This TC IRB blog series, Student Researcher Highlights, includes a sequence of recorded presentations hosted by Zahra Ladhani, Research Writing & Ethics Interns in collaboration with TC NEXT. This blog series offers insights into students' research background, their research goals, their future career paths, and how they navigated the IRB protocol submission process.
Each blog post in the series will highlight a student researcher using excerpts from recorded presentations conducted during the Fall 2021 presentation series. Each student presenter engaged in an approximately 45-minute conversation with student attendees. This blog series offers themes, suggestions, and pathways as presented by students during the presentations. This blog mini-series is intended to provide some inspiration and insight into how an individual student's experience with research and the IRB unfolded at TC.
Rethinking Fraction Arithmetic Practice
Colleen Oppenzato, Doctoral Student in the Human Development Department
Colleen’s primary research builds on the work of Braithwaite, Pyke, and Siegler (2017). They found biases in the distributions of fraction arithmetic problems in textbooks, with some types of problems receiving a lot of practice and others receiving very little. When Braithwaite et al. (2017) presented textbook problems to a computational model, the errors generated by the model were similar to those made by middle school students.
In Colleen’s work, she investigates whether re-balancing practice problems and providing more practice with the types of problems rarely encountered in textbooks will improve student accuracy. Her study designs typically include an intervention in which students receive different types of math problem sets and she analyzes differences among these groups. She situated her studies in typical classroom settings, where students may not be asked to do more than what they would do on a regular basis.
With a background in math education, curriculum development, and teaching students with learning disabilities, her studies harness these experiences. In her work, she often asks, “does the number of times students practice math problems in textbooks impact their learning,” or “does exposure to certain math problems impact procedural understanding of math problem solving?
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) Process
Colleen recommends students begin the IRB process at an early stage in their research. The IRB protocol process can be extensive. To set yourself up for success, Colleen recommends investing the needed time to think through your study design step-by-step and seeking feedback from others throughout the process.
The first step to any research project is deciding on your research questions and building the study design to answer those research questions. She emphasized the importance of talking with your faculty sponsor, colleagues, and others about the feasibility of a proposed study design. She stated that for her work, she focused on two types of IRB protocol submissions (1) research with adults and (2) research with children. She said in most cases, working with adults is easier as they are competent to consent and those protocols tend to fall under the IRB’s exempt review category. Working with children, on the other hand, can present more complex challenges than working with adults. Specifically, children are vulnerable populations and even though her work focuses on typical educational practices (e.g., math problem solving) there are still a number of steps she must complete to access her population of interest (e.g., site recruitment, teacher consent, parent permission, and youth assent). For researchers who are Conducting Research in K-12 Education Settings, it is important on the IRB application to distinguish between what is “typical classroom practice,” (e.g., reading a textbook) that may happen regardless of the research study, and what is researcher-led, whereby a researcher asks the student to do something that is atypical in a school setting (e.g., interacting with a service dog prior to taking a test).
Utilize Resources Prior to Submitting an IRB Protocol
Colleen recommends meeting with IRB administrators and attending open office hours. To make your time most valuable when meeting with an IRB administrator, researchers should review the TC IRB website in advance, and explore the plethora of resources available including templates, guides, and samples. When you come prepared for this type of meeting and have a sense of what the IRB’s role in research is, you will get the most out of that time spent. For researchers who cannot attend office hours, they can reach out to the IRB office at IRB@tc.edu. When contacting the IRB office about an already approved protocol include the Mentor IRB assigned IRB protocol number with your inquiry (e.g., 22-123).
The IRB Process is Iterative: Engaging with Requests, Revisions, and Modifications
Engaging with the IRB is an exchange of information. In some cases, your study cannot proceed until certain participant protections are established. Reviewing requests for revisions from the IRB is common.
Colleen explained that a researcher does not have to simply implement every requested revision, but can engage in dialogue with the reviewer. If the researcher has no objection to a requested revision or if they agree that it will better protect participants, they can simply make the requested change. However, if a researcher believes that a particular revision may not work for the proposed study, they can respond by clarifying why that request may not work, or may suggest an alternative path that is better suited for the study context. IRB administrators may still say “no,” but the researcher can provide reasoning for why one approach might be better for their population over another. Providing insights to IRB administrators can help them better assess participant risk. Researchers should remain flexible in their request for revision processes with the IRB: it is okay to ask questions, seek clarification and guidance from IRB administrators, and if applicable, suggest alternatives if they still meet ethical standards but are better for your study implementation.
Even if you get the best advice from multiple sources, the IRB process, study implementation, data collection, and analysis is not easy. There will be revisions and reassessments that may require you to submit a modification to an already approved protocol.
Once Approved: IRB Protocol Implementation
Additionally, after your study is approved, you will need to allot time to recruit the study site, meet with your population of interest, present the consent (parent permission and/or minor assent form), and collect the required forms before beginning the study. If you are conducting a multi-part study, you will need to schedule site visits which may be spread out over several days, weeks, or months. Once you have the data, you will need the time to clean it (e.g., remove incomplete surveys), de-identify the data, store, manage, and secure the data. Then, you will need the time to run the analysis and interpret your findings (which could take several iterations).
Colleen recommended that student researchers take “Research Design,” courses and become familiar with basic ethical principles of human subjects research: (1) respect for persons, (2) beneficence, and (3) justice. It is imperative for researchers to be ethical and diligent in their study practices.
Reflections & Resources
Colleen provided several recommendations for students:
- Get involved in research practices early (as a research assistant or during practicum courses).
- Complete the “Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI)” training early.
- Start the IRB preparation and process early.
- Explore the different types of research and how to get IRB approval for them.
Peer-to-peer support builds investment in research projects and overall graduate student life. Learning from the peers around you can help you refine your academic goals and projects. For more information about Colleen’s reflections and the IRB process, visit these links: Review Categories, Conducting Research in K-12 Education Settings, The Assent Process with Minors, and Obtaining Parent Permission.