Editor’s Note: This story has been altered from its original version. The article misquoted several people, should have said students do not always need to participate in online surveys or studies to obtain credit and all studies must be approved by the Institutional Review Board, or IRB, prior to beginning.
The lower summer enrollment on campus has emptied out more than just residence halls, as graduate students trying to complete dissertations in the Department of Psychology are left without subjects for their research studies.
Although students in psychology classes often are not required to participate in studies for class credit, graduate students working with human participation studies always have trouble finding subjects for their research during the summer months while most students are away, said Leslie Baldwin, subject pool secretary for the department.
“With only 305 students in psychology classes instead of the thousands we have during the normal academic year, and over 150 projects waiting from last semester to get underway, it’s not that (the graduate students) aren’t trying,” Baldwin said.
Every research project has to be approved by the Institutional Review Board, or IRB, before it enters the subject pool, where students can choose to participate in the studies, Baldwin said.
A number of studies getting started this summer have only 305 participants to choose from compared to the spring semester’s 2,491.
“The number of students involved is so small, often researchers decide to wait until the fall to continue their research,” Baldwin said.
As a result, only 33 of 155 research projects are active.
Even with the drastic drop in student participation, the students still need their credit, said Jennifer Pratt-Hyatt, a psychology doctoral student. Pratt-Hyatt said problems can come up in the validity of survey results due to online classes and studies.
She said students tend to sign up for research studies they are not really eligible for, such as an all-female study ending up with almost half the group being male participants.
Chip Shank, systems programmer for the psychology department, said he has a plan to fix that.
Shank pitched a formal request this past spring to the IRB to add filters to the human participation studies program, which would allow potential subject pool members to be separated by a series of five to seven demographic items.
“With this program, the researcher will be able to add what kind of specific qualities they’re looking for in subjects, and subjects will only see studies they qualify for,” Shank said.
“It will add to the level of efficiency and keep from inaccurate sign-ups.”
This new system, Shank said, is scheduled to be implemented by the beginning of the fall semester.
Sagal Ali, a human biology sophomore, said she has noticed the studies that require specific demographics in her past experience with human participation studies.
“There’s ones for all African-American participants and some for all women,” Ali said.
“I kind of enjoy them, though, because what you do can apply to concepts you learn in class.”
Baldwin said regardless of how the summer months go, there will be more “craziness” in the fall.
“People will be submitting studies they want to run, new faculty will be fitting in the loop,” Baldwin said.
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“In the meantime, students have been very patient so far in waiting for their credit.”
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