Participating in Research
University of Brighton students can take part in research through SONA, the university’s recruitment and participation system. Participating in research offers an opportunity to learn about projects investigating a range of topics and to see how psychology studies are conducted. All students are welcome to take part in research. Psychology students will have been allocated a SONA account at the beginning of Level 4. However, If you are a non-psychology student, please see details below for information on how to sign up to participate in research.
Signing into SONA
You can find the link to sign into SONA on our Mithras Labs SharePoint site. See, SharePoint > School of Humanities and Social Science > Mithras Labs > Participating in Research.
If you are unable to access your SONA/If you have forgotten your password, please select ‘Forgotten Password?’. If the password reset email does not appear in your inbox, check your spam folder and contact the Lab (HSSpsychlab@brighton.ac.uk) if you are still experiencing any issues signing in.
Level 4 & 5 Psychology Students
Level 4 & 5 Psychology students will need to earn research points, in order to access their Level 6 SONA Researcher account. Please see below details on how many research points you will need to collect:
- Current Level 4 Students (2024 – 2025) – Total of 30 Research Points across Levels 4 & 5
- Current Level 5 Students (2024 – 2025) – Total of 30 Research Points across Levels 4 & 5
To manage your workload, we recommend dividing this up between your first and second year, e.g. For current Level 4 students, collect 15 Research Points in Level 4, and a further 15 Research Points in Level 5. However, there is no limit to the total number of Research Points you can collect.
Research points are awarded by researchers at varying points within their recruitment period. There may be a period of 1 – 2 weeks between participating in a study and receiving the research points. If you have not received the research points two weeks after participating in a study, please contact the Psychology Lab and we will look into this for you.
Level 6 Psychology Students
Level 6 Psychology students can still participate in research throughout their final year. Your SONA participant account will remain active to allow you to sign up and participate in research.
If you are looking to set up your study on SONA, please see our ‘Qualtrics, SONA & Teams Workshops’ webpage for details on how to do this.
Non-Psychology Students
If you are not a psychology student and would like to take part in research, you can create a SONA account by contacting the Lab (HSSpsychlab@brighton.ac.uk) for access to the University of Brighton SONA link. Once you have access to the link, you will need to select ‘Request Account’. You will then be given instructions on how to create a SONA account. For the Course, please select “Not from Brighton – participation only“.
Once you are signed into SONA, you can select ‘View Available Studies’ to view the list of studies that are available for you to sign-up to. This list will change regularly throughout the year, so please do keep checking back to see what studies are available.
The busiest recruitment period is between the end of January to the end of April each year. This is when 3rd year Psychology students will be recruiting for their dissertations, so keep an eye out for any studies you may be interested in participating in between these times. Studies are also be posted on SONA at other times throughout the year, however.
If you have any questions relating to signing up to SONA and/or participating in research, please do let us know. You can contact us using the email address below:
Email: HSSpsychlab@brighton.ac.uk (Andrea & Grace – Psychology Technicians)