Research Resources

The Psychology department designates several courses each quarter as “participant pool” courses. Students enrolled in those courses are required to participate in 1-5 hours of research to assist Psychology faculty and graduate students in their projects (for a total of approximately 2000 hours/quarter). Undergraduates have the option of completing an alternate assignment approved by the instructor. Below is a brief description of the researchers’ protocol. For a more complete description, please refer to the policy document: psychology.ucsc.edu/graduate/researchpool/poolpolicy.html.

All empirical research must have a current Human Subjects Committee IRB approval and expiration date (IRB Procedures and Policies). You will need this information when you request to post research through SONA. Note that only Psychology faculty, post-docs, and graduate students are allowed to request hours.

Faculty supervision is required during all research projects. Undergraduate students who are collecting data must be selected and carefully screened for reliability and trained in safe and ethical procedures involving human participant research, including taking the CITI online training. For tutorials and FAQ regarding the pool, visit the SONA website: http://ucsc.sona-systems.com/ and select FAQ from the menu bar.

If you have questions, Nicolas Davidenko (ndavidenk@ucsc.edu) is the faculty coordinator for the Sona Research Participant Pool. Please reach out to the faculty coordinator or to to the general email address that is available across transitions in administrators ucscresearchpool@gmail.com.