Participation for Research Credits

Students in the BSc Business Administration programme at the Amsterdam Business School are required to collect 10 Research Credits in the ABS Behavioural Lab before embarking upon their thesis. This satisfies the entry requirement for the BSc thesis. One Research Credit is the equivalent of one hour participation in research conducted in the ABS Lab (compensation for studies shorter than one hour will be proportionate to the amount of time scheduled for the study and announced prior to the study).

To participate and earn Research Credits, please register for studies and timeslots in the Amsterdam Business School’s Behavioural Laboratory Administration System at https://lab-abs.sona-systems.com. An account in the system has been automatically created for you and you should have received an email with login details. Please note: It is important that you use this account for the ABS Laboratory Administration System (instead of creating a new one) to ensure that research credits can be registered for you!

General Steps to participate in ABS Lab Studies

Regardless of your mode of compensation, participation in ABS Lab studies always follows the same procedure.

1. To participate in any study, you need to be registered in the ABS Laboratory Administration System at https://lab-abs.sona-systems.com (see above).
2. To register for a specific study, please log-in in the ABS Laboratory Administration System
3. Upon log-in you will find a list of studies with free spots for participation
4. Select any study that you want to participate in, review the detailed information about the study and sign up for a timeslot of your choosing. Note: the capacity of individual timeslots is usually restricted, places in timeslots are distributed on a first come-first serve basis.
5. You get an email reminder one day before your timeslot. If you cannot make the timeslot, make sure that you cancel your registration (deadlines for registration and cancellation are specified in each study’s description) on time to free the spot for other participants. Note: Repeated unexcused no-shows may lead to exclusion from future studies.
6. Make sure that you come on time to the timeslot you registered for (i.e., 5 min earlier). The experimenter will wait for you with further instructions at the facilities of the ABS Behavioural Lab.
7. After conclusion of the timeslot the researcher will register your research credit and/or pay you.

Code of Conduct - What can you expect from research in the ABS Behavioural Lab?

We pay what we promise!

When researchers pay a participant for their performance, the researchers must pay what was promised in the study description. When payment is dependent on and thus varies with the participant’s task performance, the payment mechanism is described in advance and participants are paid accordingly. It is important to note that the laboratory operates on a reasonable payment principle for participants. Participation will always be compensated at a rate of 10 Euro/ 1 Research Credit per hour. Only in pay-for-performance studies, the overall payment (fix + variable) can vary between 5 and 25 Euros per hour, dependent on the performance in the task.

Privacy protection, data-integrity, and right of withdrawal

Regardless whether you participate for money or Research Credits, your personal information remains protected at all points and is never shared with individuals or organizations outside the ABS Behavioural Lab. In case you participate for Research Credit, we only inform the student administration about the number of earned Research Credits, but do not share any other piece of information with them. Because the Research Credit System has educational purposes and is thus not completely voluntarily, students that participate for Research Credits have the right to indicate that their data may not be further used for research purposes. In that case you participate in the study, have access to the full experience and also receive the respective Research Credits, but your participation data will afterwards be deleted. You can indicate this at any time before, during, or immediately after you participated in the study. You also have the right to withdraw from the study at any time, in that case you will be reimbursed proportionally to your actual participation time.

Human rights and ethical protection

Before a study can be conducted in the ABS Behavioural Laboratory it must have received ethical approval from the Economics and Business Ethics Committee (EBEC) of the University of Amsterdam. This guarantees that each study is in line with international ethical research standards and protects Human rights at all points. Additionally, each study has been presented to the ABS Lab Group and reviewed by the executive board of the laboratory to ensure that all research conducted in the ABS Behavioural Lab meets highest international quality standards for experimental research in the social sciences.