How to implement real-time interaction between participants in online surveys: A practical guide to SMARTRIQS

Abstract

While online experimentation is becoming increasingly popular in psychology, implementing real-time interaction between participants in online studies remains uniquely challenging, as it requires researchers to have advanced programming skills, or to purchase expensive third-party services. These challenges prevent many psychologists and other social scientists from utilizing online methods when they wish to study a vast array of social behaviors and interpersonal decision-making. SMARTRIQS is a free and open-source application that fills in this crucial gap in contemporary experimental research methods. SMARTRIQS offers researchers the ability to design surveys that feature real-time interaction between participants—including live text chat—without requiring re-searchers to learn any programming language, install any software, or pay for any third-party services. This paper provides researchers a practical guide to SMARTRIQS and shows them howto turn regular (non-interactive) online surveys into fully interactive experiments. The paper not only provides a comprehensive guide to designing interactive studies in SMARTRIQS in general but also walks readers through the step-by-step instructions for setting up a particular study (Dictator Game with chat). The tutorial starts from the very basics, assuming no prior expertise in online experimentation, and is accessible to everyone, even those who are less—or not at all—familiar with Qualtrics.