Faculty Researcher Guidelines for Research Participation Pool

As a behavioral business researcher, you have a responsibility to follow the participant pool guidelines carefully. Be sure to read them over and ask your research supervisor any questions that you may have before you begin running subjects.

Register and Set Up Your Online Experiment

You will need to register your experiment/survey with the Black School of Business Research Participation Subject Pool (BSB SONA). Once you have a researcher account set up, you will be able to access the system and add your research project.

You will need the following information to set up your experiment:

  • Experimenter names and contact information
  • IRB Approval # (For more information on IRB and IRB training, please visit the Penn State IRB page.) 
  • Full name of the experiment
  • A brief abstract (one-sentence description)
  • A detailed description
  • Research supervisor name and contact information
  • Duration of the experiment
  • How many credits the experiment is going to be worth
  • Approximate start and end dates

Cancellations or Experiment Changes

Student: A participant may cancel an experiment in two ways:

  • They can cancel their timeslot online, no later than two hours before the scheduled experiment time. The research participation pool system will log this information for you. This is why it is imperative to check your experiment online every day for cancellations.
  • Students also may email [email protected].

Researcher: If you need to cancel an experiment time, you must contact your participant at least two hours in advance and reschedule the experiment. If your cancellations become regular, the participant pool intern will be required to notify the Raimy Behavioral Lab committee. If you fail to show up for an experiment, your participant is entitled to receive 1/2 credits and the lab committee will be notified.

Experiment Changes: If you experience any other change after participants’ signup for your experiment you must do the following:

  1. Update the research participation pool system.
  2. CALL YOUR PARTICIPANT!

Student Research Credit

How much credit: The student participant will be given at least .5 credit hours for each experiment they participate in. If an experiment should take more than 35 minutes, they will receive 1 credit hour. If the experiment should take more than 65 minutes, they will receive 1.5 credit hours, etc. The participant has 5 minutes after the scheduled time to show up. If the participant does not show up for the experiment and does not cancel within 24 hours, you will enter them as a no-show for 0 credits.

Research Participation Pool Database: You need to enter your student participant's credits into the research participation pool system within 48 hours. Fill out all of the information asked for (i.e. student ID, student name, experiment, experimenter, credit hours, date, and time). Be sure all information is correct before you submit the participant’s credit, there is a built-in question to make sure you have all information correct, please remember to check before you submit something.

Subject Log: You will need to keep a subject log that lists each participant that you run. It should include all of the information that you type into the database and should also include the name of the researcher that ran the participant as well as the date and person that recorded the credits into the database. This is our backup system in case something should happen to the database.

Raimy Behavioral Lab Information

It is your responsibility to make sure the lab is open at the times you require by emailing [email protected] in advance. If a lab attendant will not be present when you need to run a participant, make arrangements with the lab manager to have someone open and close the lab. If it is necessary for you to be in the lab after hours, you need to make arrangements with your research supervisor. 

*** You have a responsibility to treat your participants with the utmost dignity and respect. Remember that your participants are doing you a great deed by participating in your research, and you should attempt to make their research experience as interesting and enjoyable as possible. Remember that it should be a learning experience for them, and try to answer all their questions as candidly as you can, given the constraints of your research. Your attitude and dress should be professional at all times. ***

If you have any problems, report to your supervisor immediately. If you have any questions, please email [email protected] or call 814-898-6551.