47-375
803 RESEARCH III: LABORATORY
FALL
2002
IRB
GUIDELINES
Material from the
University of Massachusetts Lowell Institutional Review Board may be found and
downloaded from the IRB website with links on the UML home page. Click
here.
Read the instructions
thoroughly. Determine the level of
review you will need. If you will be
asking identifying or confidential/ sensitive information or using any
individuals from “vulnerable” categories, you will need a full review. Most studies in our department require Expedited review.
Complete the Single
Project Approval form (Appendix A) and an
Informed Consent form.
Suggestions for specific items.
You should copy this text when direct quotation marks
appear below.
4. Be thoughtful about the research title you
provide. This will be the title on the
Informed Consent form that your participants complete. Hence, you do not want to say too much about
your hypothesis and risk bias. You do
want to say enough in the title to let people know for what they are
potentially volunteering.
8 a. Abstract. State rationale (why do the study) and
hypotheses. Describe methods and any
controls (e.g., counterbalancing).
Operationally describe what variables you will measure. This section may be appended, as more space
will probably be needed.
9 Example: “Thirty-five volunteer University of
Massachusetts students, primarily those enrolled in the General Psychology
course and all over the age of 18, will be recruited through standard sign-up
sheets in the Department of Psychology.”
11 a. Check any categories that might be
used. There should be none. These are categories of “vulnerable”
individuals. Checking any will require
full IRB review.
12. “Participants will be recruited through standard
procedures in the Department of Psychology.
A sign up sheet will be posted with the title of the experiment, the
student experimenter(s) and faculty supervisor’s names, and the time and place. Volunteers may sign up for experiments as
they wish.”
14 b. Talk through what your participants will do
as if you were explaining it to a potential participant. If you have a between subjects design, be
sure to specify, “Half the subjects will... and the other half will...” for
those parts of the procedure that are different for the two groups.
Be concise. You may append this information as well if
extra space is needed. This section is
so that people in other disciplines can understand your intentions without too
much psychological jargon getting in the way.
16. This refers to taping the participants, not
to using a videotaped stimulus (e.g., asking people to watch cartoons
for their reactions).
17 a. Be sure to describe any discomfort that
might be felt by some of your subjects, and include a statement about why that
difficulty is acceptable for this study (e.g., “Some students might feel
uncomfortable talking to other students that they do not know, however, this
level of discomfort should be no greater than what would be experienced in
general classroom discussion.”)
17 b. You will inform students what to expect in
advance and remind them that they are free to leave at any time during the
course of the study.
20. Those of you using emotionally evocative
methods should include the emotion debriefing
form.
21 a.
State what information you are gaining from your results. This is the part that helps the IRB
determine whether studies are sufficiently worthwhile.
21 b.
Assuming that there are no financial incentives for participants, you
might write something like the following:
“There are no immediate benefits to subjects involved in this study
other than the possibility of earning credit for courses (e.g., General
Psychology) in which they might be enrolled,” for students at UML or “Individuals
will each receive $10 for his or her participation in this interview,” for
situations in which there might be grant money available to compensate
participants.
Note that, for this
class, there will be no additional tangible benefits.
21 c. Subjects who are similar: No benefits accrue to subjects who are
similar but not involved in this study.
Informed Consent (Sample and
downloadable MS word template)
Read it after you have
written it. Would your grandmother
understand what it is saying (do you, for that matter)? Do your participants know what kinds of
procedures you will be using? If you
are administering questionnaires, how many and for what purpose.
For students at UML as
participants, change “employer, school, etc.” to “will not effect your relationships
with the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the Psychology Department, the
faculty, or students.” In other words,
make the language appropriate to the situation rather then generic.
No need for legal
guardian or agency signature lines; you
are not testing any minors or going through outside agencies.
Make sure to read and
re-read everything you write before handing it in!
DMA 10/28/02