Material from the University of Massachusetts Lowell Institutional Review Board may be found and downloaded from the IRB home page with links on the UML home page.  The IRB manual may be downloaded as a PDF or MS-Word file.  

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.

3. 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. Remember this is a proposal for a study so do not use the abstract that the thesis authors have written after their research is finished.

9 a. Example: "Thirty-five volunteer University of Massachusetts students, primarily those enrolled in the General Psychology course, will be recruited through standard sign-up sheets in the Department of Psychology."

9 b. Check any categories that might be used. These are categories of "vulnerable" individuals. Checking any will require full IRB review.

11 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.

13. This refers to taping the participants, not to using a videotaped stimulus (e.g., asking people to watch cartoons for their reactions).

14 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.")

14 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.

17 a. State what information you are gaining from your results. This is the part that helps the IRB determine whether studies are sufficiently worthwhile.

17 c. Subjects who are similar: No benefits accrue to subjects who are similar but not involved in this study.

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, if you are not testing any minors or going through outside agencies.

Updated 1/29/03