Learning Journal 21

This past Friday in class we started the IRB process. The best part about filling out the form is that we can simply copy and paste a lot of the required information to the IRB form from our project proposal. This form will take a little while to fill out since it requires more than just yes or no answers. I think that the IRB is a good process to ensure that researchers are ethical in their studies. This process allows me to make sure that my project is ethical, prepared, that it won't offend people, and that I am qualified to do what I am questioning people about. It helps me to avoid vulnerable questions that might be hard to focus on. There can be many challenges when working with kids so it is nice to be able to avoid it all completely.
Other than the IRB, not much was covered. Except, we did need to complete another part of our proposal for class. It was the methods and procedure section of the proposal. It was good to think about this with Nate because we are doing similar projects and focusing on similar groups. We thought about how we were going to randomize our data. We also thought about how we were going to get permission for performing our project at colleges and universities. It is important to know what we are going to do over there, otherwise it's like we are walking around with our heads cut off trying to guess what to do. Pondering how we are actually going to go about things once we are in India is helpful, I now have a better idea of the whole process. We still have some kinks to work out, but I feel more prepared. That is the whole point, step by step, get more and more ready.