disertation

Thank you for your submission to the IRB.  Please note the requests below for clarification and/or revision for your current proposal.  Please reach out with any questions.  We look forward to reviewing your revised documents.  Your supervising faculty will need to review and resign the documents before resubmission.  Thank you.

 

** Note recommendation that terms “Christian university” not be included in any public publications as it may increase the likelihood of violating participants confidentiality due to limited programs with this degree 

Proposal

You will need to add Center for Internet Security (2018), as a reference to your references section. After any changes are made for below review, please update those changes in your Proposal.

IRB application 

Clarify if junior employees and students all members of this regularly scheduled “class” you are conducting research in.  

 

If you are meeting with employees at separate times than students, you need to describe those steps in your IRB application and have one consent for employees tailored to their participation and one consent to students describing their participation.   

 

Consent  

 

Concern with the consent document is the statement, "The institution may dismiss employees for disclosing knowledge regarding system breaches that have not been made public. Third, institutions that feel compelled to hide such knowledge may issue threats." -----This is a significant potential consequence and is not consistent with the "no danger of mental distress" stated in the following sentence or the "no bearing on your existing or future relationships with your employer" statement later in the document.  This risk needs to be thoroughly discussed with the potential participants.  Clarify the level of potential emotional and mental health distress the participants may experience.   

 

Provide contact number if in need of services for emotional or mental health such as university wellness center or national mental health crisis line. 

 

Details need to be provided on how the recordings and transcripts will be stored (locked?).  

 

Based on your application it appears this research will be conducted within a regularly schedule class session. Therefore----Note within consent how it will be handled if a student refuses participation in the study or chooses to stop participation later in the regularly scheduled class time. ---- Explain to the student -----Will the student continue as part of the group class assignment?  and how will their contribution be left out of the final data collection if they are part of the regularly scheduled class? Or will the student be offered an alternative assignment if student not willing to attend that “regular” class session or logs out of the “regular” class session at any point?   

 

If the student is willing to participate but refuses to be recorded, describe how that will be handled since it is currently on zoom.   

 

The other option is to hold this research study at a separate time frame than regularly scheduled class time so participants are truly consenting to participate or not.      

 

Be transparent in the consent and inform the class if the researcher is a member of the class and/or fellow employee as that can potentially bias the results and interaction of participants.     

 

In procedures, explain the individual interview process and then participation in the group class time.  Participants need to be informed of both time commitments if they choose to participate.   

 

Proofread the video recording section so it aligns with your study.  There is no “the camera will be placed in the classroom at an angle…………”  Based on the level of risk you have noted---it does not appear appropriate for the video recordings to be shared with anyone other than the primary researcher and supervising faculty.  Sharing them in a professional setting may increase the likelihood of a participant being identified and fired from their job.   

 

 

Proofread the audio recording section of your study.  Based on the level of risk you have noted---it does not appear appropriate for the audio recordings to be shared with anyone other than the primary researcher and supervising faculty.  Sharing them in a professional setting may increase the likelihood of a participant being identified and fired from their job.   

 

Recommendation for All recordings to be destroyed after transcripts are developed.  Inform participants of these steps in the informed consent.      

 

Risk Assessment form 

 

The study appears to align with a moderate level of risk.  Please include the following on and update your risk assessment form and resign.   

 

The following should be additionally checked under moderate risk level criteria: 

A. "The subject is asked to reveal personal information regarding individual opinions, background, behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs."  ------Beliefs of the participants was listed under the qualitative method. 

B. "Subjects will be selected to participate based on an extraordinary life experience." -----This would be related to those convicted of a crime under the participants list. 

C. "The subject may have regrets, concerns, afterthoughts, or reactions to the research method after data collection is completed." ------This would be related to the potential consequence of job loss. 

 

The following should be additionally checked under the high-risk level criteria: 

A. "The research itself or the information obtained from the subjects may have immediate and/or long term political, legal, economic, and/or social consequences for the subjects."  This would be related to the possibility of job loss, which would be an economic consequence. 

Dr. Dana suggestion

Please complete the revisions requested by IRB. My suggestion for the issue of conducting the focus group during regular class sessions is to change it to be a voluntary focus group, recruited through university email. For that option, it would be wise to include a copy of the recruitment email that you would send out to faculty and students as an appendix in your proposal. You would also be the one to create and send the secure Zoom link. Be sure to include a plan for confidentiality and remove all information that would breach confidentiality (as noted by the IRB committee). 

We can discuss some of these decisions during office hours, but you must make all revisions on your own and re-submit no later than the June 27th deadline. Let me know if you have any other questions.