🤔 Ask Anything Thread (Newbie Friendly)

[timtak]

Dear Nathan

Welcome to the forum:-)

I am sorry that there have not been any responses. I am afraid that I don’t know of a way to allow participants to use personalised links multiple times.

Unless, you could have a splash page at your survey (which you record to prolific) and then some sort of branching so that the participants are sent to seperate personalised URLS depending on the Participant ID that they input to the splash page. THis could in theory be achieve using a free google forum maybe, but it would I think be quite easy to achieve using something like Qualtrics or Gorilla which has advance branching, afaik.

Tim

[Nathan_Laroy]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your reply. Fortunately for me, the multiple-use personal links are not a requisite of my study, rather a handy extra. I’ll keep searching in the meantime. Thanks anyway for your time. Have a great day!

Nathan

[natalia.bueno]

Hi all, newbie question. We would like to run a study in the US with 5,000 respondents, using Prolific’s new “representative sample.” But these only allow samples of a max of 1,500. If we request 4 samples (to get 5k respondents) we then need to pay more fees than we would have with a single one request of 5k. Is there something I am missing here? Is there a way to increase the max sample size for a representative sample?

[timtak]

Dear Natalia

Welcome to the forum

Sorry to be slow.

I am afraid that as far as I am aware, due to the low numbers in some of the demographic sub-segments I think that representative samples only run to 1500 people. You may be able to reduce the selectivity (making the same not quite representative ) for a greater number, or perhaps Prolific participants have increased in number, but either way I am afraid that would be something that you would need to contact support about.

I am sorry I am unable to help.

Tim

[DrJBN]

I looks like prolific has changed how the pre-screeners work, and broken some things for me. If you have methods M and W, and you use these methods for many studies across many projects, you could create a new project, select the Participation on Prolific screener->Exclude from previous studies- and get a list of all the studies you have run. Then, you could go through and exclude all those that you knew used method M, for example.

Now, the screener appears to limit the previous studies from which to screen to the current project (create a new project, create a new study, try to use the exclude from previous studies screener and observe there are no studies listed from which to screen). I see no way to screen from studies outside the current project, and this is a big deal for me. Am I going to have to move all my completed studies back to a single project in order to correctly screen?

[natalia.bueno]

Thanks, Tim!

[Warren_Pettine]

It appears that a subject failed an attention check due to an honest mistake. However, our protocol won’t allow us to accept their submission. I would like to have them return the study so they don’t have a rejection on their record. However, since the study is complete there is no option for returning it. How would I fix this?

[timtak]

Dear Warren

Welcome back

Sorry to be slow.

Since the subject failed an attention check due to an honest mistake,
and therefore presumably took the time (for which they should be
therefore paid) to submit data, I am, please forgive me, failing to understand
why they would not be paid in the usual way.

Please forgive me but, in my humble opinion, therefore, it seems to me
that it is your protocol which should advisably be changed rather than
any change be made on the part of the participant or the system.

However, it is quite simple for the participant to return their submission
at any time using the little red anti clockwise arrow shown in the image
below.

Tim

[Warren_Pettine]

You’re right. I approved their submission. Thanks!

[Sameha]

Dear team,

I have a question and appreciate your help to advise. In my collected data, there are few submissions with Time-out status. However, I have received their responses to all the survey questions.
What is the best practice in research to handle these submissions.

Thank you,
Sameha

[timtak]

Welcome back Sameha

When I take part as a participant, sometimes the call for participants comes at a time when I am busy, e.g. about to eat lunch. Sometimes I click on take part nonetheless and do the survey after lunch. Sometimes this results in “Timed Out.”

Similarly participants might, in addition to the above pause prior to the survey, take a break during the survey because they are called away, or because one of the questions was difficult and they felt the need to Google, or because someone called them on their phone, or came to their door.

With timed out responses, the way you respond is up to you.

I personally look at participant responses to attention checks and even if they are timed out, I pay them. I think.

Tim

[Sameha]

Thank you Tim

I understand and It sounds fine to accept the submission then, as long as attention checks were correct.

You and the team have been always helpful! Thank you

[Tara_McAllister]

Hi @Tammy, I’d be interested to hear more about your experience recruiting speakers of Chinese on Prolific. Did it take you long to reach your target number of participants? Currently the prescreen function says there are ~800 active users who report Chinese as their first language. However, it’s frustrating that the only possible label is “Chinese,” as we want speakers of Mandarin and not other varieties. But it was encouraging to see that there is previous precedent for recruiting Chinese speakers through Prolific. Thanks!

[Lotty]

Hi there, i have experienced similar with a participant being abusive towards the researchers within a chatbot exercise, and in their comments at the end of the survey. Is there a streamlined way to report participants for abuse, other than submitting a general request? Many thanks,

[timtak]

Hi Lotty

I am afraid that Josh is no longer with Prolific
and these forums themselves have been
depreciated to researcher forums with no
official Prolific presence (though Jonas, and
perhaps others do drop in from time to time).
So as far as I know there is no way to report
abuse other than via support.

In the past I had found support to be a bit slow,
but when I reported something last week
the responses were quick and helpful, so
I recommend that you report this incident
there.

I am sorry to hear that it happened.

Tim

Timothy Takemoto
Yamaguchi University

[Zachary_Goldberg]

Greetings,

On January 13–roughly 3 weeks ago–my organization’s account manager executed a bank transfer of $9950 to the bank account listed on the Prolific invoice I sent him (which is connected to my Prolific account). About a week later, the money was still not transferred to my Prolific account. I thus attempted to contact Prolific to verify the status of the transaction. They replied to me about a week later with the following:

" Thanks for reaching out.

We’ve checked our received transactions, and can’t immediately locate this transfer. It’s possible that we haven’t yet received it, or that we’re merely lacking the details required to match it to your account.

We have recently moved to a new payment service provider and therefore updated the bank details on our invoices. To ensure we are looking for this transaction in the correct place, please could you confirm the following bank details used for the transfer:

1. account number/IBAN
2. sort code/SWIFT/BIC

Please could you also provide either some remittance advice from your finance department or a proof of payment directly from the bank. The document should confirm:

1. The date the payment was made from your bank account
2. The total amount of the payment
3. The reference(s) included on the payment

Finally, please could you confirm the invoice number of the invoice being paid.

This would really help us to investigate further and match the payment to your workspace."

I promptly sent back all of the requested information. A week ago (Jan 31), they responded again:

"I have received an update from Bluesnap - they’ve asked for a proof of payment document that includes the amount and currency of payment made so they can locate the funds and match them with your order.

We look forward to hearing from you."

Again, I promptly replied with the requested information (even though I had already shared this information previously.

It’s now been a week and I’ve yet to hear from anyone. Thus, the nearly $10,000 I was supposed to receive remains in limbo and I’m getting very concerned (my account manager is livid and this is making me look horrible). I don’t know what else to do, hence I’ve decided to turn to the broader Prolific community. Does anybody have a similar experience? Should I be considering possible legal action? As far as I’m concerned, that an established company such as Prolific can allow $10k to disappear and not work to resolve the issue in a timely fashion (while keeping customers in the dark) is unacceptable. Do any of you have suggestions as to how I should proceed here? Thanks in advance for your help!

-Zach

[timtak]

Dear Zach

Welcome to the forum

There have been posts saying that bank transfers have taken up to about three weeks to get through. The cause of such delays has never become clear to me. I have had the impression that it seems to have occurred in instances where the money was being sent from a non-OECD country (but this may be sort of racist of me). It has also seemed to me that it has occurred near holiday periods when there are fewer staff at prolific. I have never heard of this amount of money being sent before.

But I guess that this is a seperate issue, related to the move to a new payment services provider.

Please may I ask whether you did pay to this account?

@Zachary_Goldberg

• account number/IBAN
• sort code/SWIFT/BIC

IF you made payment to Prolific’s previous payment service provider I could imagine that they, dropped, are not enthusiastic about repaying payments that were in progress at the time they were dropped, in a timely manner. But that may be my conspiracy theory paranoia at work.

I am sorry that this is happening. Perhaps bringing the community’s attention to the issue will encourage further efforts on the part of Prolific but it may be, short of legal action on their part against their previous payment provider, out of their control.

I am afraid I can only say I hope it works out soon.

Tim

[Zachary_Goldberg]

Hi Tim,

To your question, the Prolific invoice I sent to my account manager had the following payment/wiring information:

Account Name: Prolifc Academic Ltd.
Reference: MBQRG5IK-DBPW2S8D
Bank Name: TransferWise
Account Number: 9600000000026139
Wire Routing Number: 084009519
ALTERNATIVE:
IMPORTANT:
To be successful, the following 12 digit payment reference
must be included on your bank transfer.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Payment Reference:
41001XXXXXXXXXX (edited for confidentiality)
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Bank name: Barclays Bank
Bank address: London, United Kingdom
Account holder: Global Collect BV
Account number: 70304247
Sort Code: 20-00-00
IBAN: GB20BARC20000070304247
Swiftcode: BARCGB22

Unless Prolific switched over to a new payment service provider some time since January 13 (when the wire transfer was ordered), I don’t think that’s the issue.

I’m just currently not sure what to do right now. I feel helpless. And this is a lot of money. Is there any other way to contact Prolific? Is there no phone number I can call? Thanks in advance for your help.

Best,
Zach

[timtak]

Zach

Thank you.

The article that Prolific link to to was written on (the text only says "Friday "but the source says) “2023-02-03” or four days ago. If they closed their association with their previous payment services provider about a week before that i.e. on January 27th then, bearing in mind that People have posted to these forums to say that their transfer has taken two weeks, then if your payment reached the point just before it was about to be paid to prolific two weeks after January 13th, coincidentally also the 27th of January, it may be a while before the disgruntled previous payment provide returns the funds to you.

It does sound unlikely, but then assuming that there are constant stream of funds being paid to Prolific, it is conversely likely that someone would be inconvenienced by the change of financial services provider mentioned in the article.

At least I hope that this is the explanation.

Tim

[Zachary_Goldberg]

I’m about to run a large survey experiment, which is estimated to take around 14 minutes to complete. I’d like to give respondents the option of commenting on their experience with the survey before they are redirected to the ‘end of survey’ page. However, I’m concerned that including a comment item and allowing comments will considerably lengthen the survey beyond the amount I have budgeted for it. At the same time, I feel it is appropriate to allow respondents to speak their minds about the survey they just took. I’m thus conflicted and not sure what to do. One thought I had was to add an item containing a link to an external Google Forms document in which they can share their thoughts (while instructing those interested to complete the survey before commenting on the Google Forms document). Do any of you have any insights to share on this matter? Thanks in advance for your assistance.