Current studies

Please find below some of our research projects for our psychology and neuroscience students at universities across Scotland. We rely on participation from all walks of life and hope very much that you will take part in our research. This site is updated daily and your participation is a really valuable part of the training for our students and will help them to be more skilled researchers in the future. Thanks!

We are mainly hosting postgraduate studies over the summer and clearly these are crucial too so please do participate and refer your friends!

17/10/21

A research team at the University of Strathclyde are recruiting UK university students, aged 18+ and who have experienced self-harm thoughts in the last three months for an online study which is designed to understand how it might be possible to help them manage their self-harm thoughts and behaviours. For more information/to take part please visit: https://hass.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Xf73LyFbIoCsPY

26/09/21

The distribution of digital shared decision-making aids

When decisions are being made about a patient’s treatment there are 2 experts involved:

  1. The health professional who is an expert in the condition.
  2. The patient who is an expert in themselves e.g. how they are experiencing the condition, how they feel about possible side effects etc.

Shared decision making takes place when both experts share information and preferences with each other, have a discussion and come to a mutual decision about what to do next.  To help with shared decision-making tools known as shared decision-making aids can be used before, during, and even after the appointment by health professionals and patients.  It is recommended that when a digital aid is developed how the aid will be provided to patients should also be established.  Unfortunately, this often does not happen and when it does there is little evidence of the potential users being asked how they would like to be given the aid.

This study is open to everyone currently living in Scotland and is comprised of an online survey which asks how you would like to be provided with a digital shared decision-making aid before, during (in person and remote) and after an appointment.  The survey can be completed on all devices including smartphone and should take no more than 20 minutes to complete.

Survey link:  tinyurl.com/digitalsdm

Thank you for your time in completing the survey and feel free to share the survey link with anyone who may be eligible or interested.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact me at sarah.wilson@uws.ac.uk

25/08/21

We are looking for students to participate in an online study. The only requisites are being part of any university sport club at any level (competitive or non-competitive) and being at least 18 years of age. The experiment is being carried out by Irene Kovac, third year psychology students at the university of Dundee, under the supervision of Dr Chris Benwell. 

The study investigates the presence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) traits among athletes of different university sports at different levels, with the aim of discovering whether different sports can contribute to the developing of this disorder. The study is very straight forward and consists of two online questionnaires that shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes all together with all collected data being kept completely confidential and anonymous. We hope with this study to deepen our understanding of Body Dysmorphic Disorder tendencies among student athletes. 

You can access the study via this link : https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/A58E0167-FD94-46DC-8F9C-15D77CB60523?fbclid=IwAR3mvZmsyohljPp6A4XSQr8JtbskmlnqCMzX4Or7wDoWvrXPxuq2C1-yghw

 

23/08/21

We are interested in staff and student perspectives on the procedures for extensions to deadlines for coursework in Scottish Universities and would really value your input and experience (around 10-15mins) by completing this survey https://standrews.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eFAXrkwUtDwgh82 

10/08/21

The Virtual Exercise Experience

£40 prize draw for survey completion! We invite you to participate in a research project that is a part of my PhD study.  We would like to understand the virtual exercise experience especially in terms of enjoyment and its impact on your mental and physical well-being throughout the pandemic. We are seeking participants who are currently or have taken virtual exercise classes.

The survey will take 15-20 minutes to complete. If you are unable to complete the survey in one sitting you can pause it and resume the survey where you left off at another time.

Please use the link to access the survey. https://tinyurl.com/d79yh5xb

Researcher: Meredith Schertzinger (mms34@st-andrews.ac.uk). Supervisors Gozde Ozakinci (go10@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Fergus Neville (fgn@st-andrews.ac.uk)

06/08/21

Are you a woman (trans*-inclusive), aged over 18, who went to a UK secondary school no more than 15 years ago? Did you receive a diagnosis of an autistic spectrum condition since leaving school? If so, we invite you to participate in our study investigating undiagnosed girls’ experiences of attending mainstream school.  

Your participation would involve one virtual interview, where you will talk about what school was like for you. The interviews are one-on-one, conversational style, and are expected to take about an hour.  

If you are interested, please contact me using the email address on the information document here:
 

19/07/21

We invite participants aged 18-35 to take part in an online experiment investigating associative memory. This experiment involves watching short movie clips and pictures on a home computer screen and memorising the associations of the pictures. Participants must be healthy, with normal/corrected-to-normal vision, with no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. The experiment should last ~1-1.5 hours and you will be compensated at £6/hour in amazon vouchers. More information can be found via this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tUOFWIGeWGhu6jT_ATh4aJqfpdI93HuOrb85WqwgrVk/edit?usp=sharing 

If you are interested, please fill out a sign-up form using this link: https://forms.office.com/r/U8P1TXhJw9 (and share with your friends!) . Those that meet the criteria will be contacted by email with a link to the experiment and instructions on how to complete it.

09/07/21

Influencers and COVID-19

We invite you to take part in an experiment which investigates how rule-breaking by ingroup and outgroup social media influencers may have impacted adherence to and attitudes towards COVID-19 restrictions. You will be presented with some fictitious scenarios which are not based on real events and will be asked to answer a series of questions based on the information that you have seen. This is estimated to take you between 5 and 10 minutes. If you are interested, please follow the link to the online experiment. DATA COLLECTION COMPLETED 29/07/21

15/07/21

Do you- Play a sport? Play music? Play Chess? Play video games? Dance? Practice Yoga? Practice Meditation? Practice a Martial Art, Run, Cycle, Swim or engage in any other sort of activity where you get “into the zone”?  
 
If you do, and are over the age of 18, we kindly invite you to take part in our study on how “flow states”– the mental headspace of “being in the zone”– are elicited across different disciplines, as part of our MSc Psychological Studies dissertation research at University of Glasgow. The study consists of an online questionnaire that should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete, that is best filled out after partaking in your “in the zone” activity of choice. 
 
The research has huge potential in understanding human wellbeing and happiness, positive psychology and sports science. The link to the questionnaire is here:
 
And if you have any further questions please get in touch at flowstatepsychology@protonmail.com 

07/07/21

Aphantasia and Episodic Memory
 
We invite you to take part in a series of experiments to investigate the potential effects of aphantasia on episodic memory, as part of MSc dissertation projects. There are 4 experiments, each which will investigate a different aspect of episodic memory. Each experiment will last around 15 minutes. 
 
Episodic memory is the ability to recall past events in our life, and research suggests that when we do this we almost reimagine the event in our heads. However, we often assume that everyone has the same ability to consciously access mental imagery. We now know from aphantasia research that this ability to mentally image past events is variable, and this has significant consequences for theories of memory. Therefore, it is our hope that by studying aphantasic participants’ episodic memory performance that we can begin to understand how memory may operate when we do not have the capacity to mentally visualise images or past events.  
 
We are therefore seeking aphantasic participants and healthy controls and would really appreciate if you could follow the link below to get involved. Must be between ages of 18 and 35, and not be taking antidepressants. Full information is given at the link below, along with a short 5 minute survey:
 

https://stirlingpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_beLzwToXKDLv8jQ

29/6/21

We are looking for people who are aged between 18-35. We invite you to participate in this dissertation project investigating the Unitization instructions on working memory. The experiment takes 19-21 mins to complete and can be done in a laptop or pc and requires wearing headphones. If you wish to participate, please click on the link provided and share with your friends/family/co-workers! http://tstbl.co/647-293

28/6/21

We are currently looking for any English speakers over the age of 16 years. We invite you to take part in a research project investigating individuals opinions and current engagement in sustainable and healthy eating habits and their desire for plant-based and meat-based meals. 
The study has two parts: 
1) a task asking you to read labels of different ready-meals and to rate them on how appealing you find each dish. 
2) a short survey at the end collecting demographic and opinion-based data. 
 
The study only takes 15 minutes and individuals from all backgrounds are encouraged to take part. Thank you so much in advance and please feel free to share the survey link with anyone who may be eligible or interested. https://survey.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e8UUm3tC0Mmc4ce 

27/6/21

We are looking for young people aged between 18 and 25 who are currently living in the UK. We invite you participate in a research project investigating attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines. The survey consists of 10 questions and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. You are permitted to omit any question that you do not wish to answer. If you wish to take part, please follow the link provided for more information and please do share the link with friends!

25/6/21

(1) Students’ Consumer Behaviour 

We are looking for current students at UK Universities aged 18 and over. We invite you to participate in a research project investigating students’ consumer behaviour. The survey consists of 12 questions and we estimate that it will take 10 minutes to complete. You are permitted to omit any question that you do not wish to answer. If you wish to take part, please follow the link provided for more information and please do share the link with friends! https://standrews.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_byF2k67DM9VC70G

(2)

Against the backdrop of recent spread of misinformation on social media, we are interested in researching how information is digested. Our objective is to assess whether the use of Warning Labels influences participants memory for information learnt on social media. Further, we want to assess the illusory truth effect in the context of social media posts. 

Target age: 17-35
Time: 20-25 minutes

24/06/21

We invite you to participate in a research project about the effects of Universal Basic Income (UBI) on task performance. 

UBI is an interesting concept for our society and might constitute a valuable alternative to traditional welfare systems. There is, however, controversy about the effects of UBI on labour participation and motivation that has been investigated in some laboratory studies. This study aims to build on existing findings by modifying economic experiments to assess the effects of UBI and an economic reference point on task performance in a simple real effort, real leisure online experiment. 

You will be asked to fill out a short demographic questionnaire followed 7 rounds of simple tasks such as solving simple mathematical questions, anagrams or descrambling sentences. Each round takes up to 3 minutes but you are free to terminate each round as you please and move on to the next. Depending on your choices the experiment will last between 20 to 30 minutes. 

You can enter a prize draw at the end of the experiment if you wish to. You will have the chance of winning one of four £25 Amazon UK vouchers. Your chances of winning are directly linked to your task performance in the experiment. https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/1D53D7C1-2759-4D9E-BDFD-BFF93A861302

 
Paul Gardner
Senior Lecturer
University of St. Andrews