During the Fall 2012 semester the Psychology Department faculty and students were busy in the laboratory, gathering data for a variety of experiments and projects. Over the course of the 15 week term sixteen different projects were completed, five of which were projects completed by students in the PSYC 310 course (Advanced Research in Psychology). The amount of time needed to complete each project was the determining factor in how many 'units' each project was 'worth' (1 unit was equal to 20 minutes of participation), and students enrolled in PSYC 101 were required to earn 9 units of research participation over the course of the semester. Over fourteen-hundred research units were awarded (1,456 units, to be exact), which amounts to over 485 hours of data collection that took place over the course of the fall semester. As one can imagine, it could be a difficult and time-consuming task to keep track of the studies, participants, and units awarded. However, the department uses an online management tool called PSPM (Psychology Study Participant Manager) which automates and tabulates much of this data for us. Special thanks go out to Dr. Brent Mattingly, Assistant Professor of Psychology, for serving at the Psychology Department's PSPM 'Administrator'.
