The purpose of psychological research is the acquisition of knowledge. A great deal of what we know about human behavior is based on studies conducted at universities like UCI. Serving as a participant in an experiment provides students with direct exposure to psychological research. The descriptions of psychological research that appear in textbooks and scientific journals necessarily omit a great deal of information about what research is really like. Serving as a research participant thus complements what you learn in your courses by giving you a behind-the-scenes look at research.

At UCI, we use a cloud-based participant pool management system created by Sona Systems to allow researchers to post no more than minimal risk studies for participant sign up, to allow students to sign up for participation in these studies, and to allow instructors to grant extra credit points for those students who participated in a study (or studies) and who are enrolled in their course(s) during the academic quarter that they participate.

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