Social Sciences Lab

Research carried out with this subject pool is "no more than minimal risk" research. As an experimenter, you are responsible for having your study approved by the Institutional Review Board in order to utilize our research participation pool. When your study protocol narrative and advertisement have been approved by the IRB, you can submit them to the Social Science Lab and we will issue you a logon and password with which you can enter our online scheduling and subject management system (Experimetrix) to post your study. If you have questions regarding this, please email jhoigaar@uci.edu. Your faculty sponsor or advisor should guide you in the application process, but here are some links and forms that will be helpful to you.

Human Research Site

This is the starting point for any research involving the use of human research participants. The Research and Graduate Studies site has electronic applications for submittal of your protocol and posts specific guidelines in the use of human research participants. Currently, our research participation pool only allows for EXEMPT OR EXPEDITED research studies to recruit participants.

Social Science Research Participation Pool Advertisement

Advertising should not be 'coercive,' which is to say that your ad should only include a statement of what the subjects will operationally be doing and not a statement of how much credit they'll receive for some smaller amount of time. Credit or money may be offered, but not both. If credit is offered, it should be at the rate of 1/2 hour of time = 1/2 credit. No additional incentives, such as a raffle, should be offered along with the credit to make your study appear more appealing. The template form accessible here is to be used for creating an advertisement to recruit research participants using our Research Participation Pool. Your advertisement must be submitted to the IRB along with your protocol. Once approved, you may recruit through this participant pool by contacting our office at the numbers below. This blank form is in Adobe Acrobat format and can be filled out using your computer when you view it using Acrobat.

Electronic Modification Application

Once you have an IRB-APPROVED protocol and advertisement, any modifications can be made at this site. For instance, if you would like to change your recruitment procedures, add or remove personnel, request an increase in sample size, add a study procedure, etc. then you must complete this application and obtain IRB Approval PRIOR to putting those changes in place and carrying them out. This link takes you to the IRB electronic protocol modification application.