Volunteering for Research in Psychology at St. FX:
F Student Information
Like most psychology
departments we invite psychology students to participate in ongoing research
taking place within our department. Students can earn up to 5 bonus
percentage points added to their final year's end mark. Please read the
information about the participant pool below. If you have any additional
questions or concerns regarding your rights or treatment as a research participant,
you may contact the Subject Pool Coordinator, Dr. M. Watt (e-mail:
mwatt@stfx.ca).
Psychology 100 Participant Pool
What is the Psychology 100 Participant Pool?
As part of their responsibilities at the University, professors and some of the senior students carry out research studies, and many of these studies call for humans as research participants. Like other universities, StFX has a system which involves the students in all the Psychology 100 classes, called the Psychology Department Research Participant Pool.
Students have the opportunity to earn a small amount of bonus credit in the course, in return for helping out the University and the Department by participating in research. You can earn up to 5 bonus points, if you take part in 5 hours worth of studies. The credits you can earn are calculated based on the amount of your time that a study requires. For example, if you take part in a study that takes 20 minutes of your time, you will earn 0.33% bonus credit. Of if you participate in a study that takes one hour of your time, you will earn 1% bonus credit. The number of credits you will be able to earn depends both on how many studies you take part in and on how many participants are required by researchers in the department. Thus, you should be aware that you are not guaranteed to earn all 5 bonus points.
Advantages and Alternatives to Participating in the Pool
Besides earning bonus credits, there are a few other advantages to participating in research studies. Participating in these studies gives you first hand knowledge of what psychological research is. It will teach you about many of the topics that you will be studying in Psych 100 this year. Many students also find participating in studies to be enjoyable. If you go on in the Psychology program, you will be required to design studies of your own in the future, and this gives you an opportunity to see what psychology studies are like, from the participant’s point of view.
Participation is entirely voluntary – you are not required or obligated at all to take part if you don’t want to. If you do not wish to participate in the Participant Pool, talk to Dr. Margo Watt (mwatt@stfx.ca), the Participant Pool Co-ordinator, and she will give you some assignments you can do for the bonus credit, instead. Very few people choose this option though, because participating in research studies are a fun way to learn about psychology, and participating is also a really easy way to earn bonus credit.
How to Sign up for Research Studies
Early in the term, you will be given the opportunity to complete a booklet of questionnaires in class. Your responses to these questionnaires will be used by some researchers to select participants for research studies (i.e., some researchers require an equal number of left and right-handed participants in their studies or some other researchers require participants who are in relationships). You will receive 1% bonus credit for completing these questionnaires.
If you are selected to participate in a study, you will receive either a phone call or an email from a researcher. At that point, if you agree to participate you will be able to schedule a mutually agreeable time to participate with the researcher. However, it is important for you to remember that participation is voluntary.
As well, from time to time, researchers will visit classes with sign-up sheets for studies too. So even if you did not fill out the questionnaire booklet, you will still have the opportunity to participate in research later.
Whenever you participate in a study, for which you earn Psych 100 bonus credit, the researcher will give you a green card that indicates how much bonus credit you have earned. This will allow you to keep track of your credits.
Your Obligations as a Participant in Research Studies
When you make an appointment to participate in a study, it is of the utmost importance that you show up for the appointment. Always write down the name of the researcher and his or her contact information, so that if you cannot make it, you can (and should) call the researcher to cancel the appointment. Alternatively, you can call the Psychology Department office to leave a message for the researcher, the day before or at least a few hours before the appointment. The number is 867-3926. When you make an appointment to participate in a study, you are obligated to show up. When researchers schedule appointments with participants they take the appointment very seriously and will wait for you to arrive. If you do not bother to show up for an appointment or call to cancel, you waste researchers’ time, you compromise the work schedules of the studies, and you waste University resources. This kind of thing is a serious problem. If you make an appointment, you have an obligation to show up.
Your Rights as a Participant in Research Studies
Every time you participate in a study, there will be an informed “consent” form for you to read and sign before you begin participating. Such consent forms indicate that the data you provide will always be either confidential or completely anonymous. Participation is always voluntary (no one is ever compelled or forced to participate in any psychology research), and you can always omit any part of the procedure you do not want to do or any questions you do not want to answer. You can withdraw your participation for any reason at any point before or during the procedure – in other words, you can get up and leave any time you want, without even giving an explanation if you don’t want to. The consent form will also provide you with contact information for someone you can get in touch with if you have any concerns or comments about your experience while participating. Finally, as a research participant, in most cases you’ll be fully informed in advance about the purpose of the study, what you will be asked to do as a participant, and any risks that might be involved.
If you show up for an appointment for a study, and then decide not to participate, you will still get bonus credit, just for showing up. If you decide to withdraw from the study after you have already started, you will still get your credit even if you withdraw. You can learn more about your rights on pages 60-61 of Gazzaniga and Heatherton’s Psychological Science textbook.
All the research done at the University is reviewed by a committee of professors to make sure it follows the standards of ethical research practice.
We hope that you learn from your experiences as a research participant and that your experiences are enjoyable.
Signed,
The Research Ethics Committee
Last updated October 29, 2008 by Dr. Jennifer Sullivan, Website Manager