The University of St Andrews attaches high priority to the ethical conduct of research. We therefore ask you to consider the following points before approving this form. Pressing 'Continue' confirms that you are happy to participate in the study.
Click on each subheading for more details.
What is the study about? ↓
We invite you to participate in an online experiment aiming to assess how different decisional utterances (e.g. “I think there is a very good chance I am right”) are interpreted. You should note there are no right or wrong answers across our experiment we are simply interested in your opinions, which will be given in the form of ratings, across a range of utterances.
This study is being conducted as part of Josephine Urquhart’s PhD research programme in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews.
Do I have to take part? ↓
This information page has been written to help you decide if you would like to take part in our experiment. It is up to you and you alone whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part you will be free to withdraw at any time by simply closing this browser window/tab or by clicking the 'End Study' button during the experiment itself.
Are there any restrictions on who can take part? ↓
You should be in a position to give informed consent in order to participate in the study, e.g. aged 18 years of age or over. If you are unsure of your position or ability to give informed consent, please feel free to send us an inquiry via email (at: jau2@st-andrews.ac.uk)
What would I be required to do? ↓
The experiment will be divided into two major parts, I) a demographics information form and II) a decisional utterance questionnaire.
During the demographics information form, you will first provide a small amount of demographic information (e.g. your Age, Gender and Nationality). This will enable us to gain a better understanding of the sample population taking part in this experiment. You will then complete a short decisional utterances questionnaire.
During the decisional utterances questionnaire, you will be asked to make judgements about a series of contextualised decisional utterances (e.g. “I am very unsure my old response was correct”). Your judgments will consist of two percentage ratings (an upper and lower limit), corresponding to how likely you think the decision an utterance was referring to was correct.
At the end of the experiment you will receive a link connecting you with an online application to view our averaged results and a full debrief. The whole study will take approximately 15 minutes.
Will my participation be anonymous and confidential? ↓
Your participation will be anonymous and there will be no way to match the personally non-identifiable data to you. Your permission will be sought in the Consent Form (below) for the data you provide to be shared with other bona fide researchers and used for future scholarly purposes. No record of your IP address or any other personally identifiable information will be recorded during this study. This means you will never be personally identifiable from the data you provide or the publications which result from it.
Storage and destruction of data collected ↓
The data we collect will only be accessible by the researcher (Josephine Urquhart) and supervisor (Akira O’Connor) involved in this study, unless explicit consent for wider access is given by means of the Consent Form. Your data will be stored indefinitely. The data will be anonymised and stored in an electronic format on computers accessible to the researcher and supervisor involved in the study.
What will happen to the results of the research study? ↓
Data will be collected continuously for the next three years and will potentially contribute to peer-reviewed research papers, book chapters and conference/meeting presentations.
Reward ↓
There is no reward offered for your participation.
Are there any potential risks to taking part? ↓
The experiment will take approximately 15 minutes to complete and exposes participants to no more additional discomfort than the types of online questionnaires frequently completed for enjoyment.
Consent and approval ↓
This research proposal has been scrutinized and been granted Ethical Approval through the University of St Andrews ethical approval process.
Questions ↓
If you have any questions about this study or your participation in it, please e-mail: jau2@st-andrews.ac.uk.
What should I do if I have concerns about this study? ↓
The term ‘Anonymous Data’ refers to data collected by a researcher that has no identifier markers so that even the researcher cannot identify any participant. Consent is still required by the researcher, however no link between the participant’s approved consent document and the data collected can be made.
Consent ↓
The purpose of this form is to ensure that you are willing to take part in this study and to let you understand what it entails. Approving this form does not commit you to anything you do not wish to do.
Material gathered during this research will be anonymous, so it is impossible to trace back to you. Once it is removed from the server, it will be securely stored for an indefinite period. Please answer each statement concerning the collection and use of the research data.