Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Introduction

Recruiting undergraduate students to participate in research has long been an established practice within psychology. Although this data source has weaknesses, this involvement in the research process has considerable pedagogical value in teaching students research methodology.

Statement of the Problem

Most common software packages used to manage participant pools tend to be expensive, to the extent that it prohibits access for small institutions and departments.

Literature Review

Highlighting the problem, we cite research related to using undergraduates as participants, pedagogical value of these experiences, and current trends in software distribution. We then provide evidence of successful implementation of open-source software (OSS) in educational settings, and conclude with OSS options capable of addressing the problem of access.

Teaching Implications

By providing students research experiences, both as a researcher and as a participant, we enhance their understanding of this process. Secondary to this, we can foster within them a skill set that is valuable to disciplines outside of academia.

Conclusion

The implementation of an OSS system to manage research participants provides a cost-effective means to expand the learning and research opportunities of available to students.

Keywords

participant pool recruitment surveys experiential learning methodology

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Dixon

P. N.

(1978). Subject recruitment incentives, personality factors, and attitudes toward experimentation in a simultaneous intentional-incidental learning task. Journal of General Psychology, 99(1), 99–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1978.9920900

Dougiamas

(2004). Moodle: A virtual learning environment for the rest of us. http://www.tesl-ej.org/ej30/m2.html

Dougiamas

Taylor

(2003). Moodle: Using learning communities to create an open source course managment system. In EdMedia + Innovate Learning 2003, Honolulu, HI, 23–28 June 2003, pp. 171–178. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/13739/

Engard

N. C.

(2009). LimeSurvey http://limesurvey.org. Public Services Quarterly, 5(4), 272–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228950903288728

Ghosh

Nashaat

Miller

(2019). The current state of software license renewals in the I. T. industry. Information and Software Technology, 108, 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.INFSOF.2019.01.001

Greiner

(2015). Subject pool recruitment procedures: rganizing experiments with ORSEE. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 1(1), 114–125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40881-015-0004-4

Hauser

D. J.

Schwarz

(2016). Attentive Turkers: MTurk participants perform better on online attention checks than do subject pool participants. Behavior Research Methods, 48(1), 400–407. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0578-z

Lindsay

R. C.

Holden

R. R.

(1987). The introductory psychology subject pool in Canadian universities. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 28(1), 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0079868

Liu

(n.d.). Global distribution software market size 2015-2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/643858/worldwide-distribution-software-market-size/

10.

Miller

(1981). A survey of introductory psychology subject pool practices among leading universities. Teaching of Psychology, 8(4), 211–213. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top0804_4

11.

Moodle (2019). Moodle statistics. Retrieved August 28, 2019, from https://moodle.net/stats/

12.

Moodle (2021). Moodle statistics. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://moodle.net/stats/

13.

Schimanski

L. A.

Alperin

J. P.

(2018). The evaluation of scholarship in academic promotion and tenure processes: Past, present, and future. F1000Research, 7, 1605. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.16493.1

14.

Strapp

C. M.

Bredimus

Wright

Cochrane

Fields

(2021). Entering the workforce of going to graduate school: Themes in psychology alumni decision making. Teaching of Psychology, 48(2), 144–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320977770

15.

Westfall

(2021). Set up and manage your virtual private server. Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6966-4_1

16.

Westfall

J. E.

Kim

C. M.

A. Y.

(2012). Locking the virtual filing cabinet: A researcher’s guide to Internet data security. International Journal of Information Management, 32(5), 419–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2012.01.005

17.

Zannella

Vahedi

Want

(2020). What do undergraduate students learn from participating in psychological research? Teaching of Psychology, 47(2), 121–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320901379