Group Testing Program

Introductory Psychology (PSY1411)

Students enrolled in Introductory Psychology are asked to participate in a group testing session in which they complete a series of self-report questionnaires. The session is scheduled for the latter half of the semester. Faculty and students are invited to contribute questionnaires for the session. This document outlines the guidelines and procedures for participation in the Group Testing Session.

Beginnning Fall 2010: Questionnaires will be collected on a group testing website that will function as a "hub" through which all of the questionnaires will be accessed by respondents. See below for more details. The hub is here: psychology-research.org/psych Your QuestionPro survey will be placed in the questionnaire list. Respondents will begin at the department's Sona Systems site, navigate to the hub, then navigate to the questionnaires.

Who may contribute instruments

• Psychology Faculty
• Psychology Graduate students performing dissertations and theses
• Psychology Undergraduates performing supervised research and theses
• Faculty in other departments who contribute participants to the pool

Selection of Instruments

Instruments will be included on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Instruments: Characteristics and Requirements

1. The program is designed for self-report instruments of any kind, with exceptions noted here
2. Instruments such as clinical assessment scales that require individual debriefing with respondents may not be used.
3. The instrument must require no more than 20 minutes to complete. The program administrators will determine if an instrument is too long. Open ended items take longer to complete and should be figured into the time.
4. All instruments are subject to ethical rules and IRB procedures. The IRB approval number must be submitted along with the instrument.
5. The questionnaires will be administered online. The online software accommodates all of the normal self-report scale types and formats.
6. Demographic information must not be collected unless it is unique to your study. Instead, it will be collected separately and distributed to participating researchers.
7. Researchers whose studies require follow-up contact with respondent should collect contact information (name, phone number, email address, etc.) in their own questionnaires (to maintain an overall sense of anonymity). Their questionnaires must assure respondents that this information will not be shared with other researchers.

Preparation of materials - Beginning Fall 2010

You must create your questionnaires in QuestionPro with the following provisions:

Place all of your items in one QuestionPro survey. If you need to randomize the order of questionnaires, contact Bill Gabrenya for additional instructions.

Do not include Demographic questions that are in the list below. If your questionnaire requires demographics besides the items listed below, please contact Bill Gabrenya.

Do not include an Informed Consent form. If you are collecting sensitive information, please contact Bill Gabrenya.

Give the survey a name using QuestionPro's method for doing so. Send the name of the survey to Bill Gabrenya.

Demographics to be collected:

• Sex
• Age
• Major
• Year in school
• Legal nationality
• First language
• Nation attended high school
• Race/ethnic group
• Social class
• Employment status/history
• Contributing researchers should suggest additional demographics and background measures
• Religiosity
• Political orientation
• Family interaction
• Voting behavior

Ownership of data

Researchers who submit questionnaires will retain sole ownership of their data. However, a list of administered questionnaires will be made available to facilitate sharing data.

Informed consent forms

A single informed consent form will be created to apply to all the questionnaires in the set. However, questionnaires that obtain sensitive data, such as those subject to full review by the IRB, should have their own consent forms. Contributors in such cases must provide consent forms along with their IRB approval forms.The consent forms will be collected and held separately from the data.

Responsibility of Instrument Contributors - Beginning Fall 2010

At the completion of the data collection, you must send the variable column "custom1" in the QuestionPro dataset to Bill Gabrenya. QuestionPro will provide the data in an Excel spreadsheet. We also need to know of the respondents completed your questionnaires.

Contributors will be asked, subject to time restrictions, to present their theory or research hypotheses to an Introductory Psychology class or other classes that contribute respondents during the semester in which the testing took place.

Schedule - Spring 2011