2016 PROCEDURES FOR EXPERIMENTERS - UNDERGRADUATE POOL

The School of Psychology manages a pool of undergraduate participants drawn from its PSYC1101, PSYC1102 and PSYC2203 units. This pool has two complementary purposes:

  • Undergraduate students have the opportunity to experience research from the participant’s perspective as well as gaining important insight into what experiments entail and how they contribute to answering a research question.
  • Researchers in the School of Psychology have access to sufficient numbers of participants.

To gain access to this pool the procedures outlined in this document must be completed.

General Information

The Undergraduate Pool will comprise PSYC1101 and PSYC2203 students in first semester (29 February – 10 June) and PSYC1102 students in second semester (1 August – 11 November).Class lists will be uploaded to SONA on the first day of each semester and at regular intervals through the semester break.

SONA will remain open over the semester break.

SONA will remain open to PSYC1101 studentsover the break and accounts will be made for students enrolling in PSYC1102. Students will be able to accrue credits for PSYC1102 from the 11th June through to the 11th November (e.g. semester break and Semester 2).

PSYC1101 and PSYC1102 receive 6% of their unit grade once they have completed 5 credit points worth of experiments. PSYC2203 receive 5% of their unit grade once they’ve completed 3 credit points worth of experiments.

Credits MUST be allocated by COB on Friday 10 June and Friday 11 November. It is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that credits are allocated in a timely manner.

A credit is the equivalent of 1 hour of testing (e.g. 1-30 mins = 0.5 credits; 31-60 mins = 1 credit). Staff, HDR and Honours students receive the following quote of credit points to allocate to undergraduate students:

  • Staff: 100 credits per year;
  • Honours and Masters: 50 credits in total;
  • DPsyc: 90 credits per year; and
  • PhD: 270 over three years.

Forstaffmembersyour100creditsareinclusiveofanytestingyourresearchassistantscomplete.Thatis,youdonotget100creditsforeveryresearchassistantyouhave.

Ifyouhaveagrant, PRAfunds,youcanunderwriteyourselforanyofyourstudents(Honours,Masters,DPsych,PhD)tousemorecreditsthanyourquota.ThecatchregardingthisoverwritingisyoumayhavetopaytheSchoolback$10foreverycredityouoryourstudents/RA'suseoveryourquota.Asaschool,weneedtoensureeverypersoncangetaccesstotheir quota. Ifmorethe80%ofthe available undergraduateparticipant'scredits (e.g. number of PSYC1101, PSYC1102 and PSYC2203 students x credit points required) havebeenused,theSchoolwillstartpayingsubjectssothatresearcherscanreachtheirquota.Thus,ifyouhavegoneoveryourquotabyunderwritingwithyourgrantfunds,youmayberequiredtopaytheSchoolback$10foreverycredityouoryourstudentsuseoveryourquota.

Honours students are required to have their research proposal and ethics approval in hand before they can begin testing. These documents are submitted via the Honours Thesis Submission system which opens on the first day of semester.

Honours students MUST have approval from their supervisor for their proposal.

Ethics documents MUST include the student’s name before testing can begin.

Application to Recruit from Undergraduate Pool Form

The Application to Recruit from Undergraduate Pool Formis available for download at

Allresearcherswishingtorecruitstudents from PSYC1101, PSYC1102 and/ or PSYC2203asparticipantsmustcompletethis form.

The title of your study on the application must match the one you list in SONA.

You must sign the form (staff) or obtain your supervisor's signature (students). The supervisor will ensure that all ethicalrequirementshavebeensatisfiedandwillattesttothisfactthroughhis/hersignature.

A signed copy must be submitted to the Front Office before an account will be created.

Honours student must also present evidence that their supervisor has signed off on their proposal.

YouarerequiredbytheUWAHumanResearchEthicsCommitteetolodgeyourexperimentwiththeFrontOffice, regardlesswhetheritisadvertised, and provide a copy of:

  • InformationSheet.Thismustlistthetitleoftheexperiment;provide informationabouttheprocedures;yourcontactdetailsandthecontactdetailsofyoursupervisor.
  • EthicsApproval. This will be the letterfromthe UWA Human Research Ethics Office.

It must include your ethics approval expiry date (must have at least 6 months remaining).

Students must be listed on the letter as a researcher.

  • De-Brief Sheet. It is very important to provide a debriefing sheet to every participant in your experiment in order for them to have an appropriate educational experience (although they are free to decline the sheet when offered). This is a key requirement to maintaining the undergraduate participation system that is currently in place. These sheets can be identical for PSYC1101/1102 and PSYC2203, or two different sheets may be created.
  • PSYC2203:The debrief sheet for PSYC2203 must include three multiple choice questions (each with four response options) that can be answered using the information provided. To provide appropriate educational opportunities for PSYC 2203 participants, the multiple choice questions should focus on simple research design and statistical issues related to your research (see Appendix 1 for examples).

Multiple choice questions/ answers will be reviewed by PSYC2203 Unit Coordinator, Troy Visser, before an account is the study will be approved in SONA or your study approved. This may take up to a week.

Using SONA

Once you have submitted your Application to Recruit from Undergraduate Pool Formand associated documents, the Front Office will create an account for you on the School's SONA system For PSYC1101 or PSYC1102 applications, accounts will typically be created within two days but will depend on Front Office workloads.

Your account ID will be the same as your staff or student ID and your login details will be automatically emailed to your @uwa/ @student email address. SONA will then generate a password.

Your password will be different from your Pheme password (you can adjust this once you’ve logged in for the first time).

OnceyouhaveyourlogindetailsyouwillthenbeabletoaccessSONAand"Addanewstudy".

You must nominate the correct unit/s (e.g. PSYC Level 1 and/ or PSYC Level 2) when creating your study.

The details you will be asked to enter when setting up the study must mirror those provided in the Application to Recruit from Undergraduate Pool Formand in your Ethics Approval. In particular, it is important that the title is the same as on the form so that the Admin Assistant can find your study in the system to approve and that the EthicsApproval Code and Expiration date.

The title, student unit, ethics code and expiry date will be checked by Admin before a study is approved.

Onceyou have created yourstudyyoucanthensubmitit through SONAforapproval.SONA will send an automatic email to the Front Office. As with the application, approval (or request for further information) willtypically be granted within 48 hrs but will depend on Front Office workloads.

Changes to the details of your study will require approval from the Admin Team:

  • Minor changes (e.g. changing a word in the description or title) can be approved by the Admin Team within 48 hours subject to workload; but
  • Major changes (e.g. a substantial change to the text and meaning of the description) student researchers must provide evidence of approval from their supervisor.

Testingsubjects

Onceyourstudyhasbeenapproveditwillbeviewablebyparticipantswithinthesystemandtheywillbeabletostartchoosingavailabletimeslots.The systemwillnotifybothparties(participantandresearcher)onceatimeslothasbeenfilled.

If you are using the mass screening instruments administered in 1st and 2ndyear laboratories, you will need to either email or phone a unique sign up code to participants that will allow them to sign up for your specific study. It is requested that you avoid approaching students during the semester break as we cannot guarantee that PSYC1101 student will continue on to PSYC1102.

Researchers MUST use the correct screening data. If testing before second Semester (1 August) you must use the PSYC1101 and PSYC2203 mas screening data. If testing after this date you must use the PSYC1102 data.

When a timeslot has been completed (i.e. a testing session has occurred), the researcher is then responsible for "actioning" the timeslot within SONA. That is, as soon as possible after the testing session has occurred the researcher must select the timeslot within SONA and indicate whether the participant (a) attended (credit), (b) was an excused no-show, or was an (c) unexcused no-show. You would choose 'excused no-show' if the participant has contacted you before or within 24 hours after the experimental session.

Any reason provided by the student is legitimate because their participation is completely voluntary.

Actioning feeds directly into the participant's credit requirements, so it is important that it is done promptly. Delays in actioning timeslots are escalated within the system and automated suspension of studies can be implemented.

Given the simplicity of the system, there should be no reason for completed timeslots to remain "un-actioned" for more than 24 hours.

Where students undertake testing together, credit points can be transferred between accounts. However, an email MUST be sent to the account cc’ing all students involved as well as supervisors requesting describing how many points should be transferred between which accounts.

APPENDIX 1 – Sample PSYC2203 De-brief Sheet Questions

  1. (One of) the independent variable(s) in this experiment is:
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  1. (One of) the dependent variable(s) in this experiment is:
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  1. One possible hypothesis of this experiment is that:
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  1. What statistical procedure could you use to determine ifGroup A and Group B perform differently?
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  1. What statistical procedure could you use to determine ifGroups A, B, and C perform differently?
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  6. What statistical procedure could you use to determine ifVariable A and Variable B are related?
  7. XXXX
  8. XXXX
  9. XXXX
  10. XXXX
  1. Which groups of individuals comprise the sample used in this experiment?
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX
  1. Which group would be the intended population studied in this experiment?
  2. XXXX
  3. XXXX
  4. XXXX
  5. XXXX

2016 PROCEDURES FOR EXPERIMENTERS - UNDERGRADUATE POOL1