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Universities that Pay

© Susanne Stanyer

Online surveys aren't exclusively the lot of market research companies. Universities aren't limiting their research to white coats and labs these days, but are now including online research in their methodologies, too. This, for us, is good news, as often by participating as a respondent, we are eligible to win cash prizes from them!

There are a of university departments both undertaking research, and offering rewards to those of us who help them with it. They are as follows:

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PAYING US RESIDENTS

If you are in the United States, one site worth registering with is Participants Online, which is a reasonably active site, as far as survey sites go! As well as posting new surveys at their site, they also notify you of them by email. In return for sharing your opinions, you are entered in prize draws, the up side being that your odds of winning can be as low as one in twenty! This site, which is presented clearly and neatly, also helps charity. You're also entered to win $500 just by signing up.

Also for residents of the United States, if I may stay across the ocean for a minute, are the Internet Surveys of American Opinion In return for your thoughts, you're rewarded with "gratuities", where possible. The amount depends on their research budget.

PAID RESEARCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

If you are in the UK, you might like to look at the Dundee University's Psychological Experiments. They post research, as well as what it pays, at their site, regularly. Currently healthy non smoking males are sought, and paid research into eye movement is in the wings!

AND UNIVERSITY RESEARCH WITH WORLDWIDE REWARDS
Not unlike Participants Online in its lottery offerings, another site that informs you of your odds of winning when you take a survey is that run by the social psychologists at USC. Each survey comes with its own lottery there, too. Although some surveys are clearly marked US only, there are others labelled "worldwide". The only limitation is that you must be aged 18 or over, to participate. Survey topics include marijuana, love, and money. They also ask you to be a juror in a courtroom, in their lastest project.

Another site that also has an academic orientation is that run by the Institute for Online Consumer Studies. They haven't posted new surveys at their site for some time, though.

Grabbed by nouns, verbs, and all things verbal at all? There is a long and wonderfully unique survey about grammar, being conducted by some European universities that have banded together to further their psycholinguistic research , online at the moment. Surveys conducted by this group are available in Spanish, German, English, Greek, and Russian! Not all of their surveys are rewarded, however, so if you are hoping to come away richer, (and they pay their winning respondents in pounds), look for pictures of bags of gold..those are the links to click!