While preparing your IRB proposal for a psychology study, please note the following IRB informed consent form language suggestions:

When discussing incentives

• If using the psychology research participant pools to offer research requirement or extra credit: “SMCM students who sign up for this study via the Research Participant Pool Website will receive # credit toward an eligible psychology or neuroscience course for their participation upon completion of the survey.
• If using the all registered student population: “Students not completing the survey for research requirement or extra credit may choose to earn # entries for the AY24-25 Psyc Department Data Collection Raffle (for a chance to win one of eight prizes ranging $50 – $75) by entering their SMCM student ID when prompted. Students who are eligible to earn research/extra credit may NOT enter the raffle instead UNLESS they have maxed out the number of credits possible to earn.”
• Note regarding credits/raffle entries: Number of credits or raffle entries earned will be determined upon length of the study and other factors (e.g., lab studies are worth more credit/entries than online studies). Use this as an estimate when preparing your IRB proposal:
  

  Study Length	Online	Lab
  up to 15 min	.5 credit/1 raffle entry	1 credit/3 raffle entries
  16-30 min	1 credit/2 raffle entries	1.5 credits/6 raffle entries
  31-45 min	1.5 credits/3 raffle entries	2 credits/9 raffle entries
  46-60 min	2 credits/4 raffle entries	2.5 credits/12 raffle entries
  61-75 min	2.5 credits/5 raffle entries	3 credits/15 raffle entries
  76-90 min	3 credits/6 raffle entries	3.5 credits/18 raffle entries

When discussing confidentiality for online studies

• If one plans to recruit from the psychology research participant pools and the “All Registered Students” population and credit/raffle entry info (i.e., Sona-IDs/Student IDs for raffle participants) will be collected in the same data file as primary measures OR you are using both those sources to recruit but Credit/Raffle entry info is in a separate project [MOST studies usually fall into one of these two categories]: “Your answers on the survey will be anonymous to the researcher. Any identifying information collected for credit/raffle purposes and/or to facilitate recruitment via email will be held confidential and will not be visible to anyone outside of Office of Institutional Research staff and the Psychology Research Pool Manager.”
• If one plans to recruit from the psychology research participant pools and an email address for follow-up will be collected in a project/data file separate from primary measures and you are not recruiting from the “All Registered Students” population (i.e., raffle participants): “Your answers on the survey will be anonymous. Any identifying information collected and/or to facilitate recruitment via email will be held confidential and will not be visible to anyone outside of Office of Institutional Research staff and the Psychology Research Pool Manager. Any identifying information collected (e.g., email) to facilitate follow-up will be kept in a data project/file completely separate from primary measures (please expect a survey redirect to allow for this).”
• Note: If one plans to recruit from the “All Registered Students” population (i.e., raffle participants), the following is NOT accurate if you plan/need to send follow-up reminder to those who haven’t completed a survey yet: “Because there is no identifying information on the surveys and this consent form will be in no way linked to your surveys, your answers to the survey questions will be anonymous.” We can technically make surveys completely anonymous but doing so will not allow us to avoid sending a recruitment to those who have already done the survey. So, be careful with your wording.

While preparing your IRB proposal for a psychology study, please note the following language suggestions for inclusive demographic items:

Race/Ethnicity (check all that apply): 

• African/African American/Black
• American Indian/Native American
• Asian/Asian American
• Biracial/Multiracial (please specify):______________________
• Caucasian/European American/White
• Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine
• Middle Eastern or North African (e.g., Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan, Algerian, etc.)
• Pacific Islander/Pacific Islander American
• Self-identify:_____________ 

Gender (check all that apply):

Note: “Cisgender” refers to a person whose gender identity corresponds with their birth sex.
“Non-binary” refers to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with either male or female.
“Transgender” refers to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with their birth sex.
“Agender” refers to a person who does not identify with a particular gender.

• Cisgender Man
• Cisgender Woman
• Non-Binary
• Transgender Man
• Transgender Woman
• Agender
• Self-identify: ________________

Class:

• First-year
• Sophomore
• Junior
• Senior
• Other

Age (write in)

Allowing for participants under the age of 18

Some students in the research pools (e.g., in the case of a 17-year-old first year student) are not at the minimum age of 18 that is the general standard for approved research. If your study materials are not such that having someone who is 17 would be questionable/inappropriate, you might consider writing into your description of human participants that “All participants will be at least 18 years old or, if younger, will provide documentation of parental/guardian permission to participate to the psychology research participant pool manager).” Your statement of informed consent would state “You must be 18 years of age or older to participate in this study or have a parental/guardian master consent form on file with the psychology department.”