Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

fabsaver

C_J said:

I've just returned another study from tamu.edu - they seem to be gaining a reputation for not being great. The study was "Rating Business Proposal"  which it said would take 48 minutes and paid £3.79. The payment wasn't great but I thought I would give it a go as sometimes the estimated completion time is overly generous.  It turned out that they wanted you to review and grade 441 (four hundred and forty one!) business proposals, and to read each of them properly, consider them, and grade them would have taken hours. I waded through 60 of them, thinking it might be a trick and they might say after thr first couple of dozen that the study was complete (and that it might have been a test to see how much you were willing to do) but then I gave up and returned it. The pay didn't justify the amount of effort required, at all. I have complained to Prolific.

Did anyone else get this one?

I was offered this one but did not accept after reading the recent comments on here.
I still have the page open and it's now stating an average completion time of 86 minutes, compared to the estimated 48 minutes. I'm not sure if that takes account of the people that will have given up part way through.

I'm surprised this researcher continues to be allowed to get away with this. In the study text it says "We apologize in advance for the long-winded nature of this rating study." The audacity! They are clearly fully aware that these studies take far longer than their estimated times.

It also says "Please enter your name below for us to match our record. It will be kept confidential." I didn't think they were allowed to ask for personal identifying information such as names.

C_J

I didn't give them my full name for that very reason. In my complaint to Prolific I have suggested that they may wish to screen this researcher more carefully before accepting any more of their studies, so that they don't end up with a damaged reputation as a result.

becksport

I had the one for rating 441 business proposals about 4 days ago. At that point they were saying it would take 25 minutes and they were offering £1.01. I got through about 100 in just over 30 minutes and like the poster above, thought it might actually be a joke or the survey would finish sooner. I admitted defeat at this stage as it is impossible to complete this properly in less than 2 hrs! and I would want a payment of over £15 (it is not even an easy study). I have today been offered to do the study again and It seems they are slowing upping the time estimated and the payment but nothing like they should be paying. I have done a couple of their other surveys and they are all underpaying and under estimating the time taken. I have also reported them to Prolific.

ndf9876

Prolific are well aware of the problems here and are in touch with the researcher. It is highly likely the account is shared among students at Texas A&M and they are a reputable institution, so I personally suspect this is going to end in bonus payments all round. That said, raise a ticket with Prolific directly (as opposed to just using the "Report a Study") and you may get a quicker and more personal response.

Value

I don't think Prolific are as on top of underpaying researchers as they used to be. The last time I raised this as an issue with them (must be about 6 months ago now) they responded to say they were aware of the problem, would ask for more payment for participants, and would ban the researcher. I then got an extra payment of just 10p (should have been about £3 more for the time taken). The researcher was then banned but I saw an almost identical underpaying study from a new researcher with a similar user name appear a week later. So he'd just signed up again with a new name and done the same thing again.
Hope you get this sorted but they used to be much better at monitoring researchers.

sebloak

CrazySexyCool said:

badamsgirl said:

 Had one today which was advertised as 49mins and it took me closer to 1 hr 45 (taking minimal breaks as you had to read a paragraph and rate it on every page for over 400 pages and my arm was getting sore!) and then after i did the final page it said the submission had failed and on my submission page it said it had timed out. It suggested that i complete them all in one sitting (which i did, i just stopped a couple of times for a minute to save a dead arm), but i didn't wander off for 30 minutes, and i can't realistically see how it could of taken much less time if they actually wanted me to read the paragraphs on each page, before rating them. Just annoyed as it wasn't even well paid for the time and rather dull, but i wanted to complete it as i hate not finishing something i started, rather than bail and instead i got nothing for my time! 

Was it this one:

Independent judge

Hosted by tamu.edu

£1.9152 minutes £2.18/hr 0 places remaining

The same researcher did the same last Sunday/early hours of Monday.
That first study was underpaying already, but the time had been grossly underestimated.
It timed out, I contacted the researcher, and they still have not paid me.

I got an invite to this one too.
It stated at the start that you have to read and rate 414 business proposals and estimated a completion time of 20 minutes.
Ridiculous!
Claimed that rating each proposal would take about 10 seconds?!?
Even if that was true, 10 seconds per proposal is a total of 4140 seconds, which is over an hour!
I cannot believe the audacity of these researchers!
Complain to Prolific - I certainly am!

I got that one too with the 20 minute time.  I completed it thinking the 414 business plan pages must be an error, but got timed out. I did report it to Prolific. The same survey showed up again a few days later with a different title but a higher rate of pay (£3.79) and much more time to complete it.  

albion22

It's quite clear that studies from tamu.edu should be avoided. Hope Prolific investigate to protect their reputation.

MollyR

Questionnaire on Self-Reflective Practices
Hosted by unil.ch

Some researchers are incredibly careless!  I have just completed this study, which was shown on the Prolific list as paying £3.00 for 13 minutes. On reserving a place, the description says "The survey will take approximately 20 minutes and you will receive GBP 5 for your participation." On beginning the study, it says "The survey will take approximately 20 minutes and you will receive GBP 3 for your participation."

I messaged the researcher and said that if the shorter time was correct I would happily accept the £3, but if it took nearer to 20 minutes I would insist on the £5 and complain if I was only awarded £3.  In fact it took me less than ten minutes, so I sent another message saying I would be happy with the £3, but strongly recommending them to sort out their different and clashing descriptions of the study.

allison445

Ultimatum Bargaining Experiment

Hosted by Michael Rojek-Giffin£6.25 50 minutes £7.49/hr 3 places remaining

been doing this for over 2 hours and there is no sign of it ending anyone else had this one

MollyR

MollyR said:

Questionnaire on Self-Reflective Practices
Hosted by unil.ch

Some researchers are incredibly careless!  I have just completed this study, which was shown on the Prolific list as paying £3.00 for 13 minutes. On reserving a place, the description says "The survey will take approximately 20 minutes and you will receive GBP 5 for your participation." On beginning the study, it says "The survey will take approximately 20 minutes and you will receive GBP 3 for your participation."

I messaged the researcher and said that if the shorter time was correct I would happily accept the £3, but if it took nearer to 20 minutes I would insist on the £5 and complain if I was only awarded £3.  In fact it took me less than ten minutes, so I sent another message saying I would be happy with the £3, but strongly recommending them to sort out their different and clashing descriptions of the study.

The researcher replied to my messages:  "Hi, We are aware of the issue and were told Prolific had updated the study description to match the listing and survey (after a study launches they are the only ones who can correct the description text). Although we can see the change at our end it seems that the updates take time to reflect everywhere. Thanks for pointing this out and for helping us with the study!"  They also approved my £3 payment immediately.