage of the system by repeatedly cancelling/missing experiments.