Beginning this quarter, students who volunteer to participate in the Kellogg School of Management’s experimental studies will be raking in more dough.
After nine years of unchanging participation rates, Kellogg decided to increase the amount of money it pays to students to help with experiments, said Research Laboratory Manager Simone Cavallaro.
Before this quarter, Kellogg paid students $5 for participating in a 30-minute experiment. Now, students will receive $8 for participating in a 30-minute experiment. The biggest change in pricing for experiments is for those that last 1 1/2 hours. Instead of receiving $15, students will now receive $23, Cavallaro said.
“We noticed that the Department of Psychology had the same rates that we do now,” Cavallaro said. “There was high competition, so we decided to change.”
Kellogg experimental studies cover anything from decision making to financial behavior to consumer preference fees, Cavallaro said. He said the studies’ student volunteers are undergraduates who signed up to participate at the beginning of the academic year to make extra money. Approximately 4,000 students are on the Kellogg experimental studies e-mail list, but not all of them are active participants.
Student participants said they are satisfied with the recent increase in compensation rates.
Medill junior Jenn Korducki has been participating in Kellogg experimental studies since her freshman year. She also said she understands the importance of having a wide pool of candidates for an experiment.
“I think it shows that they’re probably not getting the response they wanted, so by increasing the pay it will draw more people in,” Korducki said. “Now it’s an extra perk that I’m going to get the same amount of money for less time.”
Weinberg freshman Cassi Saari has already participated in three Kellogg experiments.
“It’s a good idea to raise the pay because it will attract more people to participate in the experiments, which will then receive better data,” Saari said.
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