Experiment volunteers

Experiment volunteers are experimental subjects recruited into experiments on a voluntary basis.

In psychology this can have important implications for the interpretation of findings. For example it is not clear the volunteers are necessarily representative of the population from which they come. For example the old, the ill, the socially anxious etc etc may not be in a position to be recruited into most studies and this may lead to biased sampling. While it is also established that many psychology studies have been conducted using university students as they are a convenient source of volunteers.

Preparing volunteers for the study
Before conducting the study volunteers should be educated as far as possible about what they will be asked to do in order that they can give informed consent for their participation.

Ethical issues
==Debriefing