Basic Track (SBER)

2019 SBER Conference

Basic

B07 - Is This "Education Research" Research at All?

Speaker(s)

• 

  Jonathan M. Girard

  Manager, Harvard University Area IRB, Harvard University
  
• 

  Meghan Felicia Pronovost, MS
  

  IRB Reliance Administrator, Harvard University
  

Education research poses unique challenges for IRBs given the often-nebulous nature of the procedures, the inclusion of vulnerable populations, and concerns about impact on the educational experience. In some cases, though, the challenge does not come in reviewing education research, but in determining whether IRB review is needed at all. In conflating entrepreneurship, consultancy, program evaluation, and professional development with human subjects research, education researchers put IRBs in the position to regularly ask, "Is this 'education research' research at all?" Through reviewing cases in which research intersects with a researcher's other academic and professional activities, this session will help attendees identify what activities constitute human subjects research in this field. In making such determinations, the IRB can reduce burden for itself and the research community by ensuring that human subjects regulations are applied only to the appropriate research. During this session, speakers and attendees will:

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss and define regulated research, education research, and activities that often intersect with these (e.g., program evaluation, professional development, community based participatory research, secondary data analysis)
• Identify strategies for sensitively communicating with education researchers about complex regulatory concepts like generalizability and engagement in ways that consider and complement the education researcher's own terminology and field
• Examine situations when human subjects research regulations do and do not apply, focusing on assessment of the education researcher's purpose, motivation, obligations, and role