Things happen in the
real world when you are conducting a study, as the researcher it is your
responsibility to both recognize the issue and resolve it. I am going to talk
today about some of the most common issues that may arise.
Confidentiality
breach. Imagine that you are doing a program evaluation. You will survey
participants before the program begins and again after the program. In order to
match each person’s pre and post program survey, you will have them write their
names on each form. Somehow during the data collection a few surveys get left
behind. This is a breach of confidentiality. Someone else could see the
responses and know who wrote them. In a program setting, that may not seem a
serious offense, but consider if it was one’s supervisor that saw a derogatory
comment about him or herself.
What to do? First, as
soon as the loss is realized, get the surveys back in your possession. Second,
report the breach to your committee and the IRB. They may want you to notify
the individuals involved, but let them make that decision. You also may want to
consider not using names in studies, instead ask people to pick a number or
phrase that they will enter on the pre survey and remember for the post survey.
Next time, we will give thanks. Do you have an issue or a
question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email
with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
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