Procedures for Running Participants
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In projects that make use of the undergraduate participant pool there are some procedures that need to be followed to ensure that participants receive credit for their participation in the experiment. There are also some other general policies that need to be followed. This page describes those policies and procedures.  It is important that you understand these procedures before you begin running participants. Important General Comment In conducting research in the lab you will be interacting with a bunch of different people.  You will be interacting with other members of the lab.  You will be interacting with the staff in the Psychology Office.  You will be interacting with the Howell's Office.  You will be interacting with other faculty members.  If you work with children you will be interacting with them, their parents and their teachers.  Always remember that in doing so you are representing this lab, Dr. Lampinen, the Psychology Department and the University.  That means that you should be polite (please and thank you should be your middle name), you should present yourself professionally, and you should treat the people you are interacting with respect , including appreciating that they are taking time out of their busy days to help you. Our Lab Goal: To have the faculty, staff, and students we interact with regard us as the most friendly, polite and competent lab around.  Everyone has to be committed to achieving that goal! Reserving a Room The lab has a number of different rooms available to us for running participants. These include our own two lab rooms as well as room 113 Memorial Hall (a room shared by the Psychology Department as a whole) as well as other rooms that can also be reserved for running sessions.  Keys for the lab rooms are on a key ring in the main Psychology office.  It's important that after those keys are used that they be immediately returned to the Psychology office in case other people need to use them. If you have the keys after hours you may return them through the mail slot in the Psychology Department Office door. Early in the semester we will determine the space needs of each group and decide how to share the rooms we have access to. The project leaders who are sharing a room should meet early in the semester to discuss exactly how the room will be scheduled and create a room reservation sheet to be posted on the door. Be aware that other people need those rooms too, so don't reserve the rooms because you think you might be running sessions during those times.  Only reserve the rooms for times you will be running participants. It is also possible to reserve room 113 for the purpose of running participants. A room reservation calendar is available in the Psychology Department Office for that purpose. Talk to your project leader for more details about how to reserve that room. Please be security conscious.  Make sure after you complete your session that the doors are locked. Using Experimetrix to Create Online Signup Sheets The Psychology Department has recently moved to a web-based experiment sign up system called Experimetrix. Students will sign up for experiments online and we will create online signup sheets for our experiments.  To start scheduling sessions the project leader (after getting Dr. Lampinen's approval) contacts the department's  participant pool coordinator (Dr. Levine) by email and politely asks him to create an experiment.   To make it easier for him to pick out, put "Experiment Request" in the subject line of the email message.  Dr. Levine will need the following information to create an experiment: Project leader name Faculty advisor The total number of hours you are requesting (Number of sessions X Session length) The IRB approval number (Check our WebCT page for that information) Dr. Levine will record the information and provide you with an experiment number and password. It is important for you to keep in mind that in Experimetrix, experiments are referred to be experiment numbers, not names.  So, for instance, when Experimetrix sends out reminder emails to participants about their sessions, it will remind them of their experiment number.  It is important to know your experiment number, because students will be looking for a particular experiment number they have signed up for. This link provides technical details of how the project leader can set up their experiment, schedule sessions, and award credits.  For some experiments you may call students to ask them to participate and then hand schedule them into the Experimetrix system. Keep in mind, you can only do this if they have already registered with Experimetrix. When you call use good phone manners; be friendly, upbeat and professional. If  the student agrees to be in the study, be sure to provide them with all the relevant information, when the session is scheduled, where the session is being held, the experiment number and name and your name and a contact phone number and/or email address in case they need to get a hold of you.  Running a Session Please make sure that the experimenter who is running participants arrives at their session early enough to set up the necessary materials in advance. When you meet students, be sure to ask them if they are here for your experiment, because students sometimes go to the wrong experiment room.  Say something like, "Are you here for Experiment #17?".  Participant names should be compared to the list of participants who are signed up for the experiment. Experimetrix allows you to set a lead time during which participants can no longer sign up for the experiment (we typically set our lead time at two hours, but check with your project leader). The experimenter should be friendly, polite and professional. They should treat the student participants the way they would want to be treated if they were a participant in an experiment. This is not only the right thing to do, but the quality of the data you end up with is likely to be better if the participants are in a positive frame of mind about the experiment. The experimenter should also exude an air of confidence and competence.  If the students running the experiment seem disorganized or like they don't know what they're doing, participants will not take the experiment seriously and the data you collect will be negatively affected. If your protocol allows it, allow participants five minutes beyond the scheduled start time to arrive. After you decide to start, put a sign up on the door saying "Experiment In Progress/Do Not Disturb". It is very important that this sign be removed from the door after your session is over.  Otherwise, no one will pay any attention to such signs!  After you have started the protocol for the experiment do not allow anyone else to come in. If someone knocks on the door, as quietly as you can, step outside and tell the person that you cannot run them because the experiment has already started but that they can feel to sign up for another session at another time. Once you decide to start the session hand out the consent forms and say something like "The following tells you about the experiment. Please read it carefully and sign it if you agree to participate." At this point the experimenter should follow the detailed protocol that has been prepared. Once the session is completed follow the debriefing procedures outlined in the protocol and assign credit as described below. Assigning Credit Participants receive a half credit for every half hour of participation.  For participants to receive their credit you to assign them credit with Experimetrix.  It is very important that you keep accurate records of the students you have run so that they receive the credit they deserve. Technical details of how to use Experimetrix to assign credit are provided here.  Second, you need to enter their credit in Experimetrix. It is our policy that every lab group needs to enter credits within 48 hours of the student’s participation in the experiment.. You will also be required to keep track of no shows.  Before assigning a "no-show" make sure that the subject didn't cancel first.  Participants may cancel using Experimetrix, in which case the person's name will be automatically removed from the list for that session.  Participants may also cancel by emailing you at the email address you provide on the sign up page or by calling the Psychology office.  Check the call-in box outside the Psychology Office to make sure a participant did not call in an excuse that will prevent a no show.  If someone has called in an excuse before the session was scheduled, do not assign them a no show.  Be careful not to assign no shows to students who have canceled, it creates bad feelings and unnecessary stress for the students.