About PersonalityScience.org:
We are here to help psychology students and professors quickly and easily collect data for their research online. We have been building a web tool that solves all the web technology issues without the researcher having to get into any of it. We built the tool with the intention of continuously expanding it to become more and more functional. As researchers come up with new requirements from the tool, all researchers afterwards benefit from the added development.
What is its track record?
Our first web study has had approximately 1400 people spend an hour filling out the a Personality and Performance study. It took three weeks to collect the first 800 student participants from the University of Minnesota. The researcher did not need to know anything about web publishing to put her study online other than how to use a browser. Our second study was a longitudinal study over several months that focused on a very restricted subset of the population. It took some time to find people who met the criteria, but they were found all across the country to assist in the study.
What does the tool do?
You can take a detailed tour of Version 1.0 here.
To put it shortly, Today, the tool gives psychologists the ability to conduct surveys online without needing to hire a web developer. The tool already addressed most of the technical issues related with producing online studies, leaving the psychology and presentation where it belongs, to the researcher.
To itemize the things that the tool does today:
The entire survey is easily controlled by the researcher - All the content of the survey is controlled and can be edited by the researcher at any time. That includes everything from what the user sees when they read your consent forms to the wording of each individual question to what emails should be sent and what the emails should say. The survey has many different styles of questions that can be asked, as well as the ability to easily add new styles of questions. For example, you can have questions where the user writes in the answer, selects their answer from a list, writes an essay, rates themselves from 1-10, etc. All the researcher needs in order to manage their survey is a web browser.
The data is safe - Data security is set up so that no one other than the researcher can see the answers that the participant gave. We use industrial class software to get you industrial strength security. To use the security features, users are required to register and create a unique username and password. This also enables them to continue their survey where they left of in the case that they were disconnected midway.
IRB Reviewed and Approved - Every study that is generated in the educational community goes through the IRB process. This tool has already been through the IRB process several times with previous studies. The fact that an IRB at a large University has helped guide the design of the tool should streamline your own IRB approval process. Some of the steps we have taken to insure IRB approval include the use of industrial grade software to secure the data on the server, and designing the application to completely separate any data that can individually identify participants from the data that the researcher receives.
The survey can handle longitudinal studies - The researcher can set up the survey so that there are "breaks" between sets of questions that can last anywhere from several seconds to a several years. The researcher also decides whether or not to send reminder emails when it is time to continue the study, and controls exactly what the emails will say.
The survey can handle "Extra Credit" participants - For those researchers that can only survey a certain number of "Pool Participants" such as Intro to Psychology students, we have a system to collect extra credit information, and alerts users before they begin the survey if there are any extra credit slots remaining. Again, the researcher has the ability to use their browser to specify how many Pool Positions they are offering.
It's Fast - It makes you feel warm and fuzzy when the survey becomes less of a time burden for participants at the same time that it becomes less of a time burden for the researcher in administrating surveys.
What else can I say? It makes life easier for both the researcher and the participants. It enables studies of a much larger scale than is possible for most graduate students. And, as more and more researchers use the tool, the better and more flexible it becomes. If you would like to know more about the tool or other offerings, please contact us, or see our rates.