Research Methods in Psychology Discussion

Part II

Respond to the discussion question below.

Imagine that you have been a member of a research team conducting an Institution Review Board (IRB) approved study of interpersonal aggression among preschoolers for more than a year. In that time, your team has repeatedly employed a consistent set of procedures to study preschoolers’ behaviors. The procedures involve volunteer mothers bringing their children to your university’s child development lab for an observed “play session”. So far your young study subjects have been fairly racially homogenous (alike), from middle-class families and recruited (via contact with their parents) from a university preschool, affluent parts of town day-care centers, and a pre-kindergarten program being offered in the neighborhood school district. This means that, much to your frustration, you can’t claim that your study results are useful in understanding the behaviors of different race/ethnicity preschoolers and those from varying socio-economic status (SES) and education level families.

But wait…now you have learned that a friend of a friend can help you gain research access to a group of unusually racially diverse preschoolers from varying SES and education backgrounds, if you can do observations of these children really soon and at their day care facility. Several of your team members want to pursue this option and move on it quickly, arguing that there is no time to prepare a formal research proposal before embarking on the study in a new setting. “Besides the time issue,” they argue, “except for happening in a different place, our procedures should go just like all the others we’ve done and we already had them reviewed and approved by the IRB.

• Discuss how your team would be leaving itself open to problems by moving ahead with no revised study formal proposal.
• Explain two problems you might encounter with this approach.
• Then, provide a possible solution for each of the problems you have listed.

Place both Part 1 and Part 2 in a single post, labeling each with headings accordingly so everyone can easily see where Part 1 of your post ends and Part 2 begins.

Your first post in this discussion must be 180 words. It must be made in the first week of class.

(Don’t worry about part 1)

Resources

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_research-metho…

Response (100 words+ )

To begin on the study I would strongly be against not revising the proposal. In order to obtain research and do so ethically there has to be a completely defined proposal, without it the research could be voided. If a proposal is not clearly defined this could cause many implications two specifically would be an ethics violation and the IRB or students parents could terminate the study. In order to eliminate those situations I would immediately draw up a new proposal, the study is still the same and there is still the same question and methods being posed, it would require changing who the sample group is and the location. This may take some time but delayed time would keep the research alive. As for the parents I would quickly draw up an informed consent to explain the study and get their approval to monitor their child. I understand that time is of the essence but without doing this the study itself may come apart completely. I believe it would be better to do right than do at all. -Natalina

Response 2

It is essential to have a formal research proposal for the research that is to be conducted. In this case, the study of the more diverse children would be considered a whole new study. This study would contain many variables that the first study did not have due to the more diverse nature of the children. It is also to be conducted in a different, less controlled environment than the original study. By choosing not to engage in a new research proposal for the second study, the research would likely be un-accepted by the Institution Review Board. Consent must also be obtained from the new participants, the new facility, as well as the IRB. Failure to complete this important step could lead to future lawsuits. A simple solution to these problems would be to slow down and complete the review process properly. The IRB must be made aware of the situation, and all procedures must be followed.

Jessica Wright

Response 3

I think my team could potentially run into the issue of our research not being valid, if all of our documentation isn’t the correct one. I also believe that rushing into things is a recipe for error and if we want our research to be solid we should formulate a formal proposal and have no questions regarding our procedures. One problem could be that the variables are not as clear as with the other groups, which we can easily fix by communicating beforehand and taking our time to define all of the variables. Another problem could be that our eagerness to skip certain steps makes us more receptive to ‘wanting to see things’. Again, if our research is meant to be juried research, we need to take our time and make sure that we are doing everything correctly and thoroughly. If there is no way around the time issue, I would suggest, double and triple checking everything and possibly bringing a new set of eyes into the research, so we would have to explain every little step again and find mistakes easily.

Thanks for reading my forum,

Stefanie