Extra Credit Participation for Students Enrolled in UNM Psychology Classes

For our introductory psychology courses, a basic familiarity with psychology research projects and principles is required and counts as 5% (five percent) of a student's overall grade in the course. Students have choices in how they can complete this requirement: they may complete up to four short (1-page) reviews on research papers (on any psychology-related topic of their choice, but they must be experimental studies from peer-reviewed research articles). Or they may choose to participate in up to four hours of available research projects. There are many experiments offered at any given time, and they can choose from a list of experiments (which includes brief, IRB-approved descriptions of each project) for possible research participation. Experiments range from 1-4 hours in duration, and only 4 hours (or four of the brief written research reports) are required to fulfill the research requirement. Students may also opt to do a combination of reports and research participation - again, for a maximum of four "credits" (these four "credits," either in hours or reports = 5% of their grade for introductory psychology classes). At present, students in Intro Psych cannot obtain more than 4 "credits," meaning that they do not get any "extra credit" if they do more than four. If they are really interested in participating in projects, though, we don't prevent them from additional participation.

Instructors of some upper-level undergraduate courses (depending upon the course and instructor's option) may also choose to offer research participation to their students, but this is only for extra credit, and only when the instructor allows for this (i.e., it is also not required). Instructors who decide to "opt-in" and allow this for their students must still also offer their students alternatives to research participation (so that they can earn extra credit in other ways). The alternatives for other courses are determined by each instructor (and usually, these are typically brief papers on a topic specific to the class). Students may not "bank": either research credits or extra credit: in other words, the credit for research participation must be used for a current class - in which the student is currently enrolled.

Credits may not be transferred from semester to semester, nor can they count for more than one class: each earned research / extra credit is assigned to a specific class, by the student's choice - and this cannot be changed after a semester is completed. Students who are enrolled in a participating class will automatically be signed up for a special "research account" for accessing the system, and may log at the UNM Psychology Research Website.  Only experiments listed at the website above (none offered outside the department) may count toward a student's participation credits.

Contact

Students or instructors who have questions may feel free to contact the current Research Coordinator, Amanda Cipolla, by email at acramer18@unm.edu. 

 -or-

The current Department IRB representative:

James Cavanagh
Email: jcavanagh@unm.edu 

Updated 12/14/2022