Introduction to integrations

If you haven't already checked out our basic study set-up guide, you should do so before exploring this advanced guide. Qualtrics also has an extensive support center that provides all of the information required to help you set up your study on their platform. We encourage all of our researchers to review the information provided there before setting up their first study.

Getting consent

It's important to get consent to participate in your research from all of your participants (see here for what to include). Participants who do not consent to take part in your study should be redirected to a separate end of survey message, which asks them to return their submission so their study place becomes available again.

  1. Click 'Add block', name this new block 'Consent Form', and add your consent form information as a question with two response options, one to indicate that the participant consents, and the other to indicate that they do not.
  2. Go to Survey Flow
  3. Click 'Add Below' on your ‘Consent Form’ block
  4. Select 'Branch'
  5. Select 'Add a Condition'
  6. Select your consent question, and then select the choice that indicates consent has been given. Then, select 'Is Not Selected'
  7. Select the indented 'Add a New Element Here' underneath this Branch, and then “End of Survey”
  8. Click 'Customize' on this newly created End of Survey section, then select 'Override Survey Options' > 'Custom end of survey message' > 'My Library' > 'New message'
  9. Give the new message a description and insert the following text:

    'As you do not wish to participate in this study, please close this survey and return your submission on Prolific by selecting the 'Stop without completing' button.'
  10. Click 'Save' then 'OK'

Your Survey Flow should look something like this upon completion of this step:

Recording participant IDs

You need to record participant IDs within your survey, so you can match your survey responses to individual Prolific submissions. Ideally, you should ask this question at the beginning of your survey (after consent is given), so you can identify responses even if participants do not reach the end. There are two ways to record participant IDs on Qualtrics:

1) Automatic recording of Prolific IDs via URL parameters [Recommended]

You can get the participants' Prolific IDs from a query string in the study URL on Prolific. This means that participants won't have to copy & paste their IDs into Qualtrics, but instead, the system will automatically enter the IDs for participants. On Qualtrics this works through a process called 'Embedded Data'.

1. Add a block to your survey named ‘Prolific ID’, and create a 'Text entry' question. In the question text, include the following message:

2. Ensure that the IDs are recorded in your data set. To do this, go to 'Survey Flow' and add an 'Embedded Data' element right at the beginning of your study. Into the embedded data field, enter 'PROLIFIC_PID' and make sure that it says 'Value will be set from panel or URL'

3. Now go to the survey item that records the participant's Prolific ID, right-click on the text-entry field and click on 'Default Choices':

4. On the window that opens click on the blue drop-down arrow to the right of the text-entry box, and go to 'Embedded data field'. Here, either enter 'PROLIFIC_PID', or click the drop-down arrow to the right of the text entry box and select 'PROLIFIC_PID', then click 'Insert'. This will create a string called '${e://Field/PROLIFIC_PID}'. Now click 'Save', and you're done!

5. This is what your question for the participant's Prolifc ID should look like in the end:

6. Finally, parameters need to be added to your Study URL in order to pass the Prolific ID through the query string. To do this, go to Prolific, and in the 'Study Link' section of the study creation form insert your study URL into the 'What is the URL of your study?' box, then select the 'I'll use URL parameters' option. This will add the parameters to your study URL. The default name is 'PROLIFIC_PID' so you shouldn't need to change anything here, but parameter names can be changed by selecting 'Configure parameters' if needed. Your 'Study Link' box should now look something like this:

7. When you publish your study, participants IDs will replace 'PROLIFIC_PID' in the URL and then be automatically recorded in Qualtrics. In addition, 'STUDY_ID' will be replaced with an ID unique to your study, and 'SESSION_ID' will be replaced with ID unique to the participant's submission. These parameters can be removed from your URL if you only wish to record participant Prolific IDs.

2) Adding a question to your study

1. Ask participants for their Prolific ID as a 'Text entry' question within your study, like this (please note that Prolific IDs have 24 alphanumeric characters - please ensure the question field in your survey accepts both numbers and letters):

2. Make this question mandatory by selecting it, clicking 'Response requirements', then selecting 'Force response'

3. In the 'Study Link' section of the study creation form on Prolific insert your study URL into the 'What is the URL of your study?' box, then select the 'I'll add a question in my study' option.

Validating your prescreeners

We recommend that you validate your prescreeners by asking the prescreening question(s) again in your survey. Any validation question(s) should be at the very beginning of your study and must be worded exactly as appears on Prolific. If a participant's response to any of these questions doesn't match their prescreening answer on Prolific, you can redirect them to a separate end of survey page asking them to return their submission.

  1. Add a block to your survey named ‘Screener Validation’, and add your prescreening questions
  2. Go to Survey Flow
  3. Click 'Add Below' on your ‘Screener Validation’ block
  4. Select 'Branch'
  5. Select 'Add a Condition'
  6. Select the first validation question, then select the correct answer, then select 'Is Not Selected'
  7. If you have more than one screener to validate, click the green "+" symbol and select 'OR' on the next line and then repeat the process for the next question(s)
  8. Select the indented 'Add a New Element Here' underneath this Branch, and then 'End of Survey'
  9. Click 'Customize' on this newly created section, then select 'Override Survey Options' > 'Custom end of survey message' > 'My Library'> 'New message'
  10. Give the new message a description and insert the following text (making sure to unselect the 'Button' and 'Social Share' options):

    'You are ineligible for this study as you have provided information which is inconsistent with your Prolific prescreening responses. Please return your submission on Prolific by selecting the 'Stop without completing' button.'
  11. Click 'Save' then 'OK'

Your Survey Flow should look something like this upon completion of this step:

Redirecting participants back to Prolific upon completion

Once a participant has completed your study they should be redirected back to Prolific to register their completion of your survey. There are two main methods of redirecting participants back to Prolific on Qualtrics:

1) Automatic redirecting participants via a URL [Recommended]

Qualtrics allows researchers to automatically redirect participants to a specific URL upon completion of the survey. To do this, select 'I'll redirect them using a URL' in the 'STUDY COMPLETION' section of your study setup. Prolific then provides you with a redirect URL to insert into your Qualtrics survey:

On Qualtrics, select the default End of Survey block, and in the dropdown on the left under 'End of Survey message' select 'Redirect to URL'. In the box underneath, paste the URL provided by Prolific. You should also add a block just before the redirect to thank participants for taking part and asking them to click the proceed button to be redirected back to Prolific. Once you have completed this step you should end up with something that looks like this:

2) Giving them a completion code to copy and paste

  1. On Prolific, select 'I'll give them the Completion Code to copy & paste' in the 'STUDY COMPLETION' section of your study setup. Prolific then gives you a code to provide to participants:
  2. On Qualtrics, select the default End of Survey block, and in the dropdown on the left under 'End of Survey message' select 'Custom'.
  3. In the dropdown box underneath, select 'My Library' then 'New Message' and enter your end of survey message including the completion code.

Once you have completed this step you should end up with something that looks like this:

Previewing your study

After completion of the first 4 steps, you just need to add in your main survey items/questions and your Survey Flow should look something like this:

To preview your study on Qualtrics, and check that this flow is working exactly as you expect it to, make sure that you click 'Publish' at the top-right of the screen, and then click 'Preview':

You can also preview the study on Prolific by following the steps here: Previewing your study. This will allow you to check that your study link is correct and it is redirecting to the correct Completion URL at the end.

Please note that any changes you make to your survey on Qualtrics will not be visible via your Prolific preview until you publish them. You can read more about Survey Publishing on Qualtrics by clicking here.

Qualtrics FAQs

Why are participants are not receiving the correct code upon completion of my Qualtrics survey?

If you notice that your participant's submissions have either an incorrect completion code or say 'NOCODE' it often indicates that there is a problem with how the survey is finishing. Some avenues to investigate are:

  1. Double-check that the correct completion code/URL is being provided and that the end of survey block is in the correct place in your survey flow (i.e., at the very end)
  2. Check that the latest version of your survey is 'live'. If you make changes to your survey but do not then click 'Publish', the study URL will link to an older version of the survey (i.e., the one previously published). Make sure that all information is up-to-date and any changes are published
  3. Check the branch logic of your survey to ensure that participants are not being led to an end-of-survey block, or an incorrect block, sooner than expected
  4. If the above tips do not fix the issue then contact Qualtrics support to see if they can identify any issues, and then contact Prolific support if the issue is still not resolved

How do I record responses that were not submitted?

If a participant doesn’t hit the final button in your survey to record a complete response, their response will be stored temporarily under ‘Responses in Progress’.

By default, these will be recorded automatically after 1 week - you can edit this timeframe in the Qualtrics Survey Options > Incomplete Survey Responses

Why are the completion times on Qualtrics different to those on Prolific?

Sometimes, participants might close the Qualtrics survey and only submit their responses on Prolific later by clicking the 'I've finished' button. This button is in place in case researchers forget to implement the completion URL.

Alternatively, sometimes a participant might accidentally click this button, but then go on to complete the study after all.

In either case, the Qualtrics submission time will therefore be shorter than that recorded on Prolific.

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