Hi Everyone: We have a subject pool of approximately 450 students in Psych 2H03 & 2H03E who will be looking for an experimental credit starting with the beginning of classes (January 3, 2001). Last year the pool got off to a very slow start which resulted in the instructors being bombarded with questions from anxious students. In an attempt to avoid that this year, we are reminding everyone early that this subject pool is available. The full guidelines for using the subject pool are given below but basically it involves one experimental session of up to one and a half hours in which the students participate in the experiment and answer test questions after the debriefing. If you are interested in using this subject pool, could you please let me know as soon as possible - you are not making a commitment at this point we are just trying to find out who might be interested in using the pool so that we know what to anticipate. Thanks, Ann Hollingshead 2H03 Subject Pool Coordinator x23005 GUIDELINES for Using the 2H03 & 2H03E Subject Pool Subject Pool Coordinator: Ann Hollingshead, Ext. 23005, Room 105 hollings@mcmaster.ca The 2H03 & 2H03E subject pool is designed to be an educational part of the Cognition course. Students are given the opportunity to learn about cognition experiments first hand by participating in data collection. Credit of up to 6% is awarded based on the students' participation in an experiment (2%) and on the students' answers to questions (4%) that are designed to test the students' understanding of the design and purpose of the experiment in which they participated. Experimental sessions for credit should be no longer than 1-1/2 hours. Researchers who wish to use the pool are responsible for the following: 1. Principal Investigators are responsible for educating their graduate and undergraduate students, who may be running the subjects, of the requirements and guidelines. 2. Researchers should prepare a written debriefing, including descriptions of the cognitive issues being studied, hypotheses being tested, experimental design, dependent and independent variables, predictions, and the type of analyses to be performed. Two or three references should be included (in APA format), one of which should be a pointer to a relevant section of the course textbook [Reisberg, D. (1997). Cognition: Exploring the science of mind. NY: Norton]. The Coordinator has a copy of the text if you don't have access to one. 3. In order to have more consistency in the difficulty of the test questions and in the grading of them, we have decided to have all researchers ask the same questions which are: (a) What is the purpose/hypothesis of this experiment? (2%) (b) What is/are the independent variable(s) (I.V.)? (1%) and (c) What is/are the dependent variable(s) (D.V.) and how is it (are they) measured? The answers to these questions should be embedded in the debriefing. This will provide the students with concrete examples of terms they will be encountering in their course work and also hopefully encourage them to read the debriefing more thoroughly. See a sample test sheet with answers at the end. 4. Researchers are responsible for grading the test questions. This is really meant to be an educational experience so if a student truly does not know the answer to a question, you may explain it to the student and then allow them to answer the question. The questions must be posed and answered BEFORE the students leave the session (i.e., the questions should not be given to the students to hand in later this causes too many problems with students claiming they handed them in and researchers claiming they haven't received them.) 5. A copy of the debriefing, test questions and answer key, consent form, and sign-up sheet should be given to the Subject Pool Coordinator for approval before you post your sign-up sheet. The Coordinator will provide the experimenter with credit slips to give to the students as proof of their participation. These slips must be filled out in full by the experimenter before giving them to the students. 6. All subject participation for class credit must be completed one week prior to the end of classes (e.g., by March 30, 2001.) Researchers must submit to the Coordinator by April 2, 2001 their list of participants student names, student IDs, and total grade point (out of 6). These can be sent by e-mail, or as an attachment, or on a sheet of paper and placed in the Coordinator's mailbox. Should there be a discrepancy, the credit slip given to the student will act as proof of participation. This year, the Coordinator will also be collecting the participants' answer sheets to the test questions (leave in mailbox). 7. A grade penalty (2%) may be imposed on students who sign up for an experiment and then do not show up for the experiment. However, there will be occasions when students must cancel their appointments so you must have a contact number/e-mail on your sign-up sheet, otherwise it would not be fair to penalize the students if they have no way of contacting you. Everyone must keep track of the 'No-Shows'. Again it is not fair to have some people doing so and others not and we do not want to encourage 'No-Shows' because they are a terrible waste of everyone's time. 8. Students can choose to do a 'walk-through' of the experimental session. The walk-through consists of a demonstration of the experimental procedures and stimuli but the student generates no data. The walk-through session will be approximately the same length of time as a regular session. As is the case for the real experiments, the questions must be answered before the student leaves the session. Walk-through sessions may not be available for all experiments and the normal restrictions will be applied (e.g., normal vision, native English speaker, etc.). Students who wish this option should contact the Coordinator before the first midterm so the necessary arrangements can be made by the Coordinator with the researchers. 9. If students have any questions about research participation or any concerns about the way a particular experiment was run, they should bring them to the attention of the course instructor, the subject pool coordinator, Ann Hollingshead (hollings@mcmaster.ca or Ext. 23005), or they make contact Dr. Maurer, Chair of the Psychology Department Ethics Committee for Undergraduate Research (maurer@mcmaster.ca or Ext. 23030). Sample Test Questions Sheet with Sample Answers: Lab: Experimenter's Name: PSYCH 2H03 & PSYCH 2H03E Test Questions following Experimental Participation and Debriefing Student Name: Student I.D. # Class: Day Eve Please complete the following questions on this sheet of paper before leaving the experimental session. The questions all pertain to the experiment you just completed. 1. What is the purpose or hypothesis of this experiment? (2 pts) The purpose of this experiment was to examine the control of attention as processing is switched between objects in different locations and between global and local elements of the objects. 2. What is/are the Independent Variable(s) (I.V.)? (1 pt.) The independent variables were object location in the visual field (left vs right visual hemifield), object level (global vs local), and target (present vs absent). 3. What is/are the Dependent Variable(s) (D.V.) and how is it (are they) measured? (1 pt.) The dependent variables were response time and accuracy. These were measured by recording my responses as I pressed a key on the computer keyboard whenever I detected a target.