Frequently Asked Questions for the Daily Relationship Experiences Study
How does compensation work (why does the notice say up to $65 per person)?
Participant compensation depends on the completion of the surveys. The longer background/intake survey is $13, each daily survey is $2 ($2 * 21 = $42), and the 3-month survey is $10. The more surveys you complete, the more compensation you will be granted.
At the ultimate end of the study (~Fall 2021), we will be running a draw to win one of two $100 Amazon gift cards. Each additional survey completed will give you another ballot in the draw (i.e., the more surveys you complete, the better your chances to win!).
When will compensation be granted?
Survey compensation will be granted at two times during the study. The first time, you will be granted compensation for the background/intake and the daily surveys (up to $55) within 10 days of completing the daily surveys. The second time, you will be granted compensation for the 3-month survey ($10) within 10 days of completing the 3-month survey.
Why Amazon gift cards? Why not money transfers directly?
Transferring cash directly is logistically difficult, especially as we are recruiting several hundred participants across Canada. We picked Amazon gift cards for compensation purposes, as Amazon is a ubiquitous company that offers a large variety of products our participants can use their compensation to purchase.
How does the pre-screening process work?
Our lovely recruitment manager, Shamarukh Chowdhury, will send you a pre-screening email with a few questions to assess eligibility. If you are assessed as a potential participant, Shamarukh will schedule a Zoom/phone call with you to confirm eligibility, as well as allow you to ask any final questions you may have regarding the study procedure. The calls give us a chance to assess you as a legitimate participant, but also give you a chance to make sure that we are who we say we are and that you’re comfortable with the study procedures.
Our usual screening call procedure involves using Zoom. However, if you are not comfortable with Zoom, we may be able to arrange a phone call instead. Please mention this to Shamarukh in your email.
How will we be collecting data?
We will be using the Qualtrics online survey platform to collect data. Qualtrics is a study management tool that is used by many universities in their study designs and data collection.
Due to the fact that this study design involves collecting data over time, we need to assign our participants ID numbers and couple IDs to link up the 23 different surveys. Your couple ID and participant ID numbers will be recorded in the surveys, but the surveys themselves will not have identifying information (such as your name or your partner’s name) attached to them.
We will also be making use of the Qualtrics survey distribution email system. Therefore, we will be creating a Qualtrics “profile” for you with your email addresses, ID numbers, and first names to make use of their emailing system. Dr. Harasymchuk and our data collection research assistant, Atara Lonn, will be the only people with access to the Qualtrics account.
Your responses to the surveys will be confidential during the data collection process (i.e., your surveys during data collection will not be completely anonymous because of the Qualtrics profile). However, once the data collection is completed and all compensation for participation is granted, we will anonymize the responses and all data that is analyzed, published, shared with trusted colleagues, etc. will be aggregated and unidentifiable.
Are we legitimate?
The PAIR lab is affiliated with Carleton University. We primarily study how people experience their relationships. The lead researcher is Dr. Cheryl Harasymchuk, an Associate Professor at Carleton University. Please feel free to check out the rest of our website, peruse Dr. Harasymchuk’s listed publications, and/or contact Dr. Harasymchuk directly at cheryl.harasymchuk@carleton.ca to ask for more information about her lab!
The Daily Relationship Experiences Study has been approved by the Carleton University Research Ethics Board–B, Canada (Clearance #105046).
When will the results be available?
This is a little bit of a tricky question to answer. We estimate that the study will conclude in late summer 2021/Fall 2021 (which is the first date that all the data will be available to us). It then takes a little time for us to clean the data and get it into the correct format for our data analyses programs. Only then can we start to analyze the data. The ultimate goal of this study is to publish our findings in scientific journals and present at conferences, which is a slow process due to the effort and time it takes to write up a manuscript, go through peer review, get feedback and resubmit, etc.
We also have many different researchers who are conducting many different projects with this data. Some projects will be completed faster than others. Some of the data will be used for Master’s and PhD theses first (usually with the intended goal to publish in official journals after the thesis has been completed). In fact, we still have data from a daily study conducted in 2016 that we are publishing the findings from in 2021. These studies provide a multitude of interesting data that can be used for years to come to answer ongoing (and upcoming) research questions.
The best place to check for results updates is Dr. Harasymchuk’s publication page. If you want to know specifically if a paper was published using the Daily Relationship Experiences data from 2020/2021, you can always email either the PAIR lab or Dr. Harasymchuk to ask.