IRB application: q. 12

Question 12 of the IRB is another of the tricky questions for students. The primary problem seen is not going into enough detail. You have to list every step that will be involved in the research process, including how you will get access to participants (recruitment), what you will do with them during data collection, data analyses, and dissemination of the results to your community partners and participants.

Here is an example from the mixed methods study on students' views of the dissertation process. Note the level of detail listed. 

	Participant recruitment and data collection steps                           It is a student researcher’s responsibility to ensure that the procedures described here are 100% aligned with the final proposal that is approved by committee members after the oral defense. Failure to fully align item 12 with the approved proposal can result in invalidation of data and rejection of the final study.	Duration	Exact Location	Communication Format  (e.g., email, phone, in person, internet, etc.)
Step 1	PILOT STUDY: Quantitative & Qualitative- Students a)     Recruitment Two pilot students will be recruited through former students of the PIs. b)     Consent Pilot students will complete a consent form at the beginning of the survey in survey monkey c)     Administration and Analysis of Pilot Study Survey/email interviews will be done with students for clarity and timing. Students will participate in a short interview by phone or gotomeeting to determine if any items were not clear and to determine time for completion. d)     Changes to Actual Study Any changes required will be submitted to IRB through Change of Procedure form.	60-90 min. per participant	virtual	internet
Step 2	ACTUAL STUDY: Quantitative- Students a)          Announcement of Study and Recruitment Psychology students will be sent an email on psych student list servs. b)          Consent              A consent form will be the first page of the survey c)          Administration of Study Interested students will be asked to take a survey in survey monkey (see additional info file), which will ask about demographics, history of dissertation, social support, isolation, satisfaction and some brief answer questions. At the end of the survey, they will be asked if they would be willing to complete an interactive email interview and asked for their email address (an anonymous email option will be provided). d)     Analysis of Data Initial quantitative analysis- looking for patterns by time in dissertation, demographics, and family history. We will follow up the consistent issues in the interviews (and submit a change of procedure form for any revisions).	1 month	virtual	Internet
Step 3	ACTUAL STUDY: Qualitative- Students a)          Announcement of Study and Recruitment Individuals will be asked if they are willing to participate in an interactive email interview at the conclusion of the survey. b)          Implied Consent A consent form will be sent with the interactive email interview questions. Return of the survey implies consent. (this is done to preserve anonymity, if the participant desires; see Additional Info file) c)          Administration of Study We anticipate that responses may differ by time spent on their dissertation, thus for the interviews, we will look for a stratified sample of students: 1-2, 2-3, 3+ years into their dissertation (3 time points x 4 at each time point = 12 students).   Each of the 12 students will participate in an interactive email interview	6 weeks		email
Step 4	Qualitative Analyses: Open-Ended Questions on Surveys A coding scheme will be developed for the qualitative data and all responses coded and categorized into themes.  The qualitative data will be transformed into quantitative data by reducing themes and codes to numeric information, using a scoring rubric to systematically quantify the interview data as recommended by Creswell and Plano Clark (2011).   Qualitative Analyses: Interactive E-Mail 1. The entire interview transcript from one participant will be initially read for overall topics.  A list of all topics will be made and similar topics will be clustered and identified as major topics, minor topics, and unique topics.   Codes will be developed for each type of topic (a topic can include, for example, process codes, activity codes, strategy codes, etc.).  The codes will then be applied to the remaining interviews to determine if additional topics and codes are needed, or if codes need to be consolidated.  Segments of coded interviews will then be identified that capture the voice (experience) of each participant.  Data will then be organized by themes/segments to answer each RQ.   2. One or both of the following methods will be used to validate the study findings: a. Member checking with each participant b. Triangulation of survey and interview data that ask the same question(s)	2 months
Step 5	A report to the school of psychology will be written.

 Next time we will continue examining the IRB application, with q. 13-15. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu