Canadian psychology department participant pools: Closing for the season?

Abstract

Participant pools have long served the needs of researchers at Canadian universities seeking easy access to participants. In providing this service, participant pools overcame substantial criticism pertaining to psychology’s overreliance on undergraduate students as research participants. Participant pools now face new and more challenging threats: changing student demographics, declining motivation by students to participate in research, perceiving research participation as coercive, questioning of the educational value of participation, and increasingly popular alternatives to participant pool recruitment. We argue participant pools are worth preserving for the benefit of students at all levels and because participant pools have substantial value to the research enterprise. We regard the key to preserving pools is to highlight and fortify their educational value, and we offer concrete suggestions as to how participant pools housed in Canadian psychology departments can be strengthened.

Data Quality and Study Compliance Among College Students Across 2 Recruitment Sources: Two Study Investigation

“…They provide researchers with a low-cost and efficient recruitment source, which may be particularly important for student researchers who do not have funding [ 26 ]. Although there are concerns that student participant pools mainly comprise female, White, and young psychology majors [ 26 , 27 ] and that this can result in samples that do not generalize beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies [ 28 ], student participation pools are becoming more demographically diverse, mirroring the increasing diversity among those attending college [ 26 ]. Moreover, some research questions focus specifically on student populations (eg, studies that focus on unique college stressors and their links to mental health or interventions targeting college drinking), creating a need for student participant sources.…”

“…Student participation pools may potentially reflect the true population of interest in addition to being convenient; however, these pools can also be associated with lower enrollment and study compliance. Sharpe and Poets [ 26 ] found that as many as 56.7% of students in 2 large introductory courses chose not to participate in research or earn any research credits. Motivational issues and time commitment are the 2 primary factors linked to student nonparticipation in research pools [ 29 , 30 ].…”

“…Student participant pools have received both praise and criticism from the psychology community [ 25 , 26 ]. They provide researchers with a low-cost and efficient recruitment source, which may be particularly important for student researchers who do not have funding [ 26 ].…”

“…Student participant pools have received both praise and criticism from the psychology community [ 25 , 26 ]. They provide researchers with a low-cost and efficient recruitment source, which may be particularly important for student researchers who do not have funding [ 26 ]. Although there are concerns that student participant pools mainly comprise female, White, and young psychology majors [ 26 , 27 ] and that this can result in samples that do not generalize beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies [ 28 ], student participation pools are becoming more demographically diverse, mirroring the increasing diversity among those attending college [ 26 ].…”

Undergraduate Research Pools in Psychology Departments: Prevalence and Practices

“…Strategies might include having researchers do short presentations about their studies in psychology classes, using debriefings as an educational tool, and creating exams for students based on their research participation (cf. Sharpe & Poets, 2017). 3.…”