Institutional Review Board

Response to Classmate

Hello, thank you for your response. Indeed the role of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) is to protect participants and enforce ethical standards. However, when this leads to some populations not being represented in research projects, then the IRB fails society. Researchers will opt not to involve minors in their study because of the many months it takes to approve a project that involves minors. So, if a real issue needs to be investigated concerning minors, most researchers will back away because of the IRB bureaucracy. In an attempt to protect the minors, the IRB ends up indirectly side-lining them, and that, to me, is not fair or just. It deprives minors of their right to be reached out to by research and arm-twists researchers to do more research.

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Institutional Review Board

I need help with a discussion response to a fellow student’s response to my discussion post.

Institutional Review Board

Original Post:

I had an experience with the IRB when researching for my Master’s degree paperback in 2015. The experience was one that I would call un-applaudable. There were some hindrances I faced while attempting to get my proposal approved. For one, I had to revise the protocol three times for the qualitative study design I had planned to use. The numerous red tape and bureaucracy made the entire process unnecessarily long. I had the unnerving sense that the IRB decidedly arm twists researchers to do things the IRB way. I almost gave up on conducting my research as it took too long to get approval. For example, I had initially thought of doing research involving minors, but after contemplating the months that it would take to do the research, I switched my sample population to include adults only. The layers of bureaucracy, in my opinion, inhibit some communities from participating in studies, which I feel is unfair and non-representative of the issues that society as a whole face.

According to the IRB, research is defined as “A systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge” (45 CFR 46.102(d)). The research study that I will conduct will involve participants. It will be a qualitative study that will add to the body of knowledge concerning consumer preferences. The study will involve interviewing participants and the results used in informing institutions outside of the University. That said, I will need to get a CAT IRB approval.

God Bless.

Reference

IRB homepage. Is it research?  https://www.research.psu.edu/irb/step1

Classmate’s response

Hello,

Thanks for your informative post and for letting us know about your experience with IRB. It seems your experience with IRB was not palatable. You stated in your post “The numerous red tape and bureaucracy made the entire process unnecessarily long. I had the unnerving sense that the IRB decidedly arm twists researchers to do things the IRB way”. Do you think the IRB process is not what it should be in some institutions? What exactly do you mean by “numerous red tape and bureaucracy” and  “arm twists researchers to do things the IRB way”? I thought the process and procedure would be fairly acceptable to the researchers since the role and responsibilities of IRB is to enforce ethical standards in research and protect participants (Greener & Martelli, 2018).

Reference

Greener, S., & Martelli, J. (2018). An Introduction to Business Research Methods (3rd ed.).