Answers

Getting started with Gorilla

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Gorilla Experiment Builder is an online platform designed for behavioural scientists to create, manage, and conduct complex experiments easily and intuitively. You can use it to create questionnaires, build tasks, and design experiments to distribute to participants and collect data.

Psychology students may need to use the platform to complete some assignments.

• How does it work
• Joining the Arden University license subscription
• Learning the basics of Gorilla
• Requesting tokens
• Arden University Ethics Forms
• Further guidance
• Support
• Further FAQs
  • Do I need to purchase tokens?
  • What do I do if I get the message "“You do not have any current memberships to claim from”?
  • How do I justify my target sample size?

How does it work?

Gorilla allows you to create experiments using modular building blocks called "nodes". These allow you to build your experiment piece by piece.

Once you have built your experiment you will need to request Tokens. Tokens will allow you to share and administer your experiment to participants.
 

Joining the Arden University license subscription

Staff and students of the School of Psychology may use the Arden University license subscription. 

1. Go to Sign up | Gorilla Experiment Builder and create an account using your Arden University email. A verification code will be sent to your Arden email address. 
   
   NOTE: You MUST use your Arden University email. This is required for data protection purposes as the data must be accessed through an Arden University account and stored on your University OneDrive. 
    
2. Enter the enrolment code ArdenPsych2025. Click Continue.
    
3. Enter your name and choose a secure password. Your password must be at least 12 characters. Click Create Free Account. 
    

Learning the basics of Gorilla

Gorilla have done an excellent job of supporting new users with a guide and set of onboarding videos. I recommend starting with this video.

If you're new to Gorilla, we recommend you start by watching the Getting Started webinar videos. These will give you an introduction to Gorilla as well as some practical tips for getting started.

For more information see Further Guidance.

Requesting tokens

You will need to request tokens in order to recruit participants.

• You may request up to 50 tokens. Tokens will expire within a 6-month timeframe. If you still require tokens you can request to have these tokens returned.
   
• Dissertation students may request up to 250 tokens. You will be prompted to complete a request form where you enter the required amount and justify your response. As we have a limited number of Tokens for the year, you will be expected to justify your target sample size via a power analysis or other form of sample size justification.

How to request tokens

1. In Gorilla go to your experiment's Recruitment tab.
    
2. Scroll down and click Change Recruitment Target.
    
3. Enter the total number of participants you want to recruit to the study. Token sources will appear below. Select where you want to get tokens from (the Arden subscription or your personal account). Click Confirm

For more information see Subscription FAQs

Arden University ethics forms

To meet ethics guidelines you will need to get informed consent from participants and debrief them at the end.

Approved Arden University ethic form templates can be found on Gorilla. You can clone these and use them in your project.  

TIP: Remember to edit the ethics forms once they are in your project, You will need to state the specific details of your study.

Further guidance

Once you are familiar with using Gorilla, there is extensive documentation and examples on their support page.

Recommended videos

• Creating An Experiment In Gorilla From Start To Finish 
  Demonstration on how to create a study from start to finish including how to clone Arden University ethics form templates
   
• Using the Gorilla Randomiser Node 
  Demonstration on how to use the randomiser node to randomly allocate participants into separate groups
   
• Embedding YouTube Videos in Gorilla Experiments
  How to embed YouTube videos in Gorilla experiment

Support

• For support with joining the Arden license subscription, requesting tokens, or administrative help email PsychologyExperimentalOfficer@arden.ac.uk
   
• For technical support, help regarding building/creating your experiment or any other questions, contact the Gorilla Support Desk. NOTE: You will need to be signed into your account to access the Gorilla Support Desk. A member of the Gorilla team will respond to you within 2 working days.
   

Further FAQs

Do I need to purchase tokens?

No. You DO NOT need to purchase tokens as you can use the Arden University Gorilla license subscription. You will only need to add Arden’s enrolment code. Once you enter this code the tokens should be credited into your experiment for them to be distributed.

What happens if I get the message “You do not have any current memberships to claim from”?

This means account is not connected to the Arden University subscription license. 

To connect your account to the Arden subscription license

1. Go to My Account. 
    
2. Select Subscriptions (see screenshot).
    
3. Select Institution or lab already has a subscription. Add the enrolment code (see Joining Arden license subscription above). 
    

How do I justify my target sample size?

When making the request for tokens for your research project you will need to justify your sample size using a G*Power analysis and detail the results of the analysis. This will need to be stated in the Comments box.

An example justification:

The estimated total sample size is (sample size number) participants and hoping to obtain an equal balance of male and female participants. The sample size was determined by the G*Power sample size test in which a priori was calculated to compute a required sample size for this research. The results indicated that the total sample size required would be (sample size number) to achieve 95% power using linear multiple regression tests. Tokens approved for Final Year Project by supervisor (Supervisor Name)