Professor National Intelligence University Earlysville, VA, Virginia, United States
Background: Students at our University complete a Capstone project (undergraduate level) or thesis (graduate level). Over the past two years, the IRB identified important weaknesses in proposals involving human subjects research (HSR); this has led to a proactive educational effort to help students and faculty with some nuanced issues.
Program
Description: The university degree programs consist of an introductory Capstone/thesis development course followed by work with a Capstone/thesis chair to develop a proposal, with supporting documentation, for approval through the Assistant Dean and the IRB. In many cases, the student will prepare an inadequate HSR proposal—with key issues unidentified by either the Capstone/thesis chair or the Assistant Dean—before submission to the IRB for review. In turn, this causes the IRB to return the proposal to the student/chair for corrective actions and results in lost research time for the student.
Program
Assessment: In July/August 2022 our university IRB identified two important points in the Capstone/thesis development process that could contribute to the submission of weak proposals. First, there was a need for greater education of students and faculty during the thesis development process. Second, there was a need for a “Data Collection Strategy” checklist that identifies key issues for the student and faculty advisor to consider when preparing to use commonly used data collection methods. In turn, the university adopted several corrective actions, including IRB “Practice Notes” that we published by the IRB during the fall term (when most students were taking the thesis development course), through a new “Data Collection” checklist that asked the student/faculty member to answer key questions for each type of HSR, and tightened requirements for proposal submission. In overall terms, the IRB has seen an improvement in the quality of HSR submissions.
Limitations: One area of future inquiry could involve the adequacy of instruction in the thesis development course with respect to the depth/adequacy of a literature review. A good quality literature review is typically key to the development of a data collection plan that is appropriately (ethically) focused. A second area of future inquiry could involve the timing of submissions for approval; in other words, do students (especially full-time students) have sufficient time to prepare a proposal?
Discussion: The university has developed an educational effort tailored to the needs of its students and faculty. Our checklist and practice notes could be helpful to other institutions.
