Welcome to The Freshman Experience Project!

The Freshman Experience Project is a confidential research study. The purpose of The Freshman Experience Project is to explore health and risk behaviors, including alcohol and drug use, among first-year college students. We are recruiting first-year college students, age 18-19 (both who drink alcohol or use drugs and who do not drink alcohol or use drugs), at the University of North Texas who are willing to take a short screening survey, and if eligible, be willing to participate in a 6-week text message intervention and complete several surveys throughout the year about health behaviors and lifestyles. The information you provide for this study may help our research team to better understand alcohol use among first-year college students.

If you are a first-year UNT student, The University of North Texas Registrar provided us with your information as part of a request for publicly available student directory information. We will only use this information to inform you of the opportunity to participate in paid research for The Freshman Experience Project.

If you received an email from us and are interested in participating, check your eligibility by taking our initial brief survey using the link embedded in the email you received. You can also access this survey link through our ad in UNT’s Connection’s Magazine, or at our in-person or online freshman orientation recruitment events.

If the study is right for you, you will be asked to complete several surveys throughout the year, starting with the project’s Baseline Survey. This survey will take about 45 minutes to complete, and you will be compensated on a Greenphire Mastercard for your participation. In between the Baseline surveys and the rest of the surveys, you may receive informative text messages from us 2 times per day for 3 days a week for 6 weeks as part of an intervention.

The Freshman Experience Project depends on our participants and the information you share with us helps us create a more accurate portrayal of the experiences of first year college students. We sincerely appreciate the time and effort it takes to be a Freshman Experience Project research participant and we value the thoughts and comments from everyone who participates. Your willingness to report your responses as accurately and honestly as you can is what makes our project a success.

If you are eligible and choose to participate, you can earn money on a Greenphire Mastercard.

Everyone who has access to the screening survey link has the opportunity to complete the screening survey in order to participate in our study.

The risks associated with participation in this short online survey to determine if you are eligible are primarily related to the sensitivity of some of the questions, including alcohol and drug use. These questions may make you feel uncomfortable or may seem intrusive, or you may become concerned about your drinking other health behaviors as you answer the questions. You are asked to report on illegal behaviors, such as drinking under the legal age and using drugs. Answers to these questions could pose a risk if the information were known and linked to identifiable individuals. It is possible that you will feel uncomfortable while taking the survey, or feel as if you should share information that you don’t want to share. Additionally, there is informational risk since your contact information will be maintained for up to 30 days. However, we have taken steps to protect you from this risk. All of your data will be kept confidential.

The study is not designed to benefit you directly. However, you may gain a better understanding of yourself and your behavior. Benefits to society include the opportunity to contribute to the development of programs intended to reduce the health and behavioral problems sometimes associated with drinking behavior in first-year college students.

Your participation is completely confidential. All of your data will be kept confidential and data will be identified only by a PIN (personalized identification number) randomly generated for research purposes, and will not be directly identified by your name. The PIN is always embedded in survey links, meaning the link is specific to you and your survey data. Thus, you will not ever need to enter your PIN to complete study surveys.

You will not be identified in any research reports or presentations of this research. Data identified only by the PIN may be shared with other researchers doing similar work on other campuses, and/or be combined with data from other campuses in some research reports. Your name and contact information will be accessible only to research staff for the purposes of contacting you to complete the study, and will be stored separately from your data on computers with password protection and in locked file cabinets. If you DO NOT choose to get contacted for other research studies, we will only retain your name and contact information until the end of the study by which date all names and other identifying information will be destroyed, thereby removing any link between participants and their data. If you DO choose to get contacted for other research studies, we will retain your name and contact information until the end of the study by which date all names and other identifying information will be destroyed, thereby removing any link between participants and their data.

Participating in this study is voluntary. You may refuse to answer any question and still submit your survey without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You are free to withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. Your participation or non-participation in this study will not have any effect on your academic standing.