Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

PWEM

silvercar wrote: »

Online survey
Hosted by Kaylee Li
£0.425 minutes £5.04/hr 0 places remaining

This one asked 3 questions and then jumped to the end with no code given. Hope they pay up because it felt like I was screened out.

Did it say "In this study you will be asked to engage in an online survey consisting of 19 questions. To complete the whole survey, you need to choose both "Yes" for Q1 and Q3, otherwise, your answer would be rejected. Thank you!"?

mikep22

silvercar wrote: »

2nd reply from researcher admits she rejected me because of my answer to question 3. This breaks the rules that require studies should not be rejected based on responses.

I've emailed the researcher for the 3rd time. Anyone know how I can report this?

Im unsure what you mean by that. Studies are rejected for responses all the time on things such as attention checks, or if answers prove to be inconsistent.

If it was an open question then they should probably give you more info but the problem is once its been rejected theres really not much you can do about it as all the evidence is with the researcher.
I would temper this by saying that having completed now 1,138 surveys, I have only had cause to complain about what I felt unfair rejecting twice. So its very rare.

silvercar

mikep22 wrote: »

Im unsure what you mean by that. Studies are rejected for responses all the time on things such as attention checks, or if answers prove to be inconsistent.

If it was an open question then they should probably give you more info but the problem is once its been rejected theres really not much you can do about it as all the evidence is with the researcher.
I would temper this by saying that having completed now 1,138 surveys, I have only had cause to complain about what I felt unfair rejecting twice. So its very rare.

The actual question that led to the rejection was "do you follow brand XX on instagram or facebook?" Clearly a screening question that according to prolific's own rules should have been part of a short initial survey before offering the main lengthier survey to those that responded positively.

I answered honestly that I don't and the survey promptly ended. Those that answered postively were taken on to further questions.

silvercar

PWEM wrote: »

Did it say "In this study you will be asked to engage in an online survey consisting of 19 questions. To complete the whole survey, you need to choose both "Yes" for Q1 and Q3, otherwise, your answer would be rejected. Thank you!"?

That was it!

So basically lie if you don't want a rejection!

Prolific is quite clear in their guidelines for researchers that you cannot screen during a survey and should do a small survey first to select the respondents you want to complete your main survey.

Value

silvercar wrote: »

The actual question that led to the rejection was "do you follow brand XX on instagram or facebook?" Clearly a screening question that according to prolific's own rules should have been part of a short initial survey before offering the main lengthier survey to those that responded positively.

I answered honestly that I don't and the survey promptly ended. Those that answered postively were taken on to further questions.

I got that survey. It did very clearly say in the criteria for that survey that you shouldn't take this survey if you didn't follow a brand on a social media site. So I guess it meant that you should have declined it rather than stat it. There have been a few surveys I've had which are like that - just saying in the notes that you should only proceed if you meet the criteria they want for the survey. I don't know if it costs researchers more to have a pre-screening question which is maybe why some don't do that.

Willing2Learn

Just noticed that the Prolific Assistant extension for Chrome has been updated to the new prolific.co address.

PWEM

silvercar wrote: »

That was it!

So basically lie if you don't want a rejection!

Prolific is quite clear in their guidelines for researchers that you cannot screen during a survey and should do a small survey first to select the respondents you want to complete your main survey.

They are attention check questions if you read the brief carefully.
You acted like an awkward customer demanding a refund in a shop.

Vintage67

silvercar wrote: »

That was it!

So basically lie if you don't want a rejection!

Prolific is quite clear in their guidelines for researchers that you cannot screen during a survey and should do a small survey first to select the respondents you want to complete your main survey.

Prolific specifically forbid researchers to screen participants during a survey:

https://researcher-help.prolific.co/hc/en-gb/articles/360010165173-Can-I-screen-participants-within-my-survey-

Can I screen participants within my survey?

No, you can only screen participants out of your survey based on criteria which are specified using Prolific's prescreening options.
By this, we mean that the full eligibility criteria for your study must be applied to your prescreening, so that all participants who are sent to your study can complete it and receive the reward. You can not simply reject participants if they do not meet the criteria you're looking for, or exit them from your survey, if the criteria wasn't applied to your prescreening.

So I'd report any researcher who asks screening questions, or includes text in the instructions like 'Only complete this survey if you....'

These questions are completely different to attention checks.

PA also say

Participants inappropriately screened out of a study should not have their submission rejected, and will require payment.

so I'd be contactin the researcher and asking for payment!

Willing2Learn

Attitudes to social issues
Hosted by cardiff.ac.uk
£1.50 10 minutes £9.00/hr 124 places remaining

silvercar

PWEM wrote: »

They are attention check questions if you read the brief carefully.
You acted like an awkward customer demanding a refund in a shop.

I didn't reach the attention check questions before being screened out!

I really feel I accepted a survey offered to me and then the survey was set up in a way that breaches prolific rules.

Vintage67 wrote: »

Prolific specifically forbid researchers to screen participants during a survey:

https://researcher-help.prolific.co/hc/en-gb/articles/360010165173-Can-I-screen-participants-within-my-survey-

Can I screen participants within my survey?

No, you can only screen participants out of your survey based on criteria which are specified using Prolific's prescreening options.
By this, we mean that the full eligibility criteria for your study must be applied to your prescreening, so that all participants who are sent to your study can complete it and receive the reward. You can not simply reject participants if they do not meet the criteria you're looking for, or exit them from your survey, if the criteria wasn't applied to your prescreening.

So I'd report any researcher who asks screening questions, or includes text in the instructions like 'Only complete this survey if you....'

These questions are completely different to attention checks.

PA also say

Participants inappropriately screened out of a study should not have their submission rejected, and will require payment.

so I'd be contactin the researcher and asking for payment!

I did send that link and explain it in the 3rd email to the researcher. They than thanked me for the suggestion and approved the survey.