As it stands now, I have had 12 participants. Given that I didn’t start testing until May 27, can usually only get the lab Wednesdays and Fridays, give myself 3 hours for every participant, and only need 20-25 participants, that really isn’t bad!
But I do find it frustrating that if people had signed up for my available timeslots and then showed up when they said they would, I could have 17 right now. I had a no-show on June 3, but then made up for it by unexpectedly getting the lab on Tuesday the 6th. That day I hoped to test three participants that day, but only two people signed up (for those of you keeping track, now we’re up to two available timeslots that were lost). Wednesday the 7th was supposed to be a full day: three timeslots back-to-back with just enough time to clean the cap, then a lab meeting at 4:30. On Tuesday afternoon though, I got an email from the SONA system saying that my last participant for Wednesday had cancelled their sign-up, just before the 24-hour cancellation deadline. I thought: That’s okay, there’s still time for another person to sign up. But then on Wednesday, I woke up at 6:00 to an email from my first participant of the day saying that she was sick and wouldn’t be participating. I don’t fault the participant: things happen and if she was going to be coughing and sneezing the data probably wouldn’t have been usable anyway. But that was another timeslot going to waste. Add that to the fact that nobody new had signed up for the last Wednesday slot, and in 12 hours I had gone from three sign-ups to one (this is now four unused timeslots in a six day period). Finally, we come to Friday the 10th. Knowing that I had weekend plans, I had only opened a Friday morning timeslot, hoping to get in, test a participant, and get out of Nijmegen at around noon. Two weeks after I opened that timeslot, and still nobody had signed up. I tried changing the time (8:30-10:30, then 8:45-10:45, then 9-11, even pushing my timetable and trying 9:15-11:15) but still nobody wanted to participate. Eventually I was forced to give up, and chalk yet another one of my limited timeslots up as a loss. So here I sit, with just over two weeks left of testing for PIRE, and I still have 8-13 participants left. Currently I have people signed up for all of the remaining 13 timeslots, but if any of them cancel or decide not to show up, there is no time left for me to make it up.
On the bright side, now that I have a working experiment and have developed a testing schedule, I am a much more relaxed person. I quickly developed my rhythm for testing days and am enjoying my days without scheduled activities. This past weekend, I went to Amsterdam with my friend Megan (who is studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany). We managed to fit so many activities into 48 hours, but what I thought was really interesting was having the chance to compare our experiences. Germany and the Netherlands aren’t that different, but getting her perspective on the public transportation system, café customs, Dutch language/code-switching, and other aspects of the culture that I have spent the past month getting used to was very interesting.
What was more interesting, though, was comparing our experiences at our respective universities. Megan takes classes in German that allow her to learn about Freiburg and German history and culture, and to meet students from all over the world. Though admittedly not fluent, she has been learning the language of her country since high school and knows enough to take classes in the language. She has a lot of freedom at Freiburg, but she also has a program and a community of international students. PIRE is definitely not study abroad. I knew very little Dutch before arriving here, and have learned enough to read (most of) a menu, deal with the public transportation system without getting lost, handle a transaction with a cashier, and ask somebody to switch to English when they try to actually talk to me. The only Dutch people I have met are my participants (who I pay to sit in a room with me for two hours), and the handful of people I have had to work with in the lab. But, I have so much freedom here. If this was a typical ‘study abroad’ experience, I wouldn’t be able to completely make my own schedule every day, to be regularly mistaken for a Master’s student, or to generally be functioning on my own with such little supervision. I’ve loved the opportunities I’ve had so far and know that PIRE is definitely the right abroad experience for me, but it’s an interesting thought experiment compare the experiences and to imagine what PIRE would be like if it were independent research within the infrastructure of a study abroad program. I don’t think it would give us the same level of independence, self-confidence, and troubleshooting skills.