A Video Introduction to Psychology: Enhancing Research Interest and Participation

To assess the extent to which a video about psychological research would heighten introductory psychology students' interest and participation in research studies, we created a video about ongoing research at our university, the value of research participation, and course requirements for the research experience. Instructors in 4 courses (N = 471 students) verbally explained the research requirement and distributed a document detailing alternatives for completing it. In 2 of these courses, students also saw the video. Results indicated that students who viewed the video reported greater interest in research and completed more research participation hours than did students who did not view the video. We discuss the potential advantages of standardized, noncoercive procedures to encourage student participation in research.