Across the hall from room W162 in Lagomarcino Hall are bulletin boards describing many psychology research opportunities for the average student.

Psychology research studies of all kinds are posted with various times and dates, just waiting for students to put their names on the one that works best for their schedule, and in this precious time before finals, more students are scrambling to get participation points.

Meifen Wei, assistant professor in psychology, said these research studies are a way for students to experience the science firsthand.

“The key point of the experiments is for educational purposes,” Wei said.

“It’s important that the students have that experience.”

She said students who first participate in psychology experiments and later conduct their own will know what it feels like to be on both sides of the experience.

“I can understand what questions they may have and, when assigning an experiment, I try not to make it too confusing,” said Kelly Yu-Hsin Liao, graduate student in psychology who conducted an experiment to help determine the relationship between repeatedly thinking about something and depression.

She said she thought that being a participant first, and then a researcher, helped her to better connect with those participating in her experiments.

Although participants in a study are usually college freshman, Yu-Hsin Liao said the department’s studies are universal and apply to almost everyone, and the bias of having only college students as subjects is always noted when reviewing the results.

Jon Anderegg, freshman in pre-computer science and a student in Psychology 101, said he has been a participant because the course requires it.

“It helped me to understand the information in the class,” Anderegg said. “It connected what was in the book with what happened in the study.”

Anderegg said he found the requirement to be in the studies as slightly inconvenient, but understood the need for students to participate.

He also said he probably would not have participated had it not been required.

“It’s really important to have participants,” Yu-Hsin Liao said. “We’re trying to study human behavior so we need human subjects.”

Yu-Hsin Liao said that if no one signs up to be in a study, the study simply can’t be conducted.

Wei said no one is forced to participate in the studies. If a student doesn’t feel comfortable participating in studies, then professors offer another way to get the credits required to pass the class. This may mean extra reading or research papers, but students are always given the choice, she said.

“It’s strictly voluntary, but we seldom don’t have participants for a study,” she said.