Introduction
I - 3

        Two additional difficulties are also associated with maintaining and using traditional psychology computer labs. The laboratories require additional space in which to meet and conduct experiments and sample sizes in laboratory experiments are limited to lab class size, often less than 20. These difficulties alone imply that not all institutions of learning will be able to offer such laboratory courses.

The use of Internet-based psychology laboratories is one way to offer such laboratory courses without the need for extensive amounts of equipment or facility space. Departments would no longer need to maintain their own computer labs, buy and constantly update expensive experiment generator software, or worry about the utility of a particular piece of software for their course. As well, laboratory experiments which lack sufficient demonstration potential due to low sample sizes could be conducted and sample sizes could be determined by pooling data from several different laboratory courses at different institutions. Aside from the advantage of user convenience, professors and students will appreciate the fact that the number of users who can participate in a network-based experiment is much larger than the number who can participate when users come in singly at an appointed time to collect data. Data collection is the single longest phase of any research project; thus, efficient collection of large data sets will make it possible for students conducting independent research to complete their research in a single 15-week semester, as required for many independent research courses. Also, it will make it possible for laboratory students to have data sets large enough to study phenomena with small effect sizes, or ones that must be addressed in between-subjects designs. Presently, lab exercises focus on phenomena with sledge hammer effects that can be replicated reliably in small data sets using within-subject designs, because the typical lab class is small (15-20 students). The possibility of large data sets will have the effect of expanding the library of laboratory experiments in ways that will be interesting to students and potentially valuable to science.