Reducing the Number of Participants in an MTurk Toolkit Study

Once an MTurk Toolkit study has gone Live, the number of participants cannot be reduced by editing the study. To reduce the number of participants in your study, you must copy the HIT and launch a new HIT with a lower number of participants.

Steps to Lower the Number of Workers in a Study

1. First, Pause your study by clicking "Pause" in the lower left of the study view.
   
   
2. Once you've paused your study, the status will change from "Paused" to "Stopped" when there are no longer any participants active within your survey. The maximum amount of time this may take is equal to the "time allotted per assignment" you set when creating your HIT.
   TIP! Having your study status marked as "Stopped" is important if you do not have much money in your MTurk Balance and your account operates by purchasing "Prepaid HITs" on MTurk. When you launch a study, MTurk withdraws money to cover all worker payments. Once the study is marked as "Stopped" the funds MTurk was holding are released back to your account. Thus, if you do not have extra funds in your account you may have to wait for the funds to be released before launching your study with a lower number of participants.
3. Once your study is "Stopped," return to the study on the Dashboard and select "Copy Study" under the Options dropdown.
   
   Copying your HIT will take you to the Create a study page. All details in your new study will be identical to the previous study. From here, you can lower the number of participants and then save your new study.
4. Finally, when you are ready, you can Launch your new study targeting a lower number of participants.