I've seen cases where this has happened. I agree that IRBs should not be in the business of evaluating research methods for minimal risk research. These IRBs try to justify this micromanaging by appealing to the risk of "wasting the participant's time" with a study that is unlikely to provide a meaningful answer to a question. This is a slippery slope. I've also seen cases in which an IRB member wanted to change which variables researcher included because the IRB member thought those variables were more important than the ones the researcher chose to select. My experience has been that this has been less of a problem with university-wide IRBs than with departmental IRBs.
What experiences have others had? Claudia Stanny At 09:10 AM 5/6/2004 -0400, you wrote: > > Our relatively new IRB has sent back a proposal from a colleague. The IRB > refuses to evaluate the proposal without the author addressing issues of > RELIABILITY and VALIDITY of measures. I find this to be a bit scary. While > I feel that the IRB is properly charged with evaluating the risk to > participants using a given method, I do not feel that the IRB has any place > evaluating the appropriateness of the method beyond the evaluation of > risk...especially in cases with minimum risk. My contention is that the > reliabilty and validity of measures should be outside the perview of the IRB > unless risk levels exceed minimum and a cost/benefit decision must be > discussed. > > Thoughts? Can anyone help me out here? ________________________________________________________ Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Associate Professor Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/ Department of Psychology Phone: (850) 474 - 3163 University of West Florida FAX: (850) 857 - 6060 Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
