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 who 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.
Questionable data. When you are collecting in-person
data, you may have someone act strangely, making you suspect drugs or alcohol
use. Another scenario is that someone hands in a “completed” survey in a few
minutes, as compared to the 20 minutes others took.
What to do? First, make sure you are safe in
the case of strange behavior (I once had a participant break the chair in which
he was sitting from rocking and bouncing the chair due to amphetamine use). If
there are any concerns, thank them for coming and get them out the door
quietly. Second, mark their data forms, with the behavior that concerns you.
Later when you analyze data, check whether their data deviates from the norm.
Discuss the issue with your methodologist and make a joint decision about
whether to include the data in the analyses.
Participant Withdrawal. Occasionally you may have
participants indicate that they want to stop and do not want to continue in
your study. This is most common with special populations, such as the elderly
and ill.
What to do? First, I suggest asking if a break
might help (and if you can recognize the need for one early, all the better).
Second, as frustrating as it may be, you should just thank them for coming and
let them go.
Incomplete data. Thus far I have been addressing
in-person research concerns, but one that is very common with online data
collection is participants skipping questions. Some standardized surveys are
invalid if questions are skipped.
What to do? In person, you can do a quick
check to see if any data is missing. Online is trickier. Most survey programs
(like survey monkey) allow the option for requiring answers to the questions.
There are some positives and negatives to consider with this. The positive is
that your data will be complete, with no missing responses. The negative is
some people will quit the survey if they can’t skip responses.
Inappropriate disclosure. In interviews, you may have
someone tell you things that are inappropriate, such scenarios include child or
abuse, and disclosing medical or education information.
What to do? As soon as you realize where they
are going, stop them. Say that this is information you should not be told and
move on with the study. The exception is if you are a mandated reporter (check
the laws in your state, some states say that everyone is a mandated reporter
for child or elder abuse), in this case you are ethically required to report
the incident to the appropriate authorities. I suggest first consulting with
your committee and the IRB. Your status as a mandated reporter must be
disclosed in the consent form. Such disclosures are unusual, but you need to be
prepared in case they do happen.
Whenever
you run into something unexpected, know that you can contact your methodologist
and/ or the IRB for help. Next time, we will welcome winter quarter. 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! Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@mail.waldenu.edu
No comments:
Post a Comment