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Researcher Instructions for Using the Psychological Science “Participant Pool” Through the SONAWebsite

Spring 2018

Faculty and advanced students who are conducting research with human participants and who are interested in using the Psychology Participant Pool may do so provided these guidelines are followed.

  1. ALLresearch projects involving humans MUST firstbe reviewed and APPROVED by the Human Studies Council (HSC). This is a University committee that evaluates the ethical nature of each proposed study.

Failure to complete the review process will render you ineligible to utilize the participant pool as dictated by University and Federal Regulations.

Graduate Assistants and the SONA Coordinator, Dr. Bragg, will monitor the system for rule violations. Upon a researcher’s first violation of any Sona rule will result in a warning e-mail from the Sona coordinator; the student-researcher’s instructor will be copied on the e-mail and on any further correspondence. A researcher’s second rule violation will result in another warning e-mail. Should there be a third rule violation, the researcher’s study will be removed from the Sona system, until the researcher’s faculty supervisor (e.g., Psy 222 instructor) contacts the Sona coordinator to allow the research to continue. Faculty supervisors may require researchers to demonstrate their knowledge of Sona rules before allowing the research to continue.

You will need to read this entire document for a complete listing of rules. If you have any questions about the rules you should discuss them with your research supervisor/course instructor and/or with the SONA coordinator. Here is a brief summary of the rules that will lead to violation warnings:

- Signing out more than 1 hour of time slots per day

- Signing out rooms more than 2 weeks in advance

- Choosing a room and time not attached to the list of rules (unless you worked something out with another professor and got your own rooms signed out)

- Any Study Description Violations (See Rules for specific details on this)

- Failing to Show Up or Showing up Late by more than 10 minutes to a scheduled study time

- Failing to assign credit to participants in 48 hours

- The most glaring violation is when researchers cancel their research study within 24 hours before the study is to take place. This should never happen or happen very, very rarely. If a researcher has to cancel a study that is within 24 hours from when data collection was to take place, PLEASE DO NOT JUST ERASE THE STUDY TIME AND THE RECORD OF PARTICIPANTS. You should email all of the participants and let them know of your emergency situation and then award full credit to every participant who was signed up. Participants should not be inconvenienced for your study cancellation. If you cancel the study more than 24 hours before the data collection, you can email participants and let them know that the data collection is canceled and that they are free to sign up for the study at another time.

You can obtain a copy of the appropriate Human Studies Council forms from:

A.Office of Grants and Funded Research - Barnard 120 (860) 832-2366

OR

B. The following website:

OR

C. If you are enrolled in Psychology 222 (Research Methods II), Psychology 597 (Graduate Research), or aMA thesis graduate student, obtain the forms and follow the instructions of your course instructor/thesis advisor.

D.Notesregarding consent forms:

  1. PLEASE STATE IN YOUR CONSENT FORM THAT STUDENTS MUST BE 18 OR

OLDER OR THEY MUST HAVE TURNED IN THE COMPLETED PARENTAL PERMISSION TO THEIR INSTRUCTOR IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE. There is no need to restrict participation to students who are 18 or older. Underage students may participate, as long as they have parental consent. Of course, you may restrict participants

to those who are age 18 years or older if that is your intent.

Here is an example consent form statement: “My signature indicates that I am either 18 years of age or older, or that I have filed a parental consent form with my instructor.”

  1. Please note that underage participants DO NOT need to show the signed parental consent form to every experimenter. They give it to their instructor.
  1. Please include the following notice in all written consent forms: If you have questions about your rights as a research participant or if you have a research- related complaint please contact either HSC co-chair, Dr. Laura Bowman (, 860-832-3118) or Jim Conway (, 860-832-3107).Or you may contact the HSC Administrator, CCSU Human Studies Council at (860) 832-2366, email .

1.After HSC approval, recruit participants:

Four ways to recruit participants are (a) by signing up for available rooms and posting the times in Sona (very limited space available for this), (b) being assigned to visit a specific psychology class (or classes) to run your study, (c) Open Research Days on Mar. 9th, 27th, 28th, and April 11th, and (d) mass testing. Please note that Sona procedures have undergone significant change from the Fall 2016 semester and some final procedural issues might change. If so, you will be updated on changes.

A. Assignment to Visit Psychology Class(es):

Various psychology class meetings will be made available for Sona data collection during the semester beginning in early October.

For students in Psy 222, available dates will be provided by the course instructor, and a process will be determined for assigning researchers to specific classes. Faculty researchers and thesis supervisors should contact the SONA coordinator for available dates and assignment.

A procedure for participant sign-ups is being worked out. Psy 222 students should consult your course instructor for more information.

B. Open Research Day – TuesdayApril 3rd (Psy 136 Fallahi):

This option is similar to assignment to visiting psychology classes (option A). But it is important to note that the class is a large section, where questionnaire type research designs will be the most effective. You might want to arrange your schedule to be available on that day. To participate in data collection on these days you will need to have an HSC approval code by October 31st.

C. Mass Testing Days – Friday, April 6th and Saturday, April 14th:

Spaces will be made available for a large number of studies to collect data on these three dates. Exact times and other procedural details will be provided when available. As with the above open research days, researchers may want to arrange schedules to be available on one or both of these days.

  • Mass testing dates will be the final large scale data collection opportunity for the semester. Mass testing sessions generally work better for survey research studies than experiments, although certain experiments may be able to be conducted. Discuss this with your instructor if you are thinking of the mass testing option and you have an experimental design.

D. Room Sign-ups:

Available rooms and Sign-up rules

THESE WILL BE ADDED WHEN THE ROOMS BECOME AVAILABLE.

Room Capacity:

  • TBD

Rooms listed below are located in the “Psychology Suite” on the ground (basement) floor of Barnard Hall:

oBarnard Hall Rooms A, B, and C (each has room for 1 or 2 participants, and each has a computer available)

oBarnard Hall Computer Lab – limited-use room with 7 computers, only for studies requiring multiple computers at the same time. You cannot sign up for this room through Sona – speak to your course instructor or faculty supervisor if you want to use this room.

Use Sona to sign up for Barnard Rooms A, B, and C.

You may sign up to use a room for no more than one hour per day. Do not exceed this number, as many researchers need to use the rooms.

Do not sign up for a room more than two weeks in advance.

When you add a timeslot for your study, you will be prompted for a location and time. Choose a room using the scroll-down function in SONA, making sure the room is available during the time you are posting the study.

Using the Sona Website

  1. You must make a request to be added to the system as a researcher.

•If you are a PSY 222 or 597 student, your instructor will add your name to the system.

•If you are not in one of the classes listed above, please contact Dr. Caleb Bragg at will add your information if you can confirm that you are being supervised by a faculty member in the Department of Psychological Science at CCSU.

•Once you are added to the system, you will receive an email from “Research Participation System”

containing your username and password.

  1. Once you have your username and password, go to and log onto the system.

Once you log on, you will be on the “Research Participation System” page. From there you can edit

information such as your password and email address. Just go to My Profile and edit as desired.

Note: The My Profile menu has an option to receive reminders of your scheduled appointments,

which you may find useful.

  1. To add a new study, click on Add New Study

There are several options here. Most students will selectStandard Study.

•Enter the study name, study description, your instructor (the “Principal Investigator” for the

study), eligibility requirements (most researchers will have none), the HSC approval number and

expiration data, etc., under Study Information.

•Note: You MUST enter a valid HSC approval code for the study. You will not be able to post

the study without one!

•You must enter an end date for the HSC approval code. Please note that all HSC approvals (even the ones from PSY 222 or 597 instructors) last for one yearfrom the approval date. Please make sure that the end date is THE LATEST POSSIBLE DATE for your study. If you do this, you will avoid problems logging onto Sona later in the semester when you want to change credits, etc.

• Make sure you click “yes” by Approved and Active Study. If you do not do this, people

will not be able to sign up for your study.

• Your study description mustfollow these guidelines:

• Provide a brief rationale for the study. Do not give too much detail, just the gist of the

study. An example might be “You are being asked to participate in a study of college

students’ Internet use”.

• What will the participants do? Limit the description to actual tasks, for example,

“Participants will complete a survey regarding Internet use. They will also provide

information on their age and gender”.

• Indicate about how long the study might take. Be honest, and do not use phrases meant to make your study more attractive like, “Get your credits fast!” or “5-minute study!!”. Simply state the estimated time, for example, “the survey usually takes about 15 minutes, but some participants may require more time”.

• Note that when studies are offered to Participants, they are listed in random order. Loading up your title with leading “A”s or symbols only makes SONA management more difficult for the Administrators.

• Include your contact information.

• Do not mention incentives like “Free candy!”

•Once you have completed the steps outlined above, scroll down to “Advanced Settings” and find

Participant Sign-Up Deadline and Participant Cancellation Deadline. The default is 24

hours for each of these, but you should specify your owndeadlines

for sign-ups and cancellations.

• Hint: When you add your study, you might want to scroll down to “Advanced Settings” and select

the option: Should researcher receive email when a participant signs up or cancels?

• After you add a study, you will see a summary window that will indicate that your study has

been added. You should view your study information to make sure it is correct. If it isn’t, scroll

downand select Change Study Information. Edit information as needed.

4. Add time slots

• Log onto the Sona Systems website andgo to My Studies

• Once in the My Studies window, click on Timeslots

• You can add one timeslot at a time, or multiple slots.

• To add multiple timeslots, just chooseAdd Multiple Timeslots and indicate the number of slots you

want to add for a particular day. Specifyhow long you want slots to last, and how many minutes

you would like between timeslots.

•Indicate the room in which the study will take place. You need to enter a room number (i.e.,

“location”) for each time slot.

•You may sign up to use a room for one hour per day. For instance, you can then sign out 2

30 minute sessions or 3 -20 minute sessions. Do not exceed 1 hour of room sign ups per day.

•Do not sign up for a room more than two weeks in advance.

•CONSULT THE ATTACHED SCHEDULE AND DO NOT RESERVE ROOMS AT TIMES THAT THEY ARE UNAVAILABLE. USE THE SCROLL-DOWN FUNCTION IN SONATO CHOOSE THE ROOM. USE THE ATTACHED SCHEDULE TO PICK A DAY AND TIME. THIS WAY, SONA CAN WARN YOU IF YOU HAVE DOUBLE-BOOKED.

•Hint: A quick way to add slots is to copy time slots you have already created and modify

accordingly. You can do this from the Add Multiple Timeslots page.

5. Assign credit to your participants

• When you run your sessions, be sure to keep track of the participants who do show up so you can

awardproper credit. My Studies will allow you to see who has signed up for your sessions. Double-

checkthis as your participants arrive. Only participants who have signed up through the website will

appear in this database. Only give credit to those who actually show up. If they sign-up, but do not show-up, and have not cancelled by the deadline you have specified, you can designate them as an “unexcused no-show.” If they accumulate enough of these they will be barred from further participation. IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED THAT RESEARCHERS DO NOT ALLOW STUDENT PARTICIPANTS TO TAKE PART IN STUDY SESSIONS WITHOUT SIGNING UP THROUGH THE SONA SYSTEM.

• After you finish each session, you must award credit(“no-show” or “unexcused no-show”) to your participantsimmediately. Failure to assign credit within 48 hours represents a SONA rules violation and penalties could result. Further, participants will email you incessantly if you are a little late in assigning credits, which can be a hassle.

Instructions for assigning credits (or “no-show” or “unexcused no-show”):

•Log onto the Sona Systems website. You’ll immediately see the Research Participation page.

• Go to My Studies and click on your study.

• Click on View/Administer Time Slots. You will see a list of participants who are awaiting

assignment of credits or penalties.

• Click Modify

• Under Sign-Ups, assign credits/“no-show” or “unexcused no-show”as appropriate

• Click Update Sign-Ups. Once you do this, you’ll see an updated list of participants with their

status (e.g., “Credit Granted”) beside their names.

• Make sure the number of credits you assign is correct. If you make a mistake you can easily

change it by repeating this process. It would be unethical to take away credit that has already

been assigned and posted.

• It is imperative that you apply credit on the day you collect data.Failure to do so 1) will

preclude future use of the participant pool; and 2) if you are a student, you will be reported

to your research methods professor or faculty advisor. Even if you are collecting data on

several days, you must apply credit at the conclusion of each day. If you have questions talk with

your professor or Dr. Bragg.

• Note to students: If you do not assign credit within two days, you will receive the following

message via email:

“This email is to notify you that you have 1 study timeslot(s) more than 2 days

old that await your response. More information can be found by logging onto the

site:

The Sona System administrator will also receive the message, and will forward it to your

instructor.

  • If you allow “walk-ins,” participants who show up without signing up, you will have to scroll to

the bottom of the Update Sign-ups screen for a particular session and add the person’s name.

Then you will be able to award the credit.

  1. Deadline

All studies must be completed and all credits/no shows submitted by NO LATER than April 29that 5:00pm. It is imperativethat all credits/no shows be submitted by this time.

  1. Important Note to Students
  1. Only faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students with instructor approval are permitted to run online surveys. If you plan to run an online study, please inform Dr. Bragg as soon as possible and do confirm that your supervisor or professor has approved you to conduct a study online.
  1. When the studies are displayed to participants, they are listed in random order.