Approved!

The amendment has finally been approved! It took longer than we expected so we had to cancel the first two days of data collection but I finally got the opportunity to collect data for the first time on Thursday. 

The process was surprisingly easier and more streamlined than expected. It takes about no more than a minute to turn on the computer and set up the reverse digit span task. All it takes is adding the task to the launch chain and typing in ACPr with the participants number. ACPr stands for acute pre because we are looking at the acute effects of exercise. For the post task we would type in ACPo to distinguish the pre and post data sets. Before I gave them the task to do, we told the participants about the change in the consent forms and had them sign the new edits. Then we had them complete the reverse digit span task. They seemed to do very well and that is most likely due to them having taken the task many times last semester. 

Once they were done, they went upstairs for the exercise session. The exercise session actually ended up being 40 minutes instead of 60 like we previously thought. Once they were done, they came back and took the task one more time. 

While I can't say anything conclusively, the participants seemed to finish the task somewhat quicker than before which ties into previous findings of other studies. The other similar studies that I have recently read about all found that the reaction time to other working memory tasks (such as the Stenberg working memory task) decreased significantly. One of the studies found a slight significant decrease in accuracy of the tasks. It will be important to keep these findings in mind while analyzing the data at the end of the data collection because I originally planned on just looking at accuracy; however, there could be considerable improvements in speed and not just accuracy. 

Our data collection was cancelled on Sunday so I only have this Tuesday and Thursday to collect data before I will have it all and be ready to analyze. I look forward to continuing my work on my final presentation which I recently started and being ready to adding my results to it by the end of next week.

Still waiting...

So at the lab meeting on Friday the 7th, Dr. Birkett unfortunately informed me that the IRB still hasn't approved our revisions so we would not be able to start data collection that Sunday. At that point we anticipated that the revisions would be approved by the next data collection day, Tuesday the 11th. So after the lab meeting was over Ashley quickly trained me and other participating NAU students how to start up and run the PEBL program.


The process of running the digit span test is very short and simple which is fascinating considering all of the data you get back in an organized spreadsheet afterwards. What is even more fascinating is the list of all the different psychological tests that can be taken or administered on PEBL to measure all sorts of mental abilities. I have been excited to finally get started and use PEBL to collect some data to start looking at trends.


However, I was just emailed today by Dr. Birkett that our amendment still hasn't been approved. She already rescheduled the participants for other days. I am crossing my fingers that when the IRB finally looks at our rewritten amendment they will approve it and we can get started as soon as possible. For now, I will start working on my presentation soon and do more research to into similar studies.

Fortunate Timing

After Friday's lab meeting I discussed the IRB's response to our amendment. There were 4 overall issues with the amendment that were brought up by the IRB that needed to be either clarified or changed.


The first two were pretty straightforward and easy. One asked for a change to the consent from to reflect me joining data collection. The other asked whether or not we would conduct the short term data collection on the control group.


The other two were a little bit more tricky. One of them asked about two adults supervising me while I would collect data and what their qualifications are. We discussed this amendment over for a bit and tried to figure out who could be there to watch me. I glanced over at the last issue and it asked for a consent from parents "for their 'minor' child's engagement in research." The word minor suddenly made me realize that they were asking for adult supervision because they thought I'm under 18. At the time that we submitted the amendment I was a minor but I happened to have turned 18 about 3 days ago!


I told Dr. Birkett and she said that now I won't have to deal with getting a consent form signed by my parents and we won't need to find two adults to supervise me anymore. She plans on calling the IRB to confirm and it should all be sorted out by next week.


I plan on learning how to use PEBL from Ashley within the next few days so I can be ready for my first data collection next Sunday the 9th. We also looked ahead and planned data collection on the 11th, 13th, 16th, 18th, and 20th of April. I expect to be able to collect data on almost all these days so I should have all of my data about 2.5 weeks before my final project presentation.