Participant Information Sheet + Participant Screening + Link to the Survey

1. The participant information sheet is posted on a Web page and provides the link to the participant screening survey

2. The participant screening survey provides the link to the study survey only to those potential participants who satisfied the screening criterion

3. Upon submission, the study survey redirect participants to the Web page of the participant debrief form 

Title of study: Mindfulness and flow as predictors of psychological well-being in university undergraduate students

Name of investigator: [insert detail]

Email of investigator: [insert detail]

Name of supervisor: [insert detail]

Email of supervisor: [insert detail]

1. Invitation

You are being invited to take part in a research study. Before you decide, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. If you are unclear of anything or if you would like more information, do not hesitate to ask. Please take your time to decide whether or not you wish to partake in this study.

2. What is the purpose of the study?

This project examines how being mindful and experiencing flow while studying relate to psychological well-being. Mindfulness means being aware of the present moment, while flow is a state of deep concentration and absorption in a task. Previous research has shown that both mindfulness and flow can affect different aspects of psychological well-being, but no study has investigated them together. This study aims to compare how mindfulness and flow in studying affect psychological well-being.

3. Why have I been chosen to participate?

We are inviting all undergraduate students in UK universities to participate in this study. We believe your participation can provide us with useful information about the issues explored in this study.

4. Do I have to take part?

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part, you will be asked to sign (just by clicking on the option ‘Yes, I agree to participate in the study’) a consent form prior to taking part in the study.

If you decide to take part, you are free to withdraw at any time during the study participation session, and after completing the study, without giving a reason, and without any consequence. In particular, leaving this study will not affect your degree studies or progress in any way, now or in the future. 

You can leave the study during your participation at any time before submitting the survey by simply closing the Web page of the survey. If you do so, the data that you have entered up to that point will be erased within 30 days.

You can also leave the study after your participation. At the beginning of the survey, you will be asked to create a unique 4-digit PIN and to write it down for you own record; that PIN is the key for the research team to identify your data. After your participation, you are entitled to access, modify or delete your data at any time by completing the survey at: https://forms.office.com/e/zqCAxJLzCu . If you do so, your request will be satisfied within 30 days.

Please note that the access/modify/delete survey is anonymous and you will be requested to enter the PIN you have generated at the beginning of the present survey. However, after 30 days from your participation it will not be possible to modify or withdraw your data from analyses already performed, but we will modify or remove your data from any future analyses.

5. What will happen to me if I take part?

The study involves completing a set of four questionnaires, each one containing between 3 and 42 short statements. You will be asked to provide some demographic information such as age, sex and ethnicity to be used to describe the study sample as a whole, and also indicate how you attend classes at the moment (online, on-campus or a combination between the two). The entire survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Immediately after completing the survey, you will be given access to the participant debrief form with further information about this study and a set of suggested readings and a video presentation related to the subject in case you would like to know more about this study and the ideas underlying it. The suggested readings and video presentation are easily accessible and clearly presented in the debrief form in order to maximize the likelihood that you will engage with these resources. The debrief form will also invite you to contact the researchers if you have any questions or concerns about your study participation.

6. What are the benefits of taking part?

There are no direct benefits to you for taking part in this study. However, your contribution to this study will help us to gain a better understanding of the personal factors that are related to the psychological well-being of undergraduate university students.

7. What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?

The data collected for this research will not affect your degree studies or progress in any way. We do not foresee any risks of taking part in this study.

However, you may find some questions asked are of a personal nature (for example, questions on feelings of stress). The following are examples of such questions:

• The demands of everyday life often get me down.

• Maintaining close relationships has been difficult and frustrating for me.

• I tend to worry about what other people think of me.

If you feel uncomfortable reading these questions, you are advised not to participate in the study.

Moreover, prior to giving you access to the survey, we will ask you to answer some questions about how you felt in the past two months. Based on your answers, we will advise you as to whether the study is suitable for you.

8. Will my participation in this study be kept confidential?

All data collected will remain confidential and be analysed anonymously. In particular, the study survey is totally anonymous. Also the survey you may use after your participation in order to access, modify, or delete your data is totally anonymous. The research team would be able identify, modify, or delete your data only by matching the PINs you generated in the study survey and entered in the second (access/modify/delete) survey. Therefore, your data will remain confidential forever.

9. What will happen to the results of this research?

The findings of the study will be written up in a BSc Psychology undergraduate dissertation at the London Metropolitan University. You may request a copy of the report after completion by contacting the researcher using the contact details given in this briefing form and in the debrief form you will receive upon submitting the survey.

Moreover, the results of this study will be used for academic research, publications, presentations and may also be used for teaching. Individual participants are not identifiable in the data, and hence will never be identifiable in any results from this study. You may request a copy of the research output using the researcher’s contact information above.

Finally, the data will be made available to any interested researcher worldwide according to Open Science, the movement that aims to make science more accessible, inclusive, and equitable. If you would like more information about Open Science, please visit the Website of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at: https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science  

10. What do I do if I have any further questions?

If you have any questions or queries about our research, please feel free to contact any of the researchers above.

11. What is the lawful basis to use my personal data?

The legal basis for processing your personal data is Article 6(1)(e) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), as amended by The Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. If you would like more information about how your data will be processed at London Metropolitan University in accordance with these regulations please visit the following link: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/policies/data-protection/

12. What are my rights in relation to your use of my personal data?

As explained in section 4 (Do I have to take part?) you have the right to access, modify, or delete your data. In particular, you are entitled to request any of the rights below unless it would make it impossible or very difficult to carry out the research study:

• The right to access to your personal data;

• The right to receive a copy of your personal data;

• The right to ask us to restrict our use of your personal data;

• The right to ask us to correct inaccurate information about you; or

• The right to ask us to delete your personal data.

You are entitled to object to any further processing of the information we hold about you.

You can learn more about data protection in relation to this study by contacting the researcher or the supervisor at (contact details above), and you exercise these rights by completing the access/modify/delete survey at: https://forms.office.com/e/zqCAxJLzCu.

Please note that these rights cannot be honoured if the PIN you created in the study survey and the PIN you entered in the access/modify/delete survey do not match, or if the PIN you generated was also generated by another study participant; in those two cases we will not be able to access, modify, or delete your data as we will have no way of being able to link the data to you. In order to prevent the latter problem, the access/modify/delete survey also asks to volunteer additional information, such as the date and approximate time of your study participation.

13. Ethics review and approval

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Review Panel (RERP) of the University on [insert detail] and conforms to the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021).

14. Please save or print this document for your own record

If you are interested in participating in this study, please click on the link to the preliminary questions about how you felt in the past two months:

https://forms.gle/84TjDer51eUgp99A6  

After completing the preliminary questions, you will be directed to the study survey.