Thank you for taking the time to share your detailed feedback about your experience on Prolific. We understand how important it is for our platform to meet your expectations and support your research effectively, and we’re sorry to hear that aspects of the process have been stressful for you. I’d like to address the concerns you raised and offer some clarity:
Participant Behavior Impacting Completion Times
On Prolific, we use the median completion time to calculate and display the average completion time for studies. This approach minimizes the impact of outliers, ensuring that your study will only begin underpaying if a significant number of participants take longer than the estimated time. Please also note that participant rewards are fixed at the amount you set, regardless of their individual completion times.
We assure you that participants cannot conspire to manipulate completion times. Any idle periods - such as those on the consent form - are more likely due to participants carefully reading the material as directed.
Based on the events you've described, with only two participants significantly exceeding the average duration, your study’s completion times appear to fall within normal variance. However, we would happily review your study further to provide additional insight and support.
Automatic Approvals & Returns
When automatic approval is enabled, participants are only automatically paid 21 days after participating in a study. If you’ve asked a participant to return their submission but haven’t received a response within a couple of days, please contact our Support Team, and we will be happy to assist you in ensuring the approval and returns processes work as intended.
We understand your concerns about forgetting to manage submissions, especially when you’re busy. To help streamline this, we’d be happy to discuss best practices or alternative workflows that might better suit your needs.
Support Wait Times
We sincerely apologize if you’ve experienced delays in receiving support. Over the past year, our team faced unprecedented numbers of requests, which temporarily impacted our response times. Fortunately, these are now under control, and we’re currently responding to most queries within a couple of working days.
At Prolific, we value feedback like yours as it helps ensure we continue providing the best possible support to our research community. If you’d like to discuss your concerns further or require specific assistance, please contact our Support Team via info@prolific.com referencing this review.
Thank you again for your thoughtful input, and we’re here to help whenever you need us.