Using Prolific

Go to Prolific and log in with your details

  • Check if there is a project folder đź“‚ your experiment belongs to under “Projects”.
    • If not, create a new project folder for your study.
  • Consider if your experiment should be desktop only (in most cases we would only want participants to use a desktop)
    • The number of vignettes, whether you show images etc. can all affect this decision.
    • If you allow mobile phone usage, it might be good to compare participant data who use mobile phones to participants who use desktop to ensure no significant differences.
  • Make sure to add the unique link of your experiment (this would be the distribution link Qualtrics gives you) to Prolific
  • Make sure you copy and paste the redirection URL Prolific gives you as a customized end-of-survey message via Survey Flow in Qualtrics.

Collecting Prolific IDs

This is required in order to pay participants

  • Consider how you will collect prolific Id’s (automatic or manual examples on how to do this can be found on the template)
  • If you use URL parameters, make sure the embedded data field that collects the Prolific ID is set up (see template)

Other Considerations

Elimination of participants

  • Consider if you need to eliminate participants from previous studies, especially if this is a replication.
    • Prolific automatically offers this to you if you have duplicated your Prolific draft of the pilot to create the full study.

Participant Payment

  • Calculate how much to pay participants by using the average duration you computed before.
  • Get funding approval from the PI.

🚨Go back to Qualtrics and UPDATE your participant information form with the estimated duration and how much you’ll reimburse participants.🚨

*Consider if you can just automatically approve submissions or if you need to review them. Reviewing submissions manually can help you not waste funds on incomplete etc. trials.

Pre-publishing Checks

  • Check that you have added the correct screeners, number of participants, etc. before pressing publish on Prolific.
  • Preview the survey via Prolific (like we do on Qualtrics) all the way through to the end to ensure:
    • (1) Prolific directs participants to your survey correctly
    • (2) your survey correctly redirects participants back to Prolific

⛳️ After you publish the experiment, go to your lab’s funding tracker page and log on to the details of the amount of funds spent. If you are a student researcher, contact your lab manager / PI for them to log costs on your behalf.