When reviewing your submissions on Prolific, here’s what works best in our experience.

First, try to approve submissions as quickly and accurately as possible.

Second, nobody likes to be rejected - but sometimes you may decide that it is necessary to reject participants’ submissions. In this case, please provide a detailed message about why you had to reject their submission.

You should also not reject submissions based on participants’ demographic information if you did not specify your target demographics as pre-screening filters.

If they’ve clearly made some effort or attempted to engage with the task for a significant period of time but their data is not of sufficient quality, then consider approving them, but excluding them from your analysis.

If the participant has clearly made little effort, failed multiple attention checks or has lied their way into your study, then rejection is appropriate. Please read our article on valid and invalid rejection reasons for more guidance.

If you are concerned that a rejected submission might have been made by a bot, then please let us know immediately.

Lastly, communication is key! Misunderstandings are a common pitfall, especially in online communication (and across different cultures). So if participants message you with problems or questions about your study, please provide them with the necessary information.

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