The last week or so has consisted of writing up the IRB amendment and finalizing it. I just finished up the corrections and sent in the final draft to Dr. Birkett to send to the IRB. Hopefully it will be approved soon and I will be able to start the research after spring break.
The actual writing of the amendment was pretty different than I imagined. First off, I only had to write about two simple things. I first had to summarize the requested changes to the study and then I had to provide the rationale for the changes.
It was surprising that it only took a short paragraph for each part. Equally surprising was how the response didn't have to be very formal. The first part actually said, "Summarize all requested changes in lay language," which meant just a casual explanation without extensive scientific vocabulary was needed.
It didn't take very long to write up the amendment that explained how I was joining the study and how my short-term data collection would differ from the already established long-term data collection. The corrections made by Dr. Birkett were straightforward and didn't take very long to add in.
With some luck, the approval should be just as quick and I should be finally starting research after the break as I have finished the other preliminary steps. Optimistically speaking, the next time I post, it should be about how the data collection has started and what the early set of data suggests.
Monday, March 13, 2017
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Finishing Up Ethics Training
This week's blog post is coming in a little bit late because I wanted to finish up my ethics training before I posted. I'm excited to say that I've finally finished the exhaustive course and I can finally move on by writing up an IRB amendment and getting that approved. In addition, I will be soon getting some training with the PEBL program from Ashley, a graduate student that is involved in the study. The exercise program should be starting soon which is also exciting because I will soon be collected data and analyzing it which is a little bit more interesting than reading about the legal gibberish of financial conflicts of interest.
It is quite relieving to say that I'm finally done with all of the CITI courses and modules. Every time that I felt like I was making some progress, I would only be slowed down by the growing size of the modules and post-reading quizzes. It seemed like I would never finish.
I talked about it with Dr. Birkett after the lab meeting on Friday because I'm not able to submit the amendment to the IRB without being certified first. She suggested that I try skimming over the modules more and perhaps seeing if my previous knowledge was enough to pass the post-reading quizzes.
I tried these methods and they worked quite well. Skimming helped me read over the overwhelming modules quickly and still score high enough to pass the quizzes. Occasionally I would skip the reading and attempt to pass the quizzes using my previous knowledge and most of time it surprisingly worked!
The last general course topic covered social and behavioral research and for the most part, I was able to complete it quite quickly. It went into depth about the important aspects of research involving human subjects and how they need to be monitored. It talked about the importance of things such as confidentiality, informed consent, and assessing research risks. Much of these topics and ideas were familiar as I learned about very similar ideas in my AP Psychology class. This previous knowledge helped me practically ace the quizzes without having to read much of the accompanying modules. These modules had the longest reading passages of the entire training course so it was great to be able to avoid all that work by using my old psychology-class knowledge.
Over the next few days, I will start working on the IRB amendment and I am hoping to be able to get a rough draft completed quickly. With some luck, I won't need to make many corrections on it and it will be approved by the IRB without any complications. If all goes well, I will be starting on data collection soon!
It is quite relieving to say that I'm finally done with all of the CITI courses and modules. Every time that I felt like I was making some progress, I would only be slowed down by the growing size of the modules and post-reading quizzes. It seemed like I would never finish.
I talked about it with Dr. Birkett after the lab meeting on Friday because I'm not able to submit the amendment to the IRB without being certified first. She suggested that I try skimming over the modules more and perhaps seeing if my previous knowledge was enough to pass the post-reading quizzes.
I tried these methods and they worked quite well. Skimming helped me read over the overwhelming modules quickly and still score high enough to pass the quizzes. Occasionally I would skip the reading and attempt to pass the quizzes using my previous knowledge and most of time it surprisingly worked!
The last general course topic covered social and behavioral research and for the most part, I was able to complete it quite quickly. It went into depth about the important aspects of research involving human subjects and how they need to be monitored. It talked about the importance of things such as confidentiality, informed consent, and assessing research risks. Much of these topics and ideas were familiar as I learned about very similar ideas in my AP Psychology class. This previous knowledge helped me practically ace the quizzes without having to read much of the accompanying modules. These modules had the longest reading passages of the entire training course so it was great to be able to avoid all that work by using my old psychology-class knowledge.
Over the next few days, I will start working on the IRB amendment and I am hoping to be able to get a rough draft completed quickly. With some luck, I won't need to make many corrections on it and it will be approved by the IRB without any complications. If all goes well, I will be starting on data collection soon!
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