(7x) "PsychExperiments" is an online psychology laboratory that offers research opportunities to undergraduates and their instructors. It is now established as a valuable educational resource used by 141 classrooms in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Based at the University of Mississippi, the site has been featured in two articles in the American Psychological Association's APA Monitor, one article in the American Psychological Society's APS Observer, and has been awarded first-place in the Learning Software Design Competition (non-profit division) hosted by the University of Minnesota. Due to growing use in the United Kingdom, the University of Edinburgh has asked to mirror the site to provide more convenient and economical access. One major benefit of PsychExperiments is that it serves as a replacement or supplement for department-maintained laboratory facilities, thus freeing departments from some of the costs in maintaining computers and software for laboratory student use. This makes it possible for even the most poorly funded 4-year institutions, along with junior colleges and even some high schools to offer quality research experiences. Typical use of the site begins with an instructor asking students to participate in one of the experiments at the site using any Internet-connected computer. Students subsequently download the data they have generated (along with additional data from other classes when one's own class size is too small for meaningful analysis), which they analyze on their own or with the site-provided Excel macros. When students have access to a multi-computer lab, the whole process of research participation, data download and analysis can be completed within 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the experiment, which leaves ample class time for discussing the results and their implications. The technology that serves laboratory class requirements also serves the needs of student and professional researchers who wish to take advantage of web-samples or simply the convenience of off-site data collection. Hence PsychExperiments hosts student and professional research experiments along with laboratory experiments. Furthermore, by serving as an open laboratory, PsychExperiments serves to build community among the group of researchers and instructors who have participated in building the site. This project is continuing to improve and disseminate the collection of PsychExperiments and the prototype. The project consists of three components: (1) dissemination by visits to regional campuses and conventions, (2) enlarging the contributor core through developing training materials to supplement or supplant workshop-based training (a package of multimedia instructional material that will assist faculty and students in creating new experiments), and (3) continued site development and innovation. We estimate that the measurable results of these efforts will by project's end increase the user base from the Spring 2000 level of 141 classrooms to at least 1000 classrooms, and increase the number of trained contributors from 30 to a minimum of 60. Ancillary goals are expanding the pedagogical focus of PsychExperiments to social and developmental psychology and incorporating technological improvements that are making PsychExperiments more useful, attractive, and engaging.
