IRB Application: q. 1-11

 

The IRB application is available on the IRB website. It is a scary document for many students, with questions that may not seem clear. We are going to spend some time examining each of the questions and see if we can clear it up some for you. All studies require an application, which is submitted after the proposal defense. You may not collect any data until you have IRB approval. Let's work our way through q. 1-11 today.

q. 1 is your name

q. 2 is your student ID

q. 3 – you must submit a certificate showing you have completed Human Research Protection training. This question on the application provides some web sites. I suggest that you do the NIH training. Check the box when you have completed it and save the certificate.

q. 4 is your email address

q. 5 list your committee chair

q. 6 list your chair's email address

q. 7 is your program affiliation (be specific, e.g., health psych, social psych)

q. 8 is the title of your dissertation

q. 9 is the type of study you are doing

q. 10 indicate the type of research method(s) you will be using 

q. 11 is the first tough question- you need to list your research questions, what instruments you will use, what data will be collected, who provides the data, and your data analysis. The IRB will be looking for an alignment for these. It may be easiest to understand with some examples. Here are some from a mixed methods study on students' views of the dissertation process. 

Research Question List each research question (RQ) in a separate row below.	Data Collection Tools List which instrument(s) are used to collect the data that will address each RQ.	Datapoints Yielded List which specific questions/variables/scales of the instrument will address each RQ.	Data Source List which persons/artifacts/records will provide the data.	Data Analysis Briefly describe the specific statistical or qualitative analyses that will address each RQ.
RQ 1: (quant) Do students feel academically prepared for dissertation?	q. 17-21	How prepared academically were you for (Content, research method, understanding the dissertation process)	Psychology dissertation students	Correlation /regression with other variables
RQ 2: (quant) How satisfied are students with the current dissertation process?	q. 22-27	Rate your dissertation experience with (each step) How satisfied are you with your dissertation progress?	Psychology dissertation students	Correlation /regression with other variables
RQ3: (qual) What expectations did students have about the dissertation before they enrolled in the dissertation class?	Student interview questions	Questions 1-4	Psychology dissertation students	Coded, themes assessed
RQ4: (qual) What were the expectations of students for the dissertation classroom?	Student interview questions	Questions 5-7	Psychology dissertation students	Coded, themes assessed

 Next time we will continue examining the IRB application, with q. 12. 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

Chapter 3: Ethical Procedures

For the ethical procedures section, you will begin with stating what agreements you have received to get access to your participants or your data. Some examples might be if you are interviewing people through an agency, you will need an agreement with the agency (See the IRB site for samples of such agreements). Include a copy of the agreement in your appendix. 

Next indicate your approval number and date from the Walden IRB, if you need to get approvals from other IRBS, list them here. Discuss any ethical concerns about recruitment materials and a plan to address them. Some examples might include how you will recruit (such as with a flyer), your consent form, and if you are using children and assent form for them. Then you will need to discuss any ethical concerns related to your data collection, such as people refusing participation, stopping midway, and having any possible adverse reactions to the study. Some things to remember that will help with this section, participants have the right to stop whenever they want. You do however, have to decide what you will do with their data- will you include it or exclude it? Anytime your participants might have issues arise from your study questions you need to find a way to help them. You are not allowed to counsel them, but you could provide phone numbers/ info on low cost counseling or hotlines. 

If there is any possibility of participants revealing any personal medical, educational information or illegal activity (e.g., child or elderly abuse, drug use), you must have a plan as to how you will handle it.  

Next, you need to describe how you will protect your data. State if the data is considered confidential (you know who provided it) or anonymous (you do not know who provided it). If data are confidential, and it is possible to determine who provided it, extra protections are required (an example is if there are 2 women who work at a given agency with 30 men, you will want to disguise the women so it isn’t possible for the reader to identify them). You will want to maintain the data on password protected flash drives and limit access to it. State that you will destroy all data after 7 years (what APA suggests).

 

Finally, describe any special ethical considerations for your study, such as doing a study at your workplace, conflict of interest issues, and if you are using incentives, such as gift cards. Incentives are not recommended in general. See the IRB web site on these issues; they have additional information listed there. 

We have now finished reviewing the three chapters that make up the proposal. Next time we will begin examining the IRB application. 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 

Chapter 3: Ethical Procedures

For the ethical procedures section, you will begin with stating what agreements you have received to get access to your participants or your data. Some examples might be if you are interviewing people through an agency, you will need an agreement with the agency (See the IRB site for samples of such agreements). Include a copy of the agreement in your appendix. 

Next indicate your approval number and date from the Walden IRB, if you need to get approvals from other IRBs, list them here. Discuss any ethical concerns about recruitment materials and a plan to address them. Some examples might include how you will recruit (such as with a flyer), your consent form, and if you are using children an assent form for them. Then you will need to discuss any ethical concerns related to your data collection, such as people refusing participation, stopping midway, and having any possible adverse reactions to the study. Some things to remember that will help with this section, participants have the right to stop whenever they want. You do however, have to decide what you will do with their data- will you include it or exclude it? Anytime your participants might have issues arise from your study questions you need to find a way to help them. You are not allowed to counsel them, but you could provide phone numbers/ info on low cost counseling or hotlines. 

If there is any possibility of participants revealing any personal medical, educational information or illegal activity (e.g., child or elderly abuse, drug use), you must have a plan as to how you will handle it.  

Next, you need to describe how you will protect your data. State if the data is considered confidential (you know who provided it) or anonymous (you do not know who provided it). If data are confidential, and it is possible to determine who provided it, extra protections are required. You will want to maintain the data on password protected flash drives and limit access to it. State that you will destroy all data after 7 years (what APA suggests). 

Finally, describe any special ethical considerations for your study, such as doing a study at your workplace, conflict of interest issues, and if you are using incentives, such as gift cards. Incentives are not recommended in general. See the IRB web site on these issues; they have additional information listed there. 

We have now finished reviewing the three chapters that make up the proposal. Next time we will begin examining the IRB application. 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

 

Chapter 3: Issues of Trustworthiness in qualitative and mixed method studies

Rather than issues of validity that we saw in quantitative studies, qualitative (and mixed methods) have trustworthiness issues. The first issue is credibility, which is comparable to internal validity. This is getting at the credibility of your data, common methods used are triangulation, prolonged contact, member checks, and saturation. You want to show that your data are as accurate as possible. 

The second issue is transferability, which is comparable to external validity. This is getting at the generabilizability of your data to other groups. Common methods used are thick description and a variation in participant selection. 

The third issue is dependability, comparable to reliability. You want to show the accuracy of your data methods, common methods are audit trails and triangulation. Triangulation is accomplished by asking the same research questions of different study participants, by collecting data from different sources, and by using different methods to answer those research questions. Member checks occur when the researcher asks participants to review both the data collected by the interviewer and the researchers' interpretation of that interview data. Participants are generally appreciative of the member check process, and knowing that they will have a chance to verify their statements tends to cause study participants to fill in any gaps from earlier interviews.  

The fourth issue is confirmability, comparable to objectivity. This is the degree to which the findings are the product of the focus of the study and not of the biases of the researcher One way to do this is through an audit trail. An adequate trail (or records) should be left to enable the auditor to determine if the conclusions, interpretations, and recommendations can be traced to their sources and if they are supported by the inquiry. 

If you are using another coder(s), you must show how you will demonstrate intercoder reliability. Interrater or intercoder reliability is used to reduce bias by having multiple people code the data. How you go about this and how you resolve any discrepancies needs to be detailed. 

Next time we will continue our review - Chapter 3: Ethical Procedures. 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

Chapter 3: Threats to Validity- construct and statistical validity

The final section under Threats to Validity for quantitative and mixed method studies asks you to describe any threats to construct or statistical conclusion validity. Let's start with a definition of a construct. A construct is an attribute, proficiency, ability, or skill that happens in the human brain and is defined by established theories. For example, "resilience" is a construct. It exists in theory and has been observed to exist in practice.  

Construct validity has traditionally been defined as the experimental demonstration that a test is measuring the construct it claims to be measuring. Such an experiment could take the form of a differential-groups study, wherein the performances on the test are compared for two groups: one that has the construct and one that does not have the construct. If the group with the construct performs better than the group without the construct, that result is said to provide evidence of the construct validity of the test. An alternative strategy is called an intervention study, wherein a group that is weak in the construct is measured using the test, then taught the construct, and measured again. If a non-trivial difference is found between the pretest and posttest, that difference can be said to support the construct validity of the test.  

There are a large number of threats to construct validity- too many to discuss here, but I do suggest that you take a look at http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/consthre.php when you are ready to write this section. The author does a very nice job laying out the many types of possible threats. 

The last issue is statistical conclusion validity. Statistical conclusion validity is the degree to which our conclusions about the relationship between your variables based on the data are correct or ‘reasonable’. This is getting at the two types of statistical errors that can occur: type I (finding a difference or correlation when none exists) and type II (finding no difference when one exists). Statistical conclusion validity concerns the qualities of the study that make these types of errors more likely. Statistical conclusion validity involves ensuring the use of adequate sampling procedures, appropriate statistical tests, and reliable measurement procedures. If you would like a more in depth discussion of this topic, please see http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/concthre.php 

Next time we will continue our review - Chapter 3: Issues of Trustworthiness in qualitative and mixed method studies. 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

Welcome to 2014

The New Year is a time for reflection and to consider what you have done in the last year and where you going in the new one. Take a few moments to think about what you accomplished on your dissertation in 2013- go back and look at your files and actually examine the evidence. Then let's set some realistic goals for the new year.  

What are realistic writing goals? Writing a couple of pages a week is probably realistic, but plan to work at least a little while on it every day. Why do I say that? Because it so easy to get out of the habit of thinking about it and working on it… before you know it a week or two have gone by and you have done nothing. Then the tendency is for students to sit down and try to write 10 pages in two days, which are a mess, and have to rewritten. 

This type of writing takes planning, reflection, and a lot of effort. Be kind to yourself, work a little on it every day. Rearrange your day so the time is built in, get up an hour early or stay up an hour later. You can do this. Make it a priority for 2014! 

Next time we will continue our review - Chapter 3: Threats to Validity- construct and statistical validity 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

 

Blog Index- December

Current to 12/30 

Topic	Dates of Posts
Dissertation, general	7/5, 8/16, 8/19, 9/27, 10/2
Selecting a Topic	4/23, 7/8, 7/10
Organization	4/22, 10/2
Committee Members	4/17, 5/3, 6/10, 7/19, 8/21
URR	5/8, 5/27
Center for Research Quality	12/9
Overview of Process	4/19, 9/18, 12/13
Premise	4/17, 9/6
Proposal	4/22, 9/9
Research questions	10/9
C. 1	5/6, 10/21, 10/23, 10/25, 10/28, 11/1
C. 2 (literature related)	4/26, 5/29, 6/3, 6/12, 6/17, 6/28, 9/16, 10/11, 11/4, 11/6, 11/9, 11/15
C. 3	5/1, 10/16, 10/28, 11/18, 11/20, 11/22, 11/25, 12/2, 12/4, 12/6, 12/11, 12/16, 12/18, 12/20, 12/23, 12/27
Defense	4/23, 5/8
IRB	5/10, 10/14
Data Collection	5/13, 5/15, 10/16
Quantitative	5/17, 7/24, 7/26, 7/29, 7/31, 8/2, 8/5, 10/4, 10/7, 11/20, 12/2, 12/4, 12/6, 12/18, 12/23, 12/27
Qualitative	5/20, 11/20, 11/22, 11/25, 12/11, 12/16
Mixed Methods	5/22, 11/18, 11/20, 11/22, 11/25, 12/11, 12/20, 12/23, 12/27
C. 4	517, 5/20, 5/22, 7/17
C. 5	5/24, 9/20, 10/11
Final Defense	4/23, 5/27/ 9/11
Career	7/12
Goal Form	8/12
Motivation	6/5, 6/26, 7/1, 8/16, 8/23, 9/2, 9/18, 10/18, 11/8, 11/27
Secondary Data	5/31
Support, Getting	4/26, 6/5, 6/24, 8/16
Writing	4/26, 4/29, 6/12, 6/21, 7/3, 8/9, 8/14, 9/4, 9/23,9/25
Other	4/18, 6/7, 6/14, 6/19, 6/24, 6/26, 7/1, 7/8, 7/15, 7/19, 7/22, 8/7, 8/16, 8/19, 8/26, 8/28, 8/30, 9/2, 9/13, 9/18, 10/18, 11/27, 12/13, 12/25

 

Next time I will take a look at the new year. 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