No rest for the weary October 18, 2008

My whirlwind research recruitment week is officially over. In the end, I talked to 14 classes and provided info to another 4 or 5 online sections. Next week I’ll talk to three more classes, one of which has around 120 students in it. The e-mails are slowly starting to trickle in, which is encouraging. I even have a few of my students taking the survey, which is remarkable considering they’re doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts and not for extra credit. I’m guessing that at this pace, I’ll get my required number of participants, but of course I’m going to be a nervous wreck until I see at least 300 completed responses on the site. This weekend will be spent cleaning up the surveys and getting ready to e-mail all of the people who have already e-mailed me. I will likely stay up really late Sunday night so that when the clock strikes 12 AM, I can send out all my e-mails and then sleep knowing that it’s all taken care of. It would be absolute torture for me to try to sleep knowing I could be up sending e-mails.

There was also a bit of drama this week when my adviser send IRB an e-mail asking them about extending a waiver to 18 year old participants. Apparently, they have to review our protocol again in order to approve it. Why, you ask? Aren’t 18 year olds adults? Well, in the great state of Alabama, the age of consent is 19. That means you need to be 19 to get a credit card, a lease, enter into a contract, or for my purposes, consent to research. An 18 year old may “agree” to participate in research, but it’s not legally defined as “consent.” Whatever. There are different procedures I have to go through in order to include 18 year olds in my research, and since I need every participant I can get, I’m doing it. Do remember, though, that you can get married here at the ripe old age of 14 (so long as you have parental permission). Hence my annoyance and frustration.

I also had to pay another visit to my doctor this week to address the Ongoing Health Weirdness (henceforth referred to as OHW). I was given an injection and then some drugs to offset some of the more severe side effects of this injection. I’ll be in a sucky situation for the next couple of weeks because my pain won’t get any better (it may, I read, actually get worse), but in the meantime I’m experiencing an array of unpleasant side effects, the least of which are headaches, stomach upset, and utter exhaustion. This really could not have come at a worse time. That’s life, I suppose. The things you least want to happen occur when you least want them to.

Can’t get no respect October 1, 2008

Predictably, IRB gave me a big, fat “NO” on the idea to have a raffle to recruit participants for my study. Never mind that practically every other IRB in the country allows researchers to use this technique. Never mind that the University frequently uses raffles as incentives. It would be impossible for me to offer something of value to every participant, because 1) I have no money and 2) no one seems to offer funding for things like this. You can use grants and research awards for things like postage, research equipment, and the like, but participant incentives are apparently a big no-no. So, I’m having to rely on the altruism of a bunch of undergrads, which, in my observation, will be akin to relying on a campus bus to arrive on time.

To add insult to injury, I had to (for the 4th year in a row) take a 10-item quiz about research protocol and protection of human subjects. It’s the same damn quiz every year, and it’s hardly difficult, but it’s mandatory. By taking and passing this quiz, one basically allows IRB to absolve themselves of any and all responsibility should something go horribly wrong in your experiments. “Well, we trained them and they passed the test, so how were we supposed to know that they thought it was morally acceptable to stick people with cattle prods? Not our problem!” It’s a complete joke, really. I say take it once and it’s good for your entire career at the university, but that would make too much sense.

Yes, I’m bitter about this. If I had the luxury of collecting data six months from now, you bet your ass I’d fight them on it. Right now, I don’t have the time or the drive to do so, because it could ultimately end up really screwing me. I just have to nod and smile and buy in to their bullshit. Small wonder no one really respects IRB anymore.

Everybody’s working for the weekend September 27, 2008

Alabama Muscadine grapes. Yum!!!

This weekend, like all others, will be spent working. Last night, while watching the debate with friends, I finished creating all 8 of my surveys (yes, eight) to post them online. Why 8, you ask? Well, part of my sample will be students taking a class in my department, and every year, they take one of the scales that is a part of my research. But most of the people whom I hope to recruit as participants have not taken this scale before, or at least I don’t have access to their scores if they have. To complicate things, I’ve set up four experimental conditions to test the influence of one of my variables on the other variables in the study, so I need to create four separate surveys that contain the scale in question, and then four that do not.

I’m also working on recruiting participants. Until I hear back from IRB, I won’t know what sorts of procedures I can use or what types of incentives I can offer, if any. My hope is that they’ll let me use a raffle to help lure in victims…er, participants, but with the wacky gambling laws in my state, there’s no telling if this will fly. I’d rather not have to offer each participant some token amount of money, since that’s cash coming out of the pocket of yours truly. That would kind of suck, but it would suck even more to not have adequate participation in my dissertation data collection. So far I’m thinking that I’ll have at least 250 participants, which isn’t bad, but I’m hoping for a group of about 400-500.

I’ve got half a page written on my prospectus. It’s not much, but it’s a start. If I write between 1-2 pages per day, I’ll be finished in less than two weeks’ time. Then I can spend my fall break preparing for my defense and painting the den.

Great news! March 6, 2008

Yours truly is approved for launch by IRB.

Can I get a hell yeah?

To hell with leafy greens… March 3, 2008

From now on, I’m getting all of my calcium and antioxidants from Swiss Miss. From the box:

BENEFITS OF SWISS MISS HOT COCOA

• Calcium to maintain strong bones
• Natural source of antioxidants
• 99.9% caffeine free

Trufax, y’all!!!

I submitted a whole new “clean” copy of my study documents to IRB today. Hopefully there will be news in the next week or so. As long as I can collect data this semester, I’ll be a happy camper.

I’m not even going to bother with a welcome post. February 19, 2008

The IRB (Institutional Review Board…a group of people who nitpick your proposed research studies that involve people to make sure you aren’t exploiting or causing harm to mind or body) hates me. That’s the only explanation I have for why it’s been THREE months since I submitted my proposal and I have yet to gain approval so that I can crank this mutha’ up. Am I poking hapless undergrads with cattle prods? Am I verbally abusing them, drawing blood? No, no, and no. I’m administering an online questionnaire that will take maybe 20 minutes of their time asking them questions about social beliefs.

Their explanation? My research subjects are students who are taking an undergrad class on educational psychology and research, and they have to participate in a few studies in order to get their research credits for the class. IRB has an issue with a statement I make in the consent document that basically states that if our reliability checks determine that they didn’t attend to the questions, that they won’t get class credit for participating in the study. They say it amounts to coercion. Right.

I understand the purpose of the IRB, and I respect their mission in principle, but for the sake of all things holy, why in the hell is it taking them this long to approve me? At this point, I won’t be able to collect data this year, putting me even further behind, considering I’d intended to submit something to APA (American Psychological Association), AERA (American Educational Research Association), AME (Association for Moral Education) and maybe APS (American Psychological Society) for next academic year. If they don’t get their asses in gear, I don’t see any of that happening, and I could possibly graduate with no publications or respectable conference presentations.