Learn when and how to pause or stop a study, and understand when studies will be automatically paused.
Pausing a study
If you become aware of any problems with your study after it has been published, you’re able to pause the study. When you pause a study, this will prevent further participants from being able to reserve a place for that study on Prolific. Be aware that the following won’t be affected:
- Participants who are already in your external study
- Participants who have already reserved a place on your study
Note that only a few elements can be modified after pausing your study. For more details, see the article Can I change any details of my study after it is published?
Automatic pausing
If a study has reached the total number of submissions and these show as 'Awaiting review', it will be automatically paused when either of these occurs:
- You reject one of those submissions
- A participant decides to return their submission (for a submission that was previously in 'Awaiting review')
We do this to give you full control over how many participants you recruit. From the 'Action' menu you can restart the study to fill the newly available place(s), or stop the study with fewer submissions than originally planned.
Stopping a study
✋ Stopping a study is final. Once stopped, you cannot resume it. However, you can duplicate it from the ‘Action’ menu and publish a new version.
You can stop your study at any point by clicking 'Stop' in the 'Action' menu. You may choose to stop your study if you've collected enough responses, or if you want to create a new version of your study.
After stopping your study, its status will change to 'Awaiting review' if there are submissions to review. If there are no submissions to review, or you've finished reviewing them all, the study will be marked as 'Completed'. The study summary document will display the final cost, and any unused funds will be returned to your workspace balance.
How to pause or stop a study
You can access the menu to ‘Pause’ or ‘Stop’ your study from three places:
- By clicking the three dots next to the specific study on the Projects page
- By clicking on the ‘Action’ menu on the Submissions page
- By clicking on the ‘Action’ menu on the Study set up page
From this menu, you can choose to 'Pause' or 'Stop' your study. If you've paused your study, you can resume it from the same menu by clicking 'Start'.
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