Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

olliebean

mikep22 said:

yupiteru said:

mikep22 said:

allison445 said:

The role of the end-user in the development of responsible AI systems
latest update from the timed out study a rather long response

Dear Participant,
Firstly, I really would like to THANK YOU if you have taken the time to complete our survey. We received a lot of good and high-quality data. THANK YOU!!!

However, there has also been a technical issue with the completion time parameter setup, which caused most of you to be timed out. You may know that when a participant is timed-out, Prolific looks for new participants. As a result, we had more than 1300 responses, instead of 400.

Our initial project allowance was for 400 participants, but as I said previously, we really value participants' effort and time in taking the survey, and we recognise that the issue was not on your side. So, we as a team worked hard in the past few days to figure out the problem, and see what we could do to pay back most of you. I manually checked all participants in timed-out and awaiting review status, and we raised our allowance as much as we could.

 As a result, 89% of the total submissions will be accepted despite your timed-out status. If you receive a rejection, please do not take it personally. The rejection is not related to the timed-out status per se, but to the criteria, we mentioned in our ad (e.g., multiple attention checks failed, survey completed too quickly, etc.). Further, Prolific recorded some submissions of which we haven't received any data, and so we are unable to verify and accept those submissions.

 I will reject or approve and pay participants who result in "awaiting review" status first, and I will move on to those in "timed-out" later. Please, consider that on our side we have to compute the new budget needed to cover the extra cost and make a new payment to Prolific. We will do it as quick as possible, but it may take a few days. Do not panic, if you don't receive your reward straightforward.

 I hope you can all appreciate our effort and work and this message clarifies how we have decided to proceed. Thank you again for taking part in the survey.

I had this today, though a much shorter version basically telling me to return it and not making any suggestions about paying it.

"You completed The role of the end-user in the development of responsible AI systems

23 Jun 2022, 07:34

Hi, Thank you for taking the time to do our survey. Unfortunately, there's been a technical problem with this study. We don't want to penalise participants for that, therefore can you please return your submission? We are already in contact with Prolific. Thank you."

____

Colour me deeply unimpressed. I have said having completed the survey I would expect the rewards as initially stated to be honest.

That is very disappointing as even if it was a technical issue you should still be paid for your time surely?  I still have the 'timed out' status showing so I wont hold my breath.

Took me over 30 mins to complete so I am hoping for some kind of payment, but if not It wont be the first disappointing Prolific experience (or the last!).

They havent replied to me yet - given theyve effectively told me that its a technical issue and not one of mine, I would expect to be paid tbh. And its not like its a low paying survey, its a £5 one! 

Prolific's guidelines to researchers explicitly state that this is not a valid reason for rejection: "Unfortunately, technical errors sometimes occur, but if it was not the participant's fault, then this is not a valid reason for rejection" (https://researcher-help.prolific.co/hc/en-gb/articles/360009092394-Approvals-rejections-returns).

Of course they can ask you to voluntarily return your submission, but if you decide not to they should not reject it or refuse payment - and if you were not at fault, they really ought to at least offer a partial payment for the sake of good faith. They are certainly not entitled to "penalise" you for a technical problem that was not your fault.

yupiteru

MollyR said:

Did you message the researcher (who appears to be Australian, from the URL) to point out the difference?  That might give them time to correct their error.

Yes I did contact the researcher and politely point out the 'issue' and explained why I had returned the study, forgot to mention it.

It is a common 'mistake' as we all know especially amongst our American friends

MollyR

I, as a Scot, find it to be a very common "mistake" especially amongst the English!

Farmers-wife_2

yupiteru said:

British Men's Meat Consumption Study

I understand that some people overseas think of England as Britain bit seen as I am in Wales, I did not want to risk a rejection.

Last week I was on the phone with a company in Hull and was asked:
"Exactly where in mainland England is Llanelli located?"

MollyR

In America, I was once asked "Scotland?  That's in England, right?"

[Deleted User]

MollyR said:

In America, I was once asked "Scotland?  That's in England, right?"

Aye right!!

yupiteru

When I was on holiday on the island of Crete a few years back, some of the locals we got friendly with had no idea where Wales was.  Scotland Ireland and England yes, but not Wales.

I tried to explain where it was, just to the right of Ireland, but they thought that was all England.

Most peoples geography is not very good (including mine).

yupiteru

British Men's Meat Consumption Study

Had a reply from the researcher, apparently the error was in the title and that she should have specified English men in the title not British.

So I was right not to continue.

I was expecting it to be the other way around I must admit.

One thing I noticed was that there was no scroll bar in the right hand messages section and I had to reduce the zoom to 67% to be able to see the reply from the researcher.

yupiteru

Workplace Behavior

By Grace Lim

£0.30 • £3.41/hr

5 mins

129 places

The purpose of this study is to understand workplace behaviors.

Please participate only if you fulfil the criteria below:

• Located in the UK
• Native English Speaker

When I began this study the payment was around £6 per hour but the completion time was 3 mins.

It took me and obviously others longer than 3 mins as there is a free typing exercise and consequently the time payment ratio has changed and is now significantly underpaying.

I have reported as underpaying but I am not convinced that the 'report study' function actually does anything or that anybody actually monitors it, as it rarely seems to have any effect.

MollyR

I reported one (via the chatbot) the other day from our Chinese friend, which was responded to in less than 48 hours.