Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

[Deleted User]

Just did a survey where it talked about the X1, X2 and x3 and y1, y2 and y3 variable ridiculously hard.  Needless to say I failed the attention check

willowcat27

Watch a live stream event at 10am BST and fill out a questionnaire

By e.ntu.edu.sg
£3.00 • £9.00/hr
20 mins
3 places

Long shot as the study only wanted 5 people but I wondered if anyone else had done this one.  I did it last Saturday morning and today received a rejection for it with the reason of 'finishing too quickly'. 
The estimated time was 20 minutes and it took me 13, but it was just a few questions after watching a live stream of a virtual AI which only took about 5 minutes for the stream.
This is my first rejection after 1138 accepted submissions.  Weirdly, it says the study still has 3 places when I looked it up.  
I have sent them a message because it seems unfair.  Does anyone know how many rejections you can have before Prolific take action or what else I can do.  I've been on the chat thing but it says I have to wait 7 days before I can ask for further support to allow time for the researcher to reply.

elsien

Just had one for a £15 video interview thing but when I tried to book a time slot, there was only one still available. In the middle of work when I can't take an hour out.
Ah well, can't be helped

Makingabobor2

Tommo2448 said:

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 ?

Yes, I don't think its the algorithm this time, I often have had that in the past, but this has been slow for a good 3 weeks now and even before the I hadn't earnt masses. You may be right about the academic year. It does seem like even ones showing lots of spaces are already full now though. I had one show with over 400 spaces apparently, but said full when I clicked. Had at least 10 today showing spaces but then being full. 
Yes, like you I use lots of survey sites, but some are just so bad its painful.....lol

JGB1955

Just wondering if anyone else is doing 

Brain Blossom - 2

By psy.ox.ac.uk

£30.00 • £9.00/hr

200 mins

0 places

Tommo2448

Makingabobor2 said:

Tommo2448 said:

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 ?

Yes, I don't think its the algorithm this time, I often have had that in the past, but this has been slow for a good 3 weeks now and even before the I hadn't earnt masses. You may be right about the academic year. It does seem like even ones showing lots of spaces are already full now though. I had one show with over 400 spaces apparently, but said full when I clicked. Had at least 10 today showing spaces but then being full. 
Yes, like you I use lots of survey sites, but some are just so bad its painful.....lol

Hi, sure.  The other thing of course - blindingly obvious when I think about it - is that there is almost certainly higher demand for survey monies because of cost of living etc pressures.   If supply is maybe going down, and demand is going up (and the survey providers are essentially just a market), it becomes harder for everyone to get into surveys.  Also, with the holiday season/school holidays imminent, folk may be trying to pile up some money to help pay for that. 

And the other issue is that Prolific is attractive not just for its higher rates of pay, but also because of the low bar to cashout at £5, and the fact it is immediate to Paypal.  The same applies to Qmee - Prolific/Qmee have made up about 70% of my survey earnings this month, and indeed across the board since Nov 22 when I began keeping a more detailed tally.

This is in contrast to even some of the other reasonable survey sites which either have a higher bar for cashout (e.g. YLIve at £50, although definitely worth doing), or even if they do pay out at lower amounts, can take five or more days actually to land in your Paypal account (e.g. Lifepoints).

Ho hum - just have to keep plugging away at it !   Nowt in life is easy....

willowcat27

Just adding my point of view and experience.  I have recently had an extended time off work and worked from home which meant I could do many more studies.
Like everyone has said, I found that there wasn't many studies and it was hard to get a place. 
However for the last month I have been back in the office for the majority of the day (I cant do studies at work) Now I find that when I log on (which isn't that often)  there are always studies waiting, sometimes more than one and that I am quite likely to get a place even if there are only a few places remaining.  There are definitely lots of studies flying about, I just don't have the time to do them!

Tommo2448

willowcat27 said:

Just adding my point of view and experience.  I have recently had an extended time off work and worked from home which meant I could do many more studies.
Like everyone has said, I found that there wasn't many studies and it was hard to get a place. 
However for the last month I have been back in the office for the majority of the day (I cant do studies at work) Now I find that when I log on (which isn't that often)  there are always studies waiting, sometimes more than one and that I am quite likely to get a place even if there are only a few places remaining.  There are definitely lots of studies flying about, I just don't have the time to do them!

Appreciate that, thanks - everyone's experience is clearly a bit different !  I must have a look at the Reddit on Prolific and see what folks there are reporting (which will be a worldwide audience, not just UK).

It'd be interesting actually to have someone from Prolific on here to help us understand better...

Makingabobor2

Well this is getting beyond a joke now. One popped up showing 102 places, but when I click on it, it says it is full!

[Deleted User]

I think I had that one too - 100+ places and already full.  I've also had about four or five this morning, all already full, varying from 1 to 50+ places allegedly available.

In addition, I keep getting separate notifications  for the same Study separated by about 5 or 10 minutes.  Every time the Study is, again, also already full.