IRB application, q. 13-15

The next section examines issues related to your community stakeholders and /or partners. Let's begin with a definition as to who these people are. Any organization or institution that will be helping you in some way with your research is a community partner or stakeholder. Some examples might be an online support group that will post your ad about your study, a company or university that will send out an email for you, or an agency that will give you access to their archival data. 

q. 13. This asks you to identify your community partners and to list a plan as to how they will get the results of your study. Some common ways are to send a summary of your study (a couple of pages) to the community partner and participants. You could also do a talk for interested parties. Even if you have an anonymous survey you can do this by stating in your ad and at the conclusion of the study that anyone who is interested in a summary of the results, whether they participate in the study or not, can receive it by sending you an email. 

q. 14. This asks that you indicate the community partner's role in the study. The one that most confuses students is the first choice: I am relying solely on public records and/or means to recruit participants and collect data, and thus, I have no community research partner. When does this apply? Some examples might be when you are accessing newspaper accounts, or public legal records. This is rarely an appropriate choice- so think about it carefully. If anyone has to give you permission to get access to the people/ data it is not the correct option. 

q. 15. This has you indicate the organization at which you will recruit (probably your community partner), who is authorized to approve the research at the site, and why you chose this partner. An underlying assumption here is that you have already spoken with the partner. Never assume that a group/ organization/ institution will happily welcome you as a researcher (even if you work for it). Always talk to the partner early in the process and see if they are willing to allow you to do research there, and what they will require from you to do so. One additional comment about 15c, why you chose the partner- because it is convenient, is not a good rationale. For example, going into a school to assess children simply because you know that there will be many there and it is easy, is not appropriate. You may wish to contact the IRB, talk through your recruitment ideas, and see if they have suggestions. IRB@waldenu.edu 

Next time we will continue examining the IRB application, with q. 16. 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