Undergraduate Research Opportunities

The Psychology Department provides numerous directed research opportunities for students. PSYCH-510, Independent Study in Psychology, may be completed for up to eight credits (four credits maximum per semester). In this course, students participate in ongoing research in collaboration with a department faculty member. Students should consult the department website or the Faculty Research Interests brochure (available in the department office) for a full description of ongoing research projects.

These research tutorials may involve library research as well as many hands-on elements of research such as data collection, coding, data entry, and data analysis. Each course also includes a substantive written component.

Suffolk University Department of Psychology Research Participation Guidelines

The Psychology Department is committed to providing students with opportunities for experiential learning and research. Exposure to research and research methods helps students develop a better overall understanding of psychology. The department requires each student enrolled in PSYCH-114 (General Psychology) to gain some familiarity with the process of psychological research.

Over the course of the semester in which a student is enrolled in PSYCH-114, he or she must complete 2 hours of credit to complete this requirement.

To complete this requirement, students must register through SONA-Systems and may:

  • Volunteer as a research participant in a research project being conducted by a departmental faculty member

  • Complete the online research ethics training course through CITI training. 

Research Participation FAQs

At the beginning of each semester, information will be provided to each student enrolled in PSYCH-114 that will allow the student to log in to the department’s website for research participation. A link to this site is provided at the end of this page. Once you have read this document, you may proceed to that page. There, students will register themselves and will be provided with a list of available studies including contact information for the study representative. The student will need to contact the study representative to participate in the study he or she is most interested. You will be provided a unique identification number by the website; please provide this number to the study representative as it will be used to track your participation credits.

A link to the site that lists available studies is provided at the end of this page. Once you have read this document, you may proceed to that page. There, individuals will register themselves and will be provided with a list of available studies including contact information for the study representative. The individual will need to contact the study representative to participate in the study he or she is most interested. You will be provided a unique identification number by the website; please provide this number to the study representative as it will be used to track your participation.

Prescreening occurs when researchers ask preliminary questions to see if participants appear to meet the study inclusion criteria. If you complete the online questionnaire, you will be helping the researchers to identify which studies you appear to be eligible for. You are NOT REQUIRED to participate in the prescreening process. When you complete the prescreening questionnaire, you potentially increase the number of experiments you may be contacted about. If you do not complete the prescreening questionnaire, you will need to contact the study representatives for the studies you are interested in. Study representatives will see your unique study ID number and your answers to the questions when reviewing the prescreening information – they will not know your name. You will be contacted through the prescreening system through your ID number; again, the study representative will not see your name. Completing the prescreening does not count toward your 2 hours of credit.

Absolutely not. Participation in any research study within the department is entirely voluntary. Students can complete the two hours of credit with either of the options presented; they are not required to participate in a research project. Students can do two hours within one option or mix options in order to achieve their two hours of credit. For example, a student might complete a 60-minute research study (one hour credit) and two 30-minute online ethical training modules (one hour credit) to complete the requirement. To complete the online training course, students can visit www.citiprogram.org and click on the “Undergraduate Research Ethics Studies” group to select and complete the modules.

Credits from the non-research options will be stored in the Sona system. After completing each CITI module, there will be a short quiz about the information covered in the module in the Sona system. After completing this quiz, you will receive credit for that CITI module. You must complete the quiz in order to get credit for the CITI module.

That will depend on the study. Some studies are quite long and others are rather short. You will receive at least 30 minutes of credit (ONE HALF-HOUR) for completing a study, no matter how short it is. No study will provide more than two hours (120 minutes) of credit, though it may last longer than that. Credits will be documented on the department’s website and you may log into that website at any time to track your status. Please note that it may take up to 10 days for completed credits to appear on the website. If you are not a PSYCH-114 student, you will not receive study participation credits; please check with the researcher to see if they are offering another form of inducement.

Yes, you will receive credit for any participation within a study. Credit is given out in 30-minute increments. Therefore, if you participate in a study for somewhere between one and 30 minutes, you will receive 30 minutes of credit; if you participate between 31 and 60 minutes, you will receive 60 minutes of credit, and so on. By the end of the semester, you must accrue 120 minutes (two hours) of credit. If you are not a PSYCH-114 student, please check with the researcher about how they determine partial reimbursement.

The department takes its obligations around data security and privacy very seriously. No data provided during a study will be recorded on the website. The website will record your contact information, the information you provide as part of screening questions when first logging in and the number of credits you have completed. Only the Research Coordinator and the department’s administrator will be able to see all the data recorded on the website. The system will provide you with a unique identification number and each study will have its own unique identification number. Other than the Research Coordinator and the administrator, departmental personnel will only be able to see information connected to the ID number, not to your name or other identifying information. Information about completed credits will only record your ID number, the study ID number and the number of credits completed. No data from the study itself will be recorded on the website.

If you need to cancel your appointment, log on to the online system and use the system to unregister from the experiment. You will then see a message saying that you are unregistered from the experiment session. Please print out this message. If you are unable to log into the system, please contact the study representative or Research Coordinator by phone. We encourage you to cancel your appointments at least 12 hours in advance to allow researchers to make alternative schedule arrangements.

You can decide to not participate in a study and not come to the study visit without informing the study representative and this will have NO adverse effects for you; however, cancelling in advance may give the representative an opportunity to find another participant for that time slot.

If the University is still operating, normal rules for canceling sessions still apply. If the University is closed, the experiment will also be cancelled.

If you miss an experiment because of circumstances such as car breakdown or problems with the T, contact the study representative and the research coordinator as soon as possible by phone or email. By contacting both, you ensure that your cancellation will be received.

Researchers are able to modify or cancel a session 24 hours or more ahead of time. When a researcher cancels a session 24 or more hours in advance, you do not receive credit for the experiment. You will be notified via email if the experiment has been modified or cancelled. If the researcher does not provide 24 hours notice of cancellation, you will receive ONE HALF-HOUR of credit. If this has occurred, submit a request to receive your one half-hour of credit within five days of the missed experiment to the Research Coordinator. All decisions regarding credits for cancelled experiments are made by the Research Coordinator and providing credits in this circumstance is done at his/her discretion. If you are not a PSYCH-114 student, you will not receive study participation reimbursement if the researcher fails to provide 24 hours notice.

If you go to an experiment session, and the researcher fails to show up, you will be given ONE HALF-HOUR of credit, irrespective of how many hours of credit the experiment session was worth. If this has occurred, submit a request to receive your one half-hour of credit within five days of the missed experiment to the research coordinator. All such requests will be verified with the researcher. All decisions regarding credits for cancelled experiments are made by the Research Coordinator and providing credits in this circumstance is done at his/her discretion. If you are not a PSYCH-114 student, you will not receive study participation reimbursement if the researcher fails to show up for a session.

The deadline for participating in experiments or completing the CITI training is the last day of classes during any semester or summer session. No experiments will be run after that date and no CITI training hours will be accepted after that date. It is your responsibility to make sure you have completed your two hours by this date.

Consider the risk you take by waiting until the end of the term to complete your experiments. For example, if you only have one hour left to complete, and the one hour session that you are signed-up to participate in on the last day of the semester gets cancelled by a researcher, you may not be able to finish the requirement by the deadline. Similarly, the only remaining sessions may have eligibility restrictions that prevent you from registering for the experiment. No exceptions will be made for students who leave their participation until too late in the semester.

You will get an I (Incomplete) on your semester grade report for PSYCH-114 if you passed the course.

You will have until the end of the next semester (Fall or Spring) to finish the research requirement before the incomplete permanently converts to an "F". Once you do finish the research requirement, your grade will be released.

You will have some extra time but must finish the research requirement before the end of the next semester (Spring or Fall). You can still use either option to complete your hours - just contact the Research Coordinator to have your user account re-activated if you would like to continue participating in experiments. After the first day of class in the next semester, you can log in and continue signing up for experiments until the requirement is met.

No, you will be able to keep the hours that you earned during the semester you took the class. For instance, if you completed one hour of credit, you will need to complete only one more hour.

No. If you do, you will not get credit for any duplicated hours. Allowing students to complete the same research study twice means that data collected by researchers and used in their analysis may be compromised.