Online Psychology Research UK

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Welcome to "Online Psychology Research UK"

This web site is maintained by Kathryn Gardner at the University of Central Lancashire

(the website is currently in the process of being re-designed, so call back soon!)

This website hosts psychology related studies that are currently running on the internet.  The website is designed to help researchers in the UK recruit UK participants (international researchers who wish to recruit UK participants are also welcome).  This website also provides numerous useful resources to help researchers who are conducting or considering conducting online research. Information for researchers and potential participants is provided below.

If you need to reference this website in your research please click here

 

    Information for Researchers 

If you are a researcher and would like to add your study to this website please here click here

In return for use of this website, please consider forwarding the web address onto friends, family and work colleagues etc, as this may help other researchers with their data collection efforts. Please also add the link to this website to your own study website.

 

      Information for Participants 

Please only participate in these studies if you are currently living in the UK and English is your native language.  If you are not from the UK and English is not your native language, UK and International studies currently running on the internet can be found at other websites listing online studies (click here)

If you participate in any of the studies below please feel free to forward the study weblink on to friends, family and colleagues, or forward this website address on - www.onlinepsychresearch.co.uk

"Thank you" for your participation. It is VERY much appreciated and will make a significant contribution to psychological knowledge.

 

197 Studies Currently Running Online

Last new study added on 04.07.08

To participate in online psychology studies please select one of the categories below:

 

Biological Psychology/Neuropsychology (0)

 Meta-Cognitive Psychology (1)
Clinical Psychology (Mental Health) (18) Music Psychology (0)
Cognitive Psychology (26) Occupational/Workplace Psychology (10)
Consumer Psychology (4) Parapsychology (1)
Developmental Psychology (5) Perception (1)
Economic & Family Psychology (2) Personality Psychology (20)
Educational Psychology (0) Positive Psychology (1)
Environmental Psychology (0) Psychology of Religion (3)
Forensic Psychology (9) Sexual Behaviour/Sexuality (4)
General/Other (13) Social Cognition (1)
Health Psychology (25) Social Psychology (49)

Past Studies (107)

 

Results from Past Studies (1)

 

Resources for Conducting Online Research

New links last added on 02.07.08

Note to researchers: If you are designing an online study and only want UK participants in your sample, be sure to either a) state this on your website as well as stating that participants must be native English speakers, or b) ask for demographic info such as country and whether the participant is a native English speaker, so that you can then later select UK participants for use in your analyses.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet-Mediated-Research

        Click here

 

Other Websites Listing Online Studies

 

Web-Publishing Software 

 

Software/Programmes for Designing and Developing Online Studies (many of these cost money but prices vary)

 

Resources for Designing and Developing Online Studies

 

General Online Research Resources

 

Web Hosting

In a nut shell, web hosting services provide customers with space on the internet from which to conduct research and store information etc.

 

Domain Names

Domain names are the word sequences users enter in their URL bar to visit your website e.g., www.onlinepsychresearch.co.uk is the domain name for this website.  If you purchase software to programme your website for you then you should be given a domain name as well.  If however, you programme your website yourself, you will need to purchase a domain name as well as a web hosting package.  Most web hosting companies such as 1-and-1 enable you to purchase a domain name at the time of registration with their web hosting package.

 

Help with Programming your Website

If you'd rather not use software to help you develop and programme your study, then you'll need to learn some basic programming skills.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and ASP (Active Server Pages) are languages that are widely used in the creation of web pages. HTML is relatively quick and simple to learn, but this means that you are limited in the things that you can get your website to do. ASP is more complicated and may therefore be necessary for more complex websites i.e., websites that go beyond the simple question and radio button design. You can of course use multiple programming languages in your website, and HTML and ASP are just 2 of many languages that are available.  If you are new to website design and development it may be a good idea to stick with a simple website designed using HTML, unless of course you have the time to learn a complex programming language such as ASP. Have a look at the resources below to help you decide whether or not you could learn any of these languages.  Remember, if you can't program your website yourself, there is now software available to do this for you (see above resources).

HTML Resources:

 

ASP Resources:

 

Other:

 

Some Technical Resources

 

Marketing your Website (some useful resources for recruiting participants)

Search engines:

The thing to be aware of when submitting your site to the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo, is that your site may not be listed for a few months from the date of submission. Also, there is no guarantee that your site will get listed. Less well known search engines, however, can list your site instantly (see the links "Free web submission" and "Submit corner" below). Finally, unless you can get your site listed in the top-ten in search engines such as Yahoo and Google (which can take years), you should not expect to recruit many participants via search engines.

  • Search engine watch - Includes lots of really detailed info. regarding marketing your web site via search engines.
  • Google - Add your website URL to google.
  • Yahoo - Add your site to Yahoo.
  • British search engines  
  • Free web submission - Add your website URL to multiple search engines for free!
  • Submit corner - Add your website UR to multiple search engines for free.
  • Website Promotion Guide - Information on how to promote your website by using numerous strategies such as increasing your page rank in Google and submitting your site to top search engines and directories.

 

Other:

  • Firstly, ensure that you add your study web link to other websites listing online studies (see "Other Web Sites Listing Online Studies" section above).
  • JISCmail mailing lists -  A national academic mailing list service. Send a plea for help with your research to members of e-mail mailing lists. Although these lists are academic, members comprise of a diverse range of people.
  • Medlist - Mailing list for areas in Biology, Medicine, Science and Technology (there is a charge for these lists of approx. £165 per 1000 names and addresses).
  • UK newspapers -  Lists of thousands of newspapers across the UK. I have used these lists to find newspapers to contact regarding placing a request for research participants in the newspaper.
  • UK and worldwide newspapers
  • The StudyResponse Project - The StudyResponse project facilitates online research for behavioural, social, and organizational science researchers by distributing email participation requests to adult research participants.

 

Website Monitoring and Maintenance 

  • Search engine ranker - Use keyword searches to check if your website has any positions (e.g., top 10 or top 100) in the major search engines.
  • Search engine ranker - As above.
  • Link Popularity - Find out your link popularity (link popularity is the total number of web sites that link to your site).  This may not be useful if your study is only running online for a few months, but if your study is online for a long period of time, then increasing the number of links to your site may help you recruit more participants.
  • Whozontop - Free website traffic analysis i.e., how many people have visited your site each day, week, month and year.
  • Free Counters - Choose from lots of different hit counters to place on your site to keep track of how many people visit your web site.
  • Rapid Counters - More free hit counters. Choose from lots of different designs.
  • Site Counter - A free Website invisible hit counter to monitor your website's traffic. Other website statistics are also available e.g., a search engine keyword analysis.
  • Free web counters - Free hit counters that will not count two sequential hits from the same IP address (this avoids your hit counter figure rising when users refresh the web page or navigate forwards and backwards through your study).

 

"Selected" Research and Resources Relating to Online Research

 

 

Ethical Issues in Online Research

 

Glossaries (great for those both familiar or unfamiliar with the internet and internet research)

 

Other

 

NB: If you know of any other useful resources for this list please e-mail or have found any dead or outdated links on this site please e-mail me 

 

Website disclaimer

Through this website you are able to link to other websites which are not under my control. I have no control over the nature, content and availability of those sites. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. Please be patient during times when the website is temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond my control.