Core Concepts

Testing study set up

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From the Prolific user interface, you can Preview how a participant will see your task. Look at the video tutorial here.

For a more end-to-end participant experience, we now have a ‘Test study as participant’ feature. Click here for a detailed breakdown of this feature, including tips on how to use it.

The ‘Test study as a participant’ feature is currently in a limited beta release. To be notified when this feature becomes more widely available, you can register your interest here.

Test study as participant via API

To ‘Test study as participant’ via the API, follow these steps:

1

Create a test participant against a researcher account

POST
https://api.prolific.com/api/v1/researchers/participants/
Body

The email address supplied should not already have an associated Prolific account. Most email providers allow you to create an alias associated with your inbox, for example name+prolificparticipant@example.com.

2

Reset the password on the participant account

When the account is created, a randomly generated password is assigned to the participant account. Use the password reset page to reset your password.

3

Draft the study

Create the study that you want to test before publishing.

4

Create the test study

POST
https://api.prolific.com/api/v1/studies/:id/test-study
Path Parameters
5

Login with the participant account created in steps 1 & 2

6

Take the test study as a participant

7

To fix issues, update the draft study and repeat steps 4-6

8

Once you’re happy with all the study settings, publish the draft study

Note

The ‘Test study as participant’ feature is in beta. Read the help guide here to understand participant restrictions & how payments work with this feature.