Psychology Research Experience Program (REP)
Instructions for Researchers
The REP is a program for the Introductory Psychology subject, providing the first-year students with the opportunity to experience and learn about current psychological research.
The program at the same time provides post-graduate psychology students and staff members with the opportunity to recruit research participants for their research projects.
If you are a psychology post-graduate student who wants to apply for REP, please read further.
4 steps for getting help from the REP
- Preparation:
Complete your study materials and obtain an ethics approval for your research project. You can only apply to the REP Coordinator when your project has an ethics clearance.
- Lodge Application with the REP Coordinator:
Approach the REP Coordinator with the following materials:
- Application Form (click here to download): Fill in all necessary information.
- A copy of the Ethics Approval.
- A copy of the questionnaire (for questionnaire studies), or a brief description of the study procedure (for experiments).
- A draft overhead for advertising your study in Psych 1 lectures. Use the advertisement template (click here to download template)for making your ad.
- A one-paragraph description of the project to be placed on Blackboard for potential participants
After examining your application, the REP Coordinator will tell you when you can go ahead with your data collection, and will issue a Participation Slip for your study.
The current REP Coordinator is:
Dr Conrad Perry
Email: cperry
swin.edu.au
Phone 9214 5447 Communication via email is strongly recommended.
- Advertising and recruiting participants
You are required to take your ad on overhead to the nominated Psych 1 lecture(s). Take also your questionnaires if you want to distribute them in the lecture. The lecturer of the week will show your ad to the class sometime during his/her lecture, usually at the beginning. But remember that it is up to the lecturer to decide when to show the ad. You are not allowed to read the ad to the students or to take over the lecture to explain your project to them. It is also the researcher's responsibility to retrieve all left-over questionnaires from the lecture hall.
If you intend to collect data on Lilydale Campus, the same procedure applies. Make sure that you have obtained an ethics approval for data collection at Lilydale.
Questionnaires distributed on Lilydale Campus will be returned to a questionnaire return box on Level 1. It is also your responsibility to retrieve your questionnaires from the box.
On Hawthorn Campus, you should request your participants to return your questionnaires to a box you will have arranged on the 7th floor of the BA Building. Attach a sign with your project name to one of the boxes available, before you distribute your questionnaire. When data collection is completed, remove the sign immediately.
If you are conducting an experiment, interviews, or organising some data-collection sessions, you should also send the REP coordinator a word file containing your session schedule, clearly indicating the time, the place, and the number of participants you require for each session. The REP coordinator will place this document on Blackboard for Introductory Psychology students to look at and volunteer for a particular session. Therefore, instruct volunteers to e-mail you directly to make a booking. You must confirm their booking (REP coordinator will not assist in this process).
- Return Participation Slip to the Coordinator
If you have a Take-Away Questionnaire, attach one copy of the Participation Slip on top of your questionnaire. The respondent will cut and keep the bottom half of the Slip for their own record, and will return the top half with the completed questionnaire.
If you conduct data collection sessions, you must provide a copy of the Participation Slip to each participant at the beginning of the study session. If the participant decides to leave the session before completing the study, you must still give him/her the Slip as a sign of his/her participation. Instruct participants to write their student ID on the form, and cut the Slip in the middle. They will retain the bottom half of the Slip; you will keep the top half.
The Participation Slips you collect must be sorted in ascending order (by student ID). All ID numbers must be recorded on the Record Form (click here to download). The Record Form (not Participation Slips) must be returned to the REP Co-ordinator's, as soon as possible.
As for data collected at Lilydale Campus, make a separate Record Form and submit to Stephen Theiler (Internal Mail 100).
- Reporting Requirement
All users of the REP are required to send a one-page summary (an extended abstract) of your study results to the REP coordinator, as soon as results are available. (This is expected to be before the thesis is submitted for examination.)
The summary is meant to be for Introductory Psychology students. Therefore, use plain language, discuss implications, and provide a few references if possible.
The smooth running of the REP makes life easier for all users and student volunteers.
Thank you for your cooperation.
If you have any questions or need more information please contact our Administration Team who will be happy to help with your enquiries.
