Rights and Responsibilities for Conducting Research Using the Psychology Paid Research System

To view this information in pdf form, please refer to this Rights and Responsibilities document.

As a member of the Psychology Department, you have the opportunity to conduct research using the Psychology Department Paid Research System. The Paid Research System consists of people who have registered in the system in order to be able to sign up online and be paid for participating in studies conducted by Psychology Department members.

The Psychology Department conducts these studies in accordance with the ethical procedures established by the University Institutional Review Board (IRB). In order to use the Psychology Paid Research System, researchers must already have approval from the IRB to run paid subjects and they must conduct each study in a responsible manner. Researchers do not have the right to be abusive or rude to participants, to coerce participants, or to treat participants with disrespect. Below is a list of rights and responsibilities that you have as a researcher who uses the Paid Research System for conducting research.

1. You have a right to the amount of time a participant has signed up for. For the Paid Research System, there is not a maximum of 3 hours/study/participant as there is in the Course Credit Participant Pool. If a participant shows up late, you do not have to allow them to participate in the study.

2. You have the right to a distraction-free research environment. If a participant is using a cell phone, ipod, or disrupting the study or other participants, you may ask them to leave. How you handle prorating payment for the amount of time they have spent depends on what you said you would do in your IRB protocol. Use the Comments box on the Credit page in the online Paid Research System to provide the necessary details about participants who do not complete the study. (We are keeping track of paid subjects who don’t show up or behave badly so they can be locked out of signing up for more studies.)

3. You have the right to quality data. If you think that a participant is not taking a study seriously, purposely providing inaccurate or inappropriate responses, or acting in a manner which makes you believe that their data will be unusable, you may ask them to leave. Again, how you handle prorated payment for the amount of time they have spent depends on what you said you would do in your IRB protocol. Use the Comments box on the Credit page in the online Paid Research System to provide the necessary details about participants who do not complete the study.

1. You must be on time to the study you are conducting. Participants are told to wait 15 minutes past the scheduled start time.

2. You should provide a written debriefing to each participant to keep. It should include a summary of the research, resources for further information, and have a blank copy of the consent form attached.

3. You should record in the online Paid Research System whether the subject showed up and completed the study. Use the Comments box to include any information about a participant’s absence or bad conduct during the session.

4. A participant who feels uncomfortable doing a study can withdraw at any time. How you handle prorated payment for the amount of time they have spent depends on what the IRB has approved for your study. The online system will not handle anything related to payment. You should follow your usual procedures for paying subjects.

5. If a study is scheduled after building hours, you must arrange for participants to be let into the building.

6. All personal and identifiable data collected during these studies will be kept confidential unless a participant gives permission to do otherwise.

7. You are responsible for ensuring that your in-person procedures are in compliance with all COVID-related directives from the department, campus/university, and state.