Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

[Deleted User]

I'm sure things will pick up, Makingabobor2 - don't be too discouraged.  I have had quite a few quite long spells with no successful Studies being available. 

Today I have had one successful Study  but about ten or maybe even more (lost count) of new study notifications today where there were no places available once I clicked to start.

Makingabobor2

Deleted_User said:

I'm sure things will pick up, Makingabobor2 - don't be too discouraged.  I have had quite a few quite long spells with no successful Studies being available. 

Today I have had one successful Study  but about ten or maybe even more (lost count) of new study notifications today where there were no places available once I clicked to start.

Yes I often get long spells of not much, but this is very bad and getting ones that are already full every day now. Also has anyone noticed they are taking so long to approve now? 

Tommo2448

Makingabobor2 said:

Well its been a really slow couple of weeks, I obviously am not in the right demographic at the moment. Normally I get a slow few days, but this is awful lately and the ones that are coming up have once place and no chance of getting them, Hoping it improves soon

I know how you feel !   But it might be the Prolific algorithm - if someone does a lot of surveys in a fairly short space of time, the system tweaks things to spread the surveys more fairly (as they would see it) across the pool of participants.   They explained this a few years ago in a blog post for researchers - https://www.prolific.co/blog/data-quality-at-prolific-part-2-naivety-and-engagement (apols if this has been mentioned before).     Their term "naive" is not meant in a bad way !

The trick seems to be to stop doing any for a little while, and you will start to get back into the invites again.   This is one reason why I do surveys across half a dozen sites, if I get "naive" on one, I go and work on another (although few others are as lucrative as Prolific).

The low number of surveys might also be a function of where we are in the academic year, with undergrads finishing up and the Masters folks not quite started their survey work in the summer ?

[Deleted User]

I have had one where, with 70 spaces available, I clicked to start straight away and, that too, was already full.  I have just, about a minute ago, had another notification where, as before, the Study was already full.

I'm pleased to have had the one Study completed and approved today.

Slinky

MollyR said:

Net Zero Recommender Systems

By nottingham.ac.uk

£4.90 • £28.54/hr

10 mins

Seriously weird!  The introduction page was almost incomprehensible (and I have a degree in English), and at one point said that the study would take three hours.  It then proceeded to ask questions which nobody who did not specialise in the field of copper mining in the Philippines could possibly answer (although Google helped a bit towards the end).  Then I was presented with the URLs of two documents and asked to read them;  but the page was not properly coded so the links were not clickable, and neither was it possible to copy the URLs' text and paste it into the location bar of a different tab.  And to cap it all, there was no completion code, just a Qualtrics "thank you" page.  I complained bitterly to the researcher, and we will see whether or not I get a response.

I returned that one after the gibberish of the instructions and then seeing the content matter, as being singularly unable to comment about anything to do with copper mining in the Phillipines. Not knowing whether anything meaningful would be done with the results of the survey, who was I to say whether they should continue to mine copper there or not!

MollyR

I see that they have now changed the preliminary instructions (i.e. before opening the survey) to read:

"In this study, we are asking participants to fill in a survey examining their opinion and background knowledge regarding the topic of copper mining. The participants are then presented with different combination of supporting resources which they should read and fill in the surveying questions again. The results of the study will then be analysed to study the effect that different supporting resources have in the formation of participants' opinion about mining related questions."

Well, they never said that when I undertook the study, and since there was no way to open the documents they wanted one to read (other than writing down the long URLs and then typing them into a new tab) that explains why I was not given a a completion code - and of course no explanation either!  I shall insist on full payment, because they simply didn't set up their study properly.

mutleythegooner

theonlywayisup said:

I had a study yesterday that was very minor.  The bonus was (in comparison) very major.  Probably the best bonus to payment ratio for me yet. 

I had another good one today, I never thought they would actually pay the bonus but its been approbed already:

Reward: £4.00

Bonus: £22.00

Makingabobor2

mutleythegooner said:

theonlywayisup said:

I had a study yesterday that was very minor.  The bonus was (in comparison) very major.  Probably the best bonus to payment ratio for me yet. 

I had another good one today, I never thought they would actually pay the bonus but its been approbed already:

Reward: £4.00

Bonus: £22.00

Wow, I could do with a few of those

[Deleted User]

Has anyone else had this problem with Match a voice to a robot!?

 (Chrome browser + wired headphone required, 2 + 6 Minutes)

28 Jun 2023, 14:53

I reserved a place and attempted to start straight away when this notice came up: "Deceptive site ahead

Attackers on robotvoice-pilot-v2-prolific-redeploy.3.74.150.245.nip.io may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers or credit cards). "

 I am not sure what the problem could be but I did not proceed.  I Returned the Study and let the Researcher know.

UPDATE:  I have just received a message from the Researcher: 

"Dear participant, thank you for your message. We are aware of this issue. This red screen occurs for some participants. We are working on a fix. Thanks for informing us."

GrannyKate

@Scorpio33 - thanks for reply - I did eventually get £3.94 bonus but a lot of mental effort to do just Part1.