Participate in Research
Most of the studies conducted at the Adult Development and Psychometrics Lab rely on participants from the general public. If you would be interested in taking part in one of our research studies, please read on!
Research participants may be asked to take part in a range of activities or complete a range of tasks, depending on the study. These include:
- answering online or paper-and-pencil surveys
- completing tasks, scales, or measures
- taking part in interviews or focus groups
Taking part in a research study is not as scary as you might think. Most people describe our studies as “fun”, or “something different to do”, or “that really made me think about things”, or “it was kinda like playing a game with my grandkids”. Even for studies that might be a little long (e.g., 2 hrs.), we’ve had participants say “I can’t believe the time just flew by!”.
One question that is often asked is “where do I have to go to take part in the study?” The answer depends on the type of study and the age and health/disability of participants. Sometimes participants must come to UBC but, most often, the research may occur at individuals’ homes or another mutually agreed upon setting (e.g., coffee shop, community centre, library) as appropriate.
A second question that is asked is “am I paid for taking part in the study?” This depends on whether the study is funded or not. If funding is available, then we of course prefer to provide some financial recognition of your time and participation. At other times, the costs of the study are being covered out-of-pocket by a student (e.g., for his/her thesis) or Dr. Hubley. Even when a study is not funded, we are often able to reimburse participants for parking costs for studies conducted at UBC.
If you are interested in taking part in research but are either not interested in, or eligible for, any of the studies listed above, please check back in a few months or contact us about being added to our participant database.
Participant database
We keep a participant database to help us stay in contact with people who have taken part in our studies and/or would like to in the future. We have a brief questionnaire covering some basic demographic and medical information that we can complete with you over the phone. This takes approximately 5 minutes and will help us determine your eligibility and interest for various studies and thus we have a better idea of who to call and who not to call. Importantly, we do not share our database information with anyone outside of the Adult Development and Psychometrics Lab so your information is kept private and you can always ask to be removed from the database if you no longer want to be contacted. Participation in our research studies is always voluntary so it is entirely up to you whether you want to take part in any specific study.
If you would like us to add your name and contact information to our participant database, please give us a call and leave a message at 604-822-5250 or send an e-mail with your phone number and a best time to call you to ubc_adultdevelopment@hotmail.com.
If you are already in our database but have recently moved, please call or e-mail us your updated contact information!