Under-18 Alternative Assignment

Updated 08/12/2024

Below are the instructions for the under-18 assignment that must be completed in order for you to receive your Psychology Participant Pool credit hours. Note that this assignment is designed for under-18 students only. If you are 18 years old or older, then you are not eligible to earn credits by completing this assignment.

You must have all required experiments completed and the necessary information submitted to the Participant Pool Coordinator NO LATER THAN:

December 12, 2024 (5:00pm CST)

SONA Registration

IMPORTANT! Before you begin the under-18 assignment, please register on SONA and complete the prescreen questionnaire. Registering for the Psychology Course Credit Participant Pool consists of 2 steps: (1) Create an account in the online SONA system, and (2) Complete the prescreen questionnaire. The deadline to register in SONA for Fall 2024 is September 27, 2024.

1. Go to the Course Credit SONA website (https://uiuc.sona-systems.com/). On the screen, click Request Account. Enter your name, user ID (the NetID should be used), UIUC email, student ID number, birthdate, and the course(s) you want credit in. Your temporary password will be emailed to you promptly (be sure to check your junk mail folder). When you register, you MUST use your UIUC email address; if you use an alternative address, you may be asked to complete the registration process again. Please enter your UIUC email address carefully, as you will need a correct email address to receive the temporary password. Please double check that you have selected the correct psychology course section. If this part is wrong, your instructor may not receive reports of your credits, which may affect your grades.

2. Using the user ID and the temporary password that was emailed to you, log into your Course Credit SONA account. You will be asked to take a prescreen questionnaire. After you answer questions about your age and current location, please select “prefer not to answer” for ALL subsequent questions. This is because you are under-18; your responses to these questions will not be used for any research, but the system requires the prescreen to complete the registration process.

3. For returning users from previous semesters, remember to update your list of course(s) that you’d like to receive credit for! If this part is not updated, your instructor may not receive reports of your credits, which may affect your grades. The prescreen results are purged at the end of each semester, so you will be prompted to complete the prescreen every semester when you take psychology courses that allow credit for research participation.

You will automatically receive 1 credit for completing the prescreen questionnaire if you complete it before the registration deadline. After that, you will still need to complete the prescreen before completing the alternative assignment, but you will only get 0.5 credit for it.

Please contact the Participant Pool Coordinator at psych-subjects@illinois.edu if you have problems registering. If you do not register in the Course Credit SONA system, your credits from the under-18 assignment cannot be recorded.

Assignment Overview:

In this under-18 alternative assignment, you will be completing some simulated experiments via an American Psychological Association (APA) website. You will be using the Online Psychology Laboratory (OPL) to complete these online studies. By participating in these simulated online experiments, you can experience what psychological research is really like. The website records your data from the studies. However, the data will not be used for research purposes. The only information that we will ask you to provide from this assignment are: your OPL Profile ID, dates of completion, names of the studies you completed, and the confirmation numbers. These will be stored so that we have a record of your completion of the assignment.

Number of experiments required: One simulated experiment counts as one credit. Please consult your course syllabus to determine how many credits are required for your course.

To complete this assignment, follow the directions below:

1. Go to the Online Psychology Laboratory Website: https://opl.apa.org/

2. Create a student account by clicking Student login

3. Once logged in, click the experiments tab on the left panel

4. After you select a study, you will be asked to enter your class code
   Your class code for Fall 2024 is: 493861

5. Next, you will be asked your gender and age and, for some studies, additional information

6. After submitting this information, your study will begin

7. At the end of the study, you will be asked if you want to save your data. Click SAVE DATA. This is the only way your participation will be recorded.

8. For each study, you need to keep a record of the Experiment Result ID (a string of numbers, different for each study that you complete), the name of the study taken, and the date of completion. If you do not keep a record of this information, you will have to complete the study again.

9. Email your NetID, OPL Profile ID (8-digit number), Experiment Result ID, Experiment Name, and Date of Completion for each experiment to the Participant Pool Coordinator (psych-subjects@illinois.edu). Please wait until you have completed ALL required studies and send all the information in at once (see an example email below).

10. Make sure you send the information BEFORE the deadline (see above). If you do not email the required information to the Participant Pool Coordinator, you will not receive your credits because there is no way to confirm your completion of the assignment without these information.

Note: This email template is just an example. Consult your course syllabus and/or your instructor for the specific number of credits for your course. If you’re taking multiple courses, note that each study can only count towards one class.