Summary, Week 2

This week we had our first lab meeting / call. We had planned to do it on skype – but that did not work out – too much noise and we couldn’t hear some people. We moved it to a conference call on the phone – the negative is I can’t record it. The call went well and we had an opportunity to do a practice interview for the students – unrecorded. We plan to record a practice interview and post it in the classroom.

We asked the students this week to use an article review form (originally from C. Diebold), which helps them to organize their info about the article. We are planning in week 6 for the students to use the form as a basis for writing literature reviews of the articles they are reading. I have the form if any of our readers would like a copy.

The students read an article on gerontology and one on the ecomaps that we are using to track their social networks. We also asked them to look up their state laws on mandatory reporting for concerns about the elderly and worked up an action plan for informing the faculty of such concerns. The faculty will then assist if a report is needed to be filed.

We started something new this week in the lab - in which we assigned one faculty member as the primary instructor for the week. This week it was Marty Giles. I realized it is hard for me to give up control (not a surprise to those who know me, I am sure).  But it is nice to be able to look at the course from a broader angle rather than from the narrow instructor in charge one.  One issue I realized was developing is that a few students shifted from calling us Dr. as in Dr. Lee to just using our first name. I posted a request that they go back to the more formal version. I think it is important when we are working with students over 3 quarters that the line between supervisor and peer remain clear. The fact is that we are ones who would be penalized if students were not following the protocols established by the IRB and Walden - I want to make it very clear that we are in charge. Although we are open to suggestions, we have to have the final say in the project.

Lee Stadtlander

Research Design & Alignment

I must confess I really like what we are having students do in week two's discussion - where we are asking students to review and article by using answering a list of questions that tease out the key components of the research approach utilized in the article chosen. We will be discussing research design more formally in later sections of this lab, but these questions are a fantastic precursor for those discussions.

I teach research design and it is honestly one of my favorite courses to teach. This list of questions clearly helps the reader understand *what* is being done and *why* certain design elements or parts of the study were utilized. This list of questions gets at that issue of 'Alignment' (a term, by the way, I borrowed from Walden's residencies) in one's research design.

If we find, after having run through these questions, that our answers don't make sense (e.g. the gap in the literature does not 'match' with the research questions being asked or the variables being measured), we know the study lacks in alignment and may be questionable in design.

In my research design classes, I introduce this overall issue of alignment in the research process because it can be a very helpful road map for understanding a given study. If you attend a Walden residency in the future, you will likely come across this term of ‘alignment’. At times, we may find ourselves wondering why, for example, a particular researcher chose the questions, variables, measures, sample, or analyses he/she chose. Careful consideration of these individual study parts can reveal that all of these parts *should* be connected to the social problem and the gap in the literature that initiated the study in the first place! It is just like a puzzle and can (hopefully) be pieced together.

AES

Week 2- Thoughts

 This week we have our first conference call lab meeting- which is exciting! We are going to try it on skype, mostly because it is much easier for me to record it that way. Also, it gives the students the ability to add another skill to their research tool box of using skype.

I will interview Dr. Giles on the call, I am sure that it will be a tough interview! J  We have done this before, and she loves to throw some strange things at me to deal with. This week we will focus on students learning interview skills during the call – so how to keep the interviewee focused but comfortable with the questions and while being respectful. Also, we will provide examples of a passing and failing Mini Mental Status Exam, and what to do if the person fails it.

Students are learning about gerontology this week in the lab and will read an article about the ecomaps that we will use to understand their social networks. I read and graded the journal papers that were handed in last week, and students seem satisfied so far with the way the lab is going. We had some great reflections and suggestions for the first week.

Lee Stadtlander

Thoughts

I am constantly amazed by the way students see different things in the same material. This week the research assistants (students) had to read a journal article on the oldest old or on virtual labs. Each student pulled something out of the article that resonated with them. Some of the areas they raised, I had not ever considered. It seems that each of us comes to research with our own history, which influences how we see the research project and the readings related to the project. I wonder if so many eyes hinder or help? Do new viewpoints enrich a project or do they delute the focus?

I am not sure what the answer is as yet. I think it will become more clear as we go. My bias is that it will enhance the project. And yes, that would be a hypothesis...but for now it will stay a bias.

I do realize that it will be up to the Primary Investigators to ensure the project stays on track, but it will also be important that we allow for new ways of looking at the project with encouragement. Those new ideas may not happen in this project, but perhaps in future ones.
Just some thoughts
MG

Lab Summary of Week 1

This week students were introduced to the project through reading the grant application and IRB application. They were also required to read the Hinck (2004) qualitative article on the oldest old.

In the first discussion question of the week, students were asked to consider what their goals are for the project, what they hope to gain and their concerns. A number of students expressed concern over doing statistics and trying to fit the research requirements in with their normal class work, and family obligations. Some were worried about working with others in the virtual lab setting and that it would be similar to the notorious “group work” of classes. One person mentioned a concern of interviewing people he/she did not know, while another student question whether he/she would be able to deal with unexpected occurrences.

In the second discussion question the students were asked to comment on the Hinck (2004) article. One student indicated that the article reminded her of her childhood and listening to her grandparents and older relatives. It was determined that the article expressed several things that were important to the oldest old: home, the presence of one's personal physical condition, the role of one's physical condition in impacting daily functioning, the importance of balancing physical needs and staying in own home, and the role of social support in allowing the above 'balance' to happen. One student also commented on the fatigue seen in this age group and the need to provide breaks.

Several people commented on the author’s use of photos as a basis for interviews and we had a discussion about their possible use in studies and the ethics issues that arise with photos. A student brought up the issue that Hinck (2004) had all Caucasians in the sample group, which resulted in a discussion of the lack of diversity seen in this age group and the difficulty in recruiting minorities.

Behind the scenes we have been preparing for our first lab meeting on skype. We are going to have one faculty member interview the other for the students. We have become aware that are really 2 different aspects of research interviewing we need to train: 1) interviewing skills, in terms of keeping the person on track and using clarifying questions and 2) research skills that allow the researcher to make sure the question has been answered. We have decided to do 2 separate example interviews (one in week 2 and one in week 4) that will highlight the different skills each week. We have also clarified the role of each of the faculty members in teaching the class.

Hinck, S. (2004). The lived experience of oldest-old rural adults. Qualitative Health Research, 14, 779-791.

About perfection...

In reading the posts from our lab this week, students are discussing goals and anticipated challenges and one student's post mentioned 'perfectionism' which struck a chord with me both personally and because I think it is a pretty important construct as we discuss research work.

Perfectionism, in my humble opinion and observation, often gets in the way of actually being able to complete projects for some and yet striving for it is really desirable in the detailed world of research work. I think I got hired for a research position once largely because one of the hiring faculty was impressed with the detail of my then CV and its lack of typos and errors. In this case, my own perfectionism had a positive result but certainly this can be a vicious cycle!

I see the quest for perfection play out regularly in my mentoring work. Making mistakes, struggling, and having to work harder at certain parts of our lives makes sense to me--this is poignantly depicted in our dissertation process. You have likely heard at least one person say: 'If it were easy, everyone would have a doctorate'.

So how do we find and accept a balance in this tension, such that we don't make ourselves a wreck in the process? I am still looking for helpful answers here myself, but am thinking that one way to work with this is to look at the signs...our friends, our colleagues, our family, our work product, not to mention, ourselves to take the pulse and in fact measure that balance. When we are off balance - we need to recalibrate. Students in our lab candidly note things about the project that are new/uncertain; I respectfully want to say that your awareness and even apprehension are great and totally normal. This information is useful and helps alert you to all of the exciting things this opportunity can bring. So long as you don't obsess over them ;-)

AES

Different Atmosphere

Building a bit upon what Dr. Lee said: I am so excited about the introductions in the "lab". In so many courses, intro seem to be about how smart, or accomplished, or experienced, or (you fill in the word) the student is. In this lab, students are
talking to each other... sharing both strengths and weakness', sharing photo's, and generally getting to know one another. Everyone seems to be saying that they are here to work and learn, not only from faculty but from one another. It is so refreshing and exciting to see.

MG

Week 1, Tuesday, thoughts

Officially, the lab started yesterday and we have had everyone check in and introduce themselves. I like the way people are working as a team already and offering each other support. Many students have posted photos of their pets and loved ones - which helps us appreciate who they are beyond just a name.

We have already had a few people start posting in the discussions. I really want students to critically analyze the articles that they are reading and think about implications for future research. Personally, I think considering how you could extend the research is one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading a professional journal article. It feels creative and more like play to me than work. I like to consider new methods and if they would work in my areas of interest and what that might look like.

I think one of the things that is hardest for students to understand is that research is not always serious - that it is ok to begin a design by "playing" - thinking about alternatives and what might happen. I think that is one of the problems with only reading finished, published studies and not having the opportunity to do one of your own - it leads you to believe that researchers knew exactly where they were going from step 1 - which is totally not true! You should play with the theory and design: think about ways people might respond with a qualitative approach with interviews - then what would happen if you used a quantitative survey - how could you do that? What different information would you get? What populations could you use? If others have used adolescents what would happen if you used a different group? This is the time and place in research to be creative and get in the research "sandbox" :)

Lee Stadtlander

Thoughts on Teaching a Lab

Students have started showing up in the lab - it is exciting to finally be getting the project started. This seems like a good point to talk a little about what faculty should consider in teaching a research lab like this. I have conducted similar in-person labs and while there is some similarity, there are also some issues unique to the online environment. In-person there was less of a class structure, students were assigned specific tasks and I made sure they understood enough about the project to do their task; I was available in person to help with any issues that came up. Online students are much more isolated and have a variety of levels of knowledge so it is more important to have a class in which to "bring them together" and have a mechanism to train them to handle any problem on their own. The students feel more like co-researchers and less like subordinates.

There is the need for preplanning and preparation of materials. In the current manifestation of the lab, the faculty members need to design the syllabus and set up the course. They need to have the IRB approval and all materials in place - otherwise students are wasting time waiting. It is the faculty's responsibility to make sure all IRB training has been completed by students and any additional paperwork is in. I strongly recommend having students sign a contract so they know what you are expecting from them and issues such as data ownership and publication issues are discussed. We have examples if anyone wants one - we incorporate it into our application for being a research assistant.

Organization is critical, you need to keep track of who has returned what forms, which recordings have been submitted and checked, who needs more training or closer supervision. I have several spreadsheets going all of the time with lists of students and notes on issues. I dedicate a flash drive to each project for all of the data so I can keep track of which recordings have been transcribed, submitted to the transcriptionist, and been analyzed. I keep them in separate folders on the flash drive. I try to enter quantitative data in SPSS as it comes in, otherwise it is easy to miss things.

I think it works well to have at least 2 faculty members on the project and in the lab - particularly with qualitative studies with interview recordings. It takes a lot of time to train the students in interviewing and requires listening to many practice recordings and giving feedback. Also, all participant interviews need to be checked so students can be informed if there are problems (and there are always some!). We always assign a faculty member to specific tasks so it is clear to everyone who has to be in charge of what.

A strong active presence by faculty in the classroom is essential. Students need and are looking for leadership in the unfamiliar environment of a research project. They feel very isolated but want to do a good job- so you want them to always be aware that you are there, available for questions, and have them feel accountable for their commitments to the project. Otherwise, the project will not be finished or data will be compromised. Have a discussion (and printed materials) on how to handle unforeseen issues while working with participants (critical with protected populations such as the elderly).

I think we have worked out a lot of the bugs in teaching a lab, but I am sure some new things will arise over the next 3 quarters. To echo Dr, Sickel - this is a unique, cutting edge opportunity, and I am really grateful to have the opportunity to be involved!

Lee Stadtlander

Starting in our Classroom Space

I just posted an introduction in our research lab classroom and it sunk in a bit more, as to how *unique* it is that we will all get to work together toward these research goals in this capacity. Not only is this new to Walden and perhaps most/all online universities, but after attending a recent alumni event at my alma mater, I see that brick and mortar schools are trying to jump on this, the use of eClassrooms and social media for research purposes, bandwagon.

At this alumni event, I was struck by how cutting edge not only Walden truly is but how particularly true that is for this lab. Indeed, use of online learning 'portals' as noted in this Chronicle article (see: http://chronicle.com/article/Online-Learning-Portals-/127694/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en) are increasing so I expect we will see more of these online labs within short time.

That same Chronicle also mentions the use of blogs for graduate students (see: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/announcing-gradhacker/33741?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en) and I certainly would have liked access to a blog when I was in school. My husband is considering buying a new car and has been following blogs on the fuel economy reported by current owners of that car, to get additional data to help his decision. It is a whole new world, almost every day it seems ;-)

So I feel excited on the one hand about starting this project and on the other, I feel honored to be among the pioneers in online research labs. It is an invigorating time to be here!

AES

A few thoughts

Hi all,
I have been busy reading the Creswell text. It is the first text I have downloaded on my Kindle and I am now learning new things about my Kindle: how to highlight, book mark pages, etc. The Creswell text is an easy read in most ways... it does emphasize how important mixed method research is. How can we fully understand an issue by just numbers or words... it makes so much sense that research on individuals should include both.

It amazes me how much "extra" learning one does without realizing it. This was supposed to be a simple research project, but I am learning about blogging, text on Kindle, new ways to approach the library.... who knew there was so much to learn?

With technology comes a whole new learning curve. One wonders about the next generation of "oldest-old".... will they be so computer literate that research can be done on line, the problems of health efficacy will be totally different, social issues will be different, etc? But that is for another study, another day.
Just a few thoughts....
MG

Compulsiveness

I recently had a student submit one of the research surveys and all of the answers were reversed – he or she had not clearly read the anchor choices. This led me to wanting to share with you a reminder of the need for being a compulsive researcher – we cannot control what our study’s participants do, so we must not only check their responses but also check what we do several times.

You should check surveys when someone hands them in to make sure all blanks are filled and do a quick look to make sure that they make sense. If they don’t make sense, or there are blanks – it is perfectly ok to ask them to double check that everything is answered as they wish. They may WANT to leave something blank – which is perfectly acceptable or they may have accidentally left it blank. Once they leave the room/ you can no long double check. Why do you care? Depending on the particular survey, you have to toss out their survey if they have left answers blank.

We also have to check our own work, we too make errors and it is our responsibility to try to correct as many as we can. Think about that when you are entering data into SPSS and go back and check it again, or better yet, ask someone else to check you. The implications for errors become great in research. You are going to make claims based upon your data and you want them to be correct and replicable by others.

For those of you that are going into academics and will be doing research with students, remember you are responsible for their work. Double check everything, because when the results fail to replicate, it will be you that others will be looking at not the students that helped you!

Be compulsive, be professional in research, and be proud of what you have done!

Lee Stadtlander

We have our classroom!

It is *very* exciting to see this project evolve. Now that we have our classroom and are readying it for summer, it feels like we are truly at a new level with this work. In research, where there seems to be a fair share of waiting built into the process, this kind of concrete step forward is always refreshing!

Along with that step comes the 'must make sure the classroom is ready on time' pressure. Doing this with two colleagues is new; typically we have a classroom that is our sole responsibility and I am enjoying the collegial 'feel' to this classroom set up. I am always mindful, when in my teaching classrooms, of creating a positive academic environment for my students and for myself.

I absolutely recall some of my brick and mortar classrooms feeling stuffy and stale. The classrooms always felt academic but not particularly positive (one of our main classrooms for graduate students was rather small and the windows opened on to another building) unless you were just dying to get into the material ;-) It is interesting to me how much physical space can impact one's work/attitude in this regard and even more curious to see how our notions of 'space' and place change with being in an online learning environment.

Hopefully, we will be able to convey/share that positive, collegial, academic feeling with our online student researchers.


AES

Beginnings

 I finally got access to the lab course and have been spending some time getting it set up. Somehow it always takes longer than anticipated! Now I am trying to arrange for Drs. Giles and Sickel to also get access (bureaucracy moves slowly!). I sent out the first research knowledge and research self efficacy surveys to both lab students and control students. I am already getting some back and have started entering the data.

As Dr. Giles and Sickel mentioned last week, we submitted a change in procedure form to IRB, so we could use a different LOC survey. That has been approved so we are good to start.

We are excited to start the lab and finally get the project under way. I thought you might like to know about what the students will be learning this quarter. Everything is structured so that they will get a cram course in topics related to the project. They will start out with getting an overview of the project by reading our IRB forms and the grant application. Then they will begin reading some articles/ book chapters on the oldest old and doing qualitative interviewing. They will read articles about each of the survey measures that we will use. They will have readings from a mixed methods textbook and additional info on oldest old.

Every 2 weeks we will have a conference call. At week 2 they will listen to one instructor interviewing a 2nd instructor. They will then have a chance to ask questions on it. Each student will then be required to do a practice interviews with a friend or family (any age) and submit the recording and all of the paperwork to me. Week 4 they will interview an elderly friend or family member (over age 65) and submit the recording and paperwork. These will be listened to by all 3 faculty and the student given feedback. If approved they will be able to start their 4 interviews in week 6, if not approved they will need to do another practice one.

There are a lot of things to consider, some we have learned the hard way. One thing we learned in a previous study is Walden email objects to large recording files - we continually got error messages on them. I discovered that there is an internet site: yousendit.com that allows students to upload large files in a "mailbox" and I am notified to go and get them. I can then download them to my computer. I am sure that there will be new things discovered in the next few quarters, I'll let you know as they come up!

Lee Stadtlander

Unanticipated Challenges in Research Work

On my mind this week, are some of the unanticipated challenges we can face in our research work.

Dr. Giles referred to one in her recent post, when a valid scale (e.g. for LoC) still somehow does not *fit* our purposes of population. Another is when we discover parameters such as deadlines, technical/software problems that we had not anticipated. Still another is the simple challenge of working with differences in personality/work styles. These issues crop up despite one's best attempts to anticipate and mitigate such events. So be prepared for the unexpected may be the lesson here!

Given the likelihood that some such events might impact one's work and that we cannot always avoid these events, I find myself trying to 'be the research'....I am not sure Buddha would have intended his teachings to be applied in such a manner...but then again - why not?

AES

Thoughts on the past two weeks

Oh, if one could just do research...I have been working on dissertations the past two weeks, plus a residency in Houston. I have had very little time for reading or even thinking about the project. Dr. Lee and I did find a different Locus of Control scale. Rotter's original scale seems very difficult for individuals to understand; especially the older subjects. That is not to say it is not valid, but the wording seems to confuse folks. So we did some investigation and found Levinson's scale to be a lot more readable... face validity, in a sense.
I personally would love to have the time to simply read and digest all of the research out there on LoC, oldest old, health care efficacy, etc. The truth is that "multiple roles" does not end with grad school. But perhaps my graduate work prepared me in ways I didn't know.... I am a lot more able to juggle multiple roles than I was before grad school.... who knew????
MG

One very nice thing about having this 'down' time in research work - these more quiet periods before a project formally starts is that it gives us time to do some reading and reflect further on the larger model and on the concepts within our model. Queued by both Michael's comments to me last week and the book Dr. Lee recommended by Poon and Cohen-Mansfield (2011), I have been reading the chapter by these authors on subjective well being/chapter three.

These authors find support for the evolving definition of subjective well being from a more static, if you will, construct to one that is dynamic or fluid - evolving and therefore relative to individual circumstances, such as aging.

As I understand this, this construct depicts a model by which individuals approach life's challenges, including, as the authors state 'old-old age' (p. 34), In my mind at present, I am likening this conceptualization of SWB to shock absorbers in an auto - how we orient and handle life's terrain; that to which we anticipate and attend as guide to what we will experience.

What remains unclear to me at this time, however, is precisely how SWB as conceptualized in *this* chapter, differs from optimism or other such personality constructs. SWB appears to be conceptualized as more of a system, if you will.

AES

Shmotkin, D. (2011). The pursuit of happiness: Alternative Conceptions of subjective well-being. In Pooon & Cohen-Mansfield (Eds., )Understanding well-being in the oldest old. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Waiting

This is a quiet week, everything is ready for summer quarter and the new project to start. Student researchers have been emailing me that they have received the info/ equipment I sent. So as far as the new project goes - we are poised to begin.

Meanwhile, with the LOC study, we are still waiting for a couple of raters on the earliest memory portion. I received a new book today so I can begin writing a short report on our new sampling technique. For those that might be interested it is:

Knight, G.P., Roosa, M.W., & Umana-Taylor, A.J. (2009). Studying Ethnic Minority and Economically Disadvantaged Populations: Methodological challenges and best practices. APA: DC.

Did I mention that we had a poster on this topic accepted to be in Walden's summer research symposium in Minneapolis? If you will be there - be sure to stop by our poster and say hi. Here is the info and abstract (we are only allowed 50 words) for our poster to give you a sneak peek:

A Multi-Point Referral Research Method Utilizing Walden University Student Researchers
Lee Stadtlander, Ph.D., Martha J. Giles, Ph.D., and Amy Sickel, Ph.D.

Use of a multi-point referral research method is discussed in which 9 student researchers from across the U.S .were instructed to ask for referrals from their social network, with the rule that final participants must not be known. An ethnically diverse sample resulted; implications affect both participant and student recruitment.

In the mail...

I finally got all of the recording equipment for the lab students in the mail. New hint - it takes 10 days to get shipping boxes when you order them from the post office!

Been a frustrating week - but a typical research time- we asked 5 faculty (who agreed) to rate our earliest memory data, only 2 returned them. Don't be surprised when such things happen... annoying? YES! But that is the way of things. We will ask a few more people, and hopefully, eventually we will get this project finished.

I so often see student researchers have elaborate research designs requiring huge numbers of participants, and end up only getting a fraction of the people they need. You must have a Plan B (and may need a Plan C or D) as to how you will get the necessary number of participants. Plan ahead - remember any changes you make from your original design must be approved by the IRB before you can proceed,  resulting in more delays. So think about how will you get the people you need? Where else might your potential participants be? A senior center? A community group? Church? Make sure you consider how these new people may be different/ similar to your Plan A ones.

Repost: How to get email notifications

I have had a number of questions on how to get email notifications of the blog - here are directions again.

We have discovered a problem with email notifications in our blog, The Transparent Lab. If you want notifications and you have NOT received a notification of blogs posted in the last few days, you need to do an additional step. Please go to the blog: http://transparentpsylab.blogspot.com/

At the top right corner of the page click on SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS – choose ATOM

It will take you to another page- at the top of the page will be a box SUBSCRIBE NOW. At the bottom of the box is a link for Get the Transparent Lab delivered by email

If you click that a form will have you submit your email address and have you enter a word to eliminate spam from the blog

Back from Vacay....

I am back from a refreshing week off in sunny Florida with my family...it is always good to get a change of scenery.

Despite being technologically unplugged for the week (critical, in my humble experience, to the 'refreshing' part) going to Florida particularly in the golf community in which my family resides always provides me with anecdotal food for thought with regard to elderly individuals and quality of life. I must confess I was initially one who could never imagine becoming a snow bird - retiring part time to Florida. Each time I visit, however, I see more and more precisely *why* this is so popular. While too much sunshine can make me grumpy ;-), it does get folks outside, moving, social and overall - on the go. It made me want to move more.

Dr. Lee recently shared an interesting article by Infurma et al (2010) which talked about an individual's sense of mastery being important with regard to how old we feel. Anecdotally, I can confirm these findings. The individuals in this community are outside and moving, a lot. While this can certainly introduce other potential confounds (such as physical fitness, exposure to light) with regard to impact on mastery and perceived age, it does not surprise me at all that mastery can directly impact sense of age. I feel greater sense of mastery when I work out regularly in my less sunny Washington DC area surroundings, but suspect certain environments truly enhance this effect for distinct populations.

Anyway, it just goes to show that research is never far from the mind...even while on vacation ;-)

AES


Infurma, F.J., Berg, S., & Zarit, S.H. (2010). The nature and cross-domain
correlates of subjective age in the oldest old: Evidence from the OCTO Study.
Psychology and Aging, 25(2), 470-476.

Serendipity

After reading Dr. Lee's post, it brought to mind how I came into this whole arena. I am a clinical psychologist by training. Aging and the oldest old is not something I thought much about. But Dr. Lee and I were friends and I would share experiences I was having with my in-laws... medical concerns, social concerns, support concerns, and questions about the aging process. I was having difficulty finding relevant research to help me learn about aging and why some folks age well and others: not so much. Surprisingly, Dr. Lee came back to me and said she could not find relevant research either.... so let's do some research ourselves!!!

I came to realize that if one leaves themselves open for new experiences, the options are endless. I don't know that I have answered the questions that first brought me to this research, but I know I have developed some questions that, if answered, will help someone else looking to expand their understandingof the aging process.

What I want to share with all of you is that opportunity comes when you least expect it. It will pass you by if you don't leave yourself open to it!!!

MG

More thoughts

Today we finalized the syllabus and course info for the lab course. As soon as I get access to the course I can get everything posted. I received a lovely book (not a professional one - written for the general public) and thought I would share it with you:

Raines, R. (1997). A Time to Live: Seven steps of creative aging. NY: Plume.

Another book that is a favorite of mine is:
Snowdon, D.  (2002). Aging with Grace: What the nun study teaches us about leading longer, healthier, and more meaningful lives.  Bantam Press.

I particularly like the nun study book because it talks in great detail about research and the serendipity that occurs during the process. We don't hear enough about that! When you read a journal article it sounds like everything went exactly as planned - which is rarely the case.  Many times, you accidentally discover something during the analysis which totally changes the direction of the study. An example was our realization in a previous study that it appeared that we could determine locus of control from people's earliest memories. This was definitely NOT an idea that we went into the project with!

Happy reading!

Lee Stadtlander

Thoughts

Today Marty Giles and I spent some time with our data on mental age and goals. We talked about evident themes and tried to reach some consensus on the data. We decided to let it "simmer" for a while (Dr. G.'s term).

This brought up for me an issue that I thought might be worth addressing here, which is the need to spend time thinking about your data. There is a tendency, particularly when you are anxious to get a project done, to rush through the analysis and jump to the results. Particularly with qualitative data (such as interviews) you want to give yourself some time to think about not only what people are saying but what they are not saying. Do they seem to avoid certain words? Do they give you a quick short answer to a tough question? These are signs that they are not comfortable with the topic. An example is when some people talk about death - they may use words such as "pass away" "pass on" "slipped away".  They may give you a comment such as "I never thought about that" and want to leave it.

Think about what words they are using and what that tells you about them, for example we noticed that people in the 20s were always very direct about their future goals ("I want to do...." "I will have ....."). Yet, people in their 30s began to use "I hope to..." "I would like..." which suggests they have become aware that not everything is in their control and that they may not be able to do everything that would like to.

You also want to take the time to go back to your theorists and think about what each theory predicts should happen in the study. Then compare your data to those predicted outcomes, are they the same or different? If different why do you suppose that is the case? Did you ask different questions? Have a different population?

My old stats teacher used to say that you "should take a bath in your data." I always liked the imagery of that - get to know your results and understand how they came about. Another image that comes to mind for me is that artists and musicians are told to look to the empty spaces in their work, and I think the same is true for researchers - look at not only what people say, but what they don't say.

A paperwork day

The recorders, microphones, and telephone connectors all arrived today. I had to order some supplies from the post office and started putting all of the info together for each of the lab students. Each one will get the recorders, letters to potential participants, and my business cards. I ran out of toner half way through printing the letters, so ordered more of that too. I should (hopefully) get them in the mail by the end of the week.

I also started working on some qualitative data from the previous study. This part asked participants across the lifespan about the best and worst parts of being their age, along with how old they felt mentally and why. The data look interesting, I did the initial coding and sent it to my co-researchers to get their opinions on the coding.

Everyone is now registered for the lab, we did have a few glitches, but I think they are all worked out. We have also made arrangements with our supervisors about faculty course assignments with the labs.

Odds and Ends

We have been working this week on the LOC/ early memory study. Recall, that we had all of our participants tell us their earliest memory. We had previously found evidence that locus of control (LOC) could be seen in earliest memories. A little background - an external LOC means that someone believes that others control their life, while someone with an internal LOC believes that they are in control of their life. Anyway, we started getting ratings that we had requested some faculty to do and entering that data. With 5 raters we were getting a correlation between the score on the LOC test and the rating score by our experts with a p = .07 (for nonstats types - almost a statistically significant effect) . We asked several more faculty to rate them also - in order to raise the power. (If you were here in person I would ask you to explain why that may work - think about standard deviation).

I also received a newly published book on the oldest old that I am excited about - if you are interested in this population - you should consider getting it:

Poon, L. W. & Cohen-Mansfield, J. (2011). Understanding well-being in the oldest old. NY: Cambridge Press.

All of our lab students are now registered for the lab class in the summer - I had to send academic advising an email with their names and ID numbers to register them. I am continuing to work on the syllabus for the 2nd quarter lab.

Lee Stadtlander

Excitement Phase

Well, the RAs have been selected. I am sure there is a lot of excitement about being chosen and being a part of the project. As someone who has gone through this a couple of times before... it always feels wonderful to have this part done. The "yippeeeee, I am part of the project" is starting to sink in. There is pride in being selected, and a feeling of accomplishment. So what happens next? Many times it is an overwhelming feeling of "what am I in for?". The "what ifs" start. What if I can do the analysis, what if it is too much for me, what if I am not as good as the other RAs, etc. I look at this as the fear phase of research. Even experienced researchers have this issue: What if we don't meet our N, what if we don't have significant results, what if no one wants to publish our results......

This remarkable thing about this project is that no one is alone. We are all here to support one another. While some may have exceptional skills in interviewing, others may have skills in analysis, or writing, or asking questions. We are all in this together; supporting one another, learning from each other, and growing together.

So, if and when the "fear" hits.... remember that you are not in this alone, nor are you expected to be the perfect assistant. This is a project that is built to instill cooperation and mutual growth. If you get hit by the "fear" experience.... let us know so we can help you through it... We have been there before and actually survived to continue research :)

MG

Confidentiality, Consent and NIH Training

Thanks to all of our student researchers and controls who have sent me your forms. For those of you who still need to so do - please know I will be on vacation next week, so should you send it I will confirm receipt of them the first week in May.

Dr. Stadtlander confirmed that those NIH training certificates regarding work with human participants are indeed valid for three years - so if you have one that is current, please send it along.

As we gear up for the start of the lab in June, I am delving into the Creswell and Clark text (2011). While I may not read this while on vacation ;-) due to an autobiography from our Miami guest speaker, Jehan Sedat that I wish to finish, I must say this text looks like a solid compliment to what Walden currently offers in the Research Design class.

What I particularly appreciate thus far and we will get into this in the classroom in June no doubt, is that this approach as outlined here, is need based. This pragmatic approach is in no way conflicting, in my humble opinion, with qualitative or quantitative study individually. This pragmatic approach to both existing literature and future research appeals.

I sincerely hope that this Online Lab experience does the same for our students – that it offers a strong compliment to our students’ academic experiences at Walden.

Amy Sickel

Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011) Designing and conducting mixed methods research, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.

Collecting info

Today we have been collecting info from our students - consent and confidentiality forms. I have also been working on the syllabus for the 2nd quarter of the lab. This one is more difficult, since we have not previously done anything like this before - students will be analyzing data. It is hard to plan that far ahead.

We still have one more opening in the control group - the only requirement is to take 2 surveys at the begining of each quarter and at at the end of the project. As a thank you we will give you a $50 gift card to Amazon for participating. Interested? Please email me.

One more...

We have room for one more person in the control condition. If you would like info - please email me leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all of you who will be our student researchers and our controls!

We feel fortunate to have had such a strong group of applicants.

We are very excited for this opportunity to work with you,

Amy Sickel

We have our lab team!

We have finally selected our 12 members for our lab team. It was a tough job, but we are very excited to have them all! I have ordered the digital recorders, phone attachments, and external microphones ($1000 worth of equipment!), so that step is done.

We have pretty much finalized the lab syllabus and that has been sent out to our students. As soon as I get everyone's consent forms I will register them for the course. Next step is prepare participant packets.

We still have two control group  places - if you are interested - get in those forms - we will close the availability as soon as we get our 12 members for the group.

Congratulations to all of our lab team and control group members! We are thrilled to be working with you!

Lee Stadtlander

One more day!

We have one more interview scheduled tomorrow and we will be done interviewing! We have been so impressed with the people we have interviewed -there are so many great students at Walden!

For anyone who has requested the forms for the control group - get them in ASAP - if you want to be in the group. I will stop accepting them we reach an equivalent number to the lab group.

Repost: Email Notifications

We have discovered a problem with email notifications in our blog, The Transparent Lab. If you want notifications and you have NOT received a notification of blogs posted in the last few days, you need to do an additional step. Please go to the blog: http://transparentpsylab.blogspot.com/

At the top right corner of the page click on SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS – choose ATOM

It will take you to another page- at the top of the page will be a box SUBSCRIBE NOW. At the bottom of the box is a link for Get the Transparent Lab delivered by email

If you click that a form will have you submit your email address and have you enter a word to eliminate spam from the blog

Interviews are almost done!

It looks like we should be done with interviews on Thursday. Tough choices! We have had some great candidates, I really appreciate the enthusiasm that we have seen in the interviews for being involved in a research project. So what will be the next steps? Once we have completed the interviews, I will notify the selected students and send them a consent form, confidentiality agreement, and the syllabus for the course. Then I will have them registered for the lab course in summer.

Meanwhile, backstage we will be getting everything ready for the course and for the start of the project. I will order the digital recorders and send them along with an original letter for future participants, and some of my business cards that students can give to participants. Once I get access to the lab I will get that prepared and upload the readings and new syllabus.

On the LOC project our expert faculty members have been rating the earliest memories we sent them and we are starting to get them returned. So I will be able to start analyzing that soon.

Lee Stadtlander

...on being in the control group

I will add another bonus to joining this project via the control group - if you have not yet participated in research as an RA - this is a good way to see, through this blog and your participation in the assessments, what the research process is like in a more meaningful way than merely reading about it third hand or hearing colleagues talk about it.

It is therefore a good way to get your research feet wet, so to speak, and I am confident there is a way to note such participation in your Vita as well, such as the following - courtesy of Dr. Stadtlander:

Control Group Participant (2011). Doctoral Students' Research Skills and Self Efficacy Gained in a Mentored Online Research Laboratory. Walden University (P.I.:  L. Stadtlander, co-researchers: M.Giles and A. Sickel).

Amy Sickel

Why participate?

We are continuing with our interviews this week, I'll talk more about these later this week. I had a conversation this past weekend and someone asked me "why would would someone want to be in the control group of your study?" I thought it might be worth talking about that. Being in the control group of our study allows you to be involved in the research study without having the time commitment involved in being in the lab. But personally, I think it is more than that... how many times have you written a paper or taken a test and you just tossed the graded in paper in a drawer or throw it away? Being involved in a study makes you an intregal part of the process, you are contributing directly to science - your survey results will be included in the final data analysis and be part of the final published paper. Your survey results won't be tossed away - they will be a part of the project data. As an added bonus, we will mention you in the acknowledgement in the final paper :)

There are still a couple of openings for people in the control group. Interested? Send me an email leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Lee Stadtlander

Interviewing

As Dr. Stadtlander writes, we have now begun the process of interviewing our applicants for the online lab. I wanted to comment on the issue of interviewing, both in terms of our applicant interviews but also with regard to the interviews we are asking our student researchers to conduct with elderly participants. When interviewing others for research purposes, it has been my humble experience that interviewing skills are highly valuable, complex, and can take some time to learn. I can recall, for example, interviewing patients in a psychiatric hospital who clearly did not want to be interviewed (despite agreeing to it) and who seemed to enjoy evading my questions. I can recall interviewing individuals who were easily distracted and seemed to get themselves and our interview off course with great regularity. Some individuals were just plain cranky and although they agreed to the interview, they clearly did not enjoy it. These are more extreme examples to be sure, however they are also an interviewing reality and data collection must proceed with integrity, as long as the participant is willing and able to do so. This means that as interviewers, it is our responsibility to anticipate such challenges as well as to have a plan for how we will handle them.

We have talked in this blog from time to time about the impression that applicants make in the application process and now in the interview process. I would argue that as clinical interviewers, we need to be concerned about impression management or how we present ourselves to the participants, too. Our first concern should always be the welfare of the participant and this should be evident in how we interact with these participants. After this, we need to remember that data collection requires we be objective where the data are concerned and conveyed properly, I believe this can be reassuring to participants - that their information is valued and safe with us.

Amy Sickel

Interviewing

As Dr. Stadtlander writes, we have now begun the process of interviewing our applicants for the online lab.

I wanted to comment on the issue of interviewing both in terms of applicant interviews but also with regard to the interviews we are asking our student researchers to conduct with elderly participants. When interviewing others for research purposes, it has been my humble experience that interviewing skills are highly valuable and can take time to learn. I can recall, for example, interviewing patients in a psychiatric ward who clearly did not want to be interviewed and seemed to enjoy evading my questions. I can recall interviewing individuals who were easily distracted and seemed to get themselves and our interview off course with great regularity. Some individuals were just plain cranky and although they had agreed to the interview, they clearly did not enjoy it. These are more extreme examples, to be sure, however they are also a reality and data collection must proceed so long as the participant is able and willing to do so. This means that as interviewers, it is our responsibility to anticipate such challenges as well as to have a plan for how we will handle them.

We have talked in this blog from time to time about the impression that applicants make in the application and now the interview process. I would argue that as clinical interviewers, we need to be concerned about impression management 0r how we present ourselves to our participants, too. Our first concern should always be the welfare of the participant and this should be evident in how we interact with these participants. After this, we need to remember that data collection requires we be objective where the data are concerned and conveyed properly, I believe this can be reassuring to participants - that their information is valued and safe with us.

Recruitment: Day 2

Now we are trying to schedule interviews and line up our control group. Lots of emails and consulting with faculty members. I thought that I would briefly talk about interviewing. As with many things that you do in life it is important to consider your audience. The temptation is often to brag about yourself, but that is not what interviewers are really looking for - it is better to think in terms of what can you do for the interviewers, or in this case, the project.

Think about what you are able to bring to the project to help it. Do you have experience with the elderly? A strong interest in knowing more about the theoretical aspects? Are you a good writer or at least enthusiastic about learning more? Also, think about how you will make sure you have time to dedicate to it, along with keeping up with the rest of your life. There is nothing worse for us than going through all of the work of finding student researchers (there is a lot of background work and money involved in this process) only to have them quit part way through the project.

I'd also like to leave you with the idea of thinking beyond the immediate reward of getting the research experience. Remember, in this project we will work closely with you for the next 3 quarters, we will know your reliability, work ethic, and writing ability.... can you think of a better person to give you a letter of recommendation when you apply for a job?

Lee Stadtlander

Recruitment: First cut

Out of all of the many applications we received -we made the first cut. It is always a difficult decision and a lot to weigh into it, but we are finally down to 13 people we are going to interview. Next step, is to do all of the interviews and reduce the number of students to around 11. It is always tricky to set up the interviews - trying to work around three faculty's schedules is hard, but we hope to get them done in the next week.

I sent out invitations to a number of students about being part of the control group. It is a great opportunity to be involved without the big time commitment. These individuals will take the same research knowledge/ self confidence scales as the lab students. This will give us a way to measure what the lab students learn through being in the project -  beyond what they learn in their regular graduate program. If you are interested in being part of the control group (and have not received an invitation) send me an email and I will send you the info on it.

Lee Stadtlander

Who do you use for a recommendation?

Several student's have used me for recommendations, which is great! But as with CVs, make sure you let the individual know that you are putting them down as a reference or for a recommendation. Faculty can have over 500 students a year in courses.... a lot, Huh?!!? If students would just send me an email stating they are wanting to use me for a recommendation, they were in my ___ class in spring of 2010, and would I be willing to be involved...it would make things simpler for them and me. I could go back to that class and look the student up, see old posts or papers and have a visual reminder of their work. I wish I could say that I remember each student I have had, but I just don't.... I guess I am getting old. I really think that any time you are using an individual for a recommendation or a reference, you need to contact that person before hand and let them know.

Martha Giles

Organizing and rating

Today was a day for organizing all of the applications that we received and making sure everyone sent the correct info. We also constructed a rating sheet so we have some numerical way to rate applicants. What are we rating people on? Here is a list: writing ability, ability to follow directions, recommendation, their reason for being in the study, research methods/ statistics bakground, and their research experience. We will also consider geographic location and want to make sure we have some minority researchers.

As far as organizing, I have made a spreadsheet of everyone's key points and will add in the rating from each of the 3 faculty researchers and the recommendation info that we receive. Then we will pick the highest scores from each area of the country. People that are not selected do not fret - we will invite you to be part of the control group :)

Emails

I thought you might it find it interesting to see one of the email responses to students I have been sending. I have had several students complain about having to pay tuition to be in the lab... Here is my response to one.

 

Virtually all universities require students to pay tuition for research experience with professors. As an undergraduate and graduate student at Ohio State I paid every quarter for 6 years for the opportunity to conduct research. As a result I ended up with 5 publications and was able to get a professor position when I was done.

 

Think about it - if you do not pay tuition - the experience does not show on your transcript - you have no proof that you have done it. We have set the tuition as low as we possibly can - 1 credit - about $500. We attempted last quarter to run a study with a no credit lab - as a result students had little incentive to complete the project. Only three of 9 completed what they had agreed to.

 

There are very few research faculty at Walden, so this project is especially unique to be done in a virtual environment.  Students that participate in the 3 quarter project that we are conducting will have an experience equivalent to that in a land-based graduate program. They will have the opportunity to be trained in research methodology, conduct a study, analyze the data, and coauthor a publishable article. Three faculty are giving their time for supervision of the project. It is well worth the investment in time, money, and experience.

Helping with Student Researcher Recruitment

This week, I was in touch with our General Psych students to continue our efforts to recruit student researchers for the project. A number of students responded to myself (in addition to Dr. Stadtlander) and expressed considerable interest in the project, which is great! I am hopeful that we continue to have applications submitted and indeed more applications to reflect the diversity that is Walden.

Amy Sickel

Applications continue

We have gotten a number of applications so far for the student researcher positions. Strangely, we have had few minorities apply. There is still time! Just send me an email and let me know if you would like the application form - we have extended the deadline just for you until Monday April 4!

Most of my time has been spent working with the applications. We also recruited some faculty members to rate our earliest memories from the last project - so I have also been working on this.

Application advice

Today I was mostly catching up after being out of town for the weekend. I printed off the applications that came in and entered the info on our spreadsheet. One thing that has been the biggest issue for students on the application - is not following directions! This is so important - make sure that you always check out what is needed, what materials are requested and send that. You do NOT get bonus points for sending 60 pages when 2 are specified!  If the directions indicate you should draw an ecomap - then do that - do not use a program and make sure that you lay it out as indicated. An application is not a place to get creative. Your information will be compared to everyone else's, so if you are missing pieces, you will lose points in the scoring. We would like to have everyone who is interested participate, but we simply cannot risk having people who can't follow instructions.

Just how important is "grammar and spelling"?

I tell students all the time that spelling and grammar are the most important things when sending a prospectus, draft paper, or application. When faculty see typos or poor grammar, it is hard to see past those errors into the content of the document.
As students start to send their applications to be a part of the new research, it is soooooooooo important that they do spell check and grammar check, and follow directions. In the virtual world, the first impression that one makes is through writing. Certainly, one wouldn't go into a job interview with dirty jeans, shoes untied, or dirty face. I think that grammar, spelling and following directions are correlates, in the virtual world with how one presents themselves in the real world.
Don't misunderstand me, I am not angry or frustrated..... actually, I am sad that some folks may not be chosen due to their lack of attention to detail. I know that many professors will look at a student's prospectus and see errors in grammar or APA format, and not take on the dissertation committee due to this. Basically, everyone loses.
I wish there was a way, in the virtual world, not to have grammar and spelling be the first impression... but it seems that it is.

I did my ecomap...

Like Drs. Stadtlander and Giles, I did my ecomap this week in an attempt to help iron out instructions for it.

One issue for me, being a detail kind of person, was that I had to narrow my focus to the most proximal social support network, that being: immediate family, birth family, extended family, friends, and colleagues. I could have kept going because I find many layers of social support influence my life.

It was interesting to see all of those names on paper. Thinking about it from an RA perspective with regard to recruiting participants, it is a graphic depiction of how potentially rich/diverse our participants will be. Plus, it may be that the individuals we recruit are not folks who would typically be recruited for research studies using more typical sampling methods. I continue to find this sampling strategy - while new to my more quantitative sampling brain - fascinating and potentially invaluable in the online research world.

Many emails

I sent out 35 student researcher applications today! I also finally got a toll free fax number - you are welcome to use it to submit application materials if you wish: 855-505-4173.

We have had a number of students pose various questions to us in their emails, which tends to take some time to get resolved when working with 3 people. The other things I worked on today was setting up some mechanisms to keep track of applications, and what has been submitted/ done with each one. I set up an Excel spreadsheet that will track who submitted an application, if I sent a request for recommendation, and if we received it, along with the state the student is from. We would really like to get people from around the country - so that part is important. It is always hardest to get people from the center of the country for some reason.

I had to contact Walden's IT service today - I kept getting error messages in my email because of all of the large files I have been sending/ receiving. They helped me archive some of my old stuff - which freed up more room and made the server happy.

We're recruiting!

We sent out the ad for recruiting student researchers today! This is the ad for those who may have missed it:

We are looking for volunteer student researchers to assist in a mixed method study examining the relationships that people over the age of 85 have with their primary health providers as well as a new research method. If you are selected, you will be asked to commit to working on the project for three quarters (about 10 hours a week), the first quarter you will conduct interviews and administer surveys, the second quarter you will assist in data analysis and the third quarter you will assist in writing up the results for publication: if a publishable paper results you will be listed as a coauthor if you have completed all requirements for the project.

You will need to regularly participate in a one credit virtual lab on ecollege, and be trained in the research methods as to how to conduct a brief interview and to administer surveys. In addition, you will be asked to interview/ test 4 individuals over 85. We will also ask you to complete a demographic profile and a modified ecomap which looks at your social network, as we wish to examine the relationship between your characteristics and those of your participants.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Dr. Lee Stadtlander:   leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

More revisions

We have been revising our student researcher application forms today. The difficult portion is the ecomap - where students must draw out a graphical representation of their social networks. In an effort to make the final ecomaps consistent, we are fussing with the instructions. We then have each faculty member try to draw out their social networks based on the instructions. We are getting closer.

I also had a few of my doctoral students help us with the earliest memories rating scale. We had 50 people in the last study give us their earliest memories - and want to send them out for some experts to rate them along various criteria. But again we want to make sure the instructions are clear, so people understand what we need.

Researchers need to pilot test all instructions, as the developer you know what you want people to do - but you have to make sure that someone reading your instructions with no other background information clearly understands them. I think it helps to remind yourself that if someone doesn't do what you wanted them to do, you probably didn't make it clear. Your job as the writer is to make sure they get it.

I would also like to reinforce Dr. Sickel's comments about research experience - I also worked in a lab all through my undergraduate and graduate programs (and yes, I did pay tuition for the opportunity to do it). By the time I received my doctorate I already had several conference presentations and articles - it made getting a faculty position considerably easier! So I encourage you to take every opportunity you can get to do research. The best part of working with faculty on a project - is they take care of the details (IRB approval, developing the paperwork), leaving you the opportunity to actually work with the participants - which is the fun part!

Glad to hear about the eCollege space!

That is wonderful news, that we have space in eCollege this summer! I worked as an RA throughout my entire doctoral program and it was an invaluable experience. In fact, I worked in research outside of my schooling for many of my graduate years and found that much like statistics, the more you use that part of the brain, the better it gets.

My first area of work was on content about which I had no experience - so I felt a bit detached from it and would have loved to have had a space such as this to regularly connect with my fellow RAs and the Principal Investigator.

I cannot say enough about how valuable research for all of our professional tool kits. When I think about how research is often conducted in brick and mortar institutions both before this electronic era (i.e. research was conducted slower and with potentially less cohesion between RAs and Investigators) and now - with a heavy reliance on social media (i.e. allowing for faster and more cohesive research teams), this classroom space will greatly enhance our students' research experience and seems to be the future for online research.

Busy day!

We had a number of things develop today - we got approve to offer the one credit lab course for summer (it hasn't been used for two years and is no longer in the catalog). Next step is to start recruiting students. The faculty are going to meet early next week to work out the final details on recruiting. We also need to finalize the syllabus we will be using. I have picked out the Mixed Method book that will be used for all 3 quarters of the lab:

Creswell, J.W. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed method research, 2nd edition. Los Angeles: Sage.

We decided to submit a proposal for presenting a poster at Walden's summer session in Minneapolis on the new research method we have been using.

I finally got approval from the grant office to start spending the fellowship funds :)

I have had some emails asking about the IRB process. There seems to be a lot of mystique and fear about getting IRB approval. The IRB is looking at the ethics involved in the study, you really have to think through what you are asking of your participants: how will they be recruited (they cannot feel coerced)? What will happen to them from the moment they come in contact with the researcher? Think through who your participants will be - where are the places that there may be problems? Let's use our oldest old study of relationships with physicians as an example. There are a lot of issues you have to consider when working with people over 85. For example, is the person mentally competent? They may have vision issues - have you accommodated that with larger font on your materials? How will you recruit the participants - in a nursing home? Senior center? Some other place? Who will approach them?

When working with student researchers we must show that they will be trained to deal with any issues that might arise in interviewing such elderly individuals. So knowing how to handle people that won't stay on topic is important, knowing how to handle confidentiality issues, and what to do if someone discloses that they have been abused (most states have mandated reporting laws with the elderly).

A final bit of advice on the subject of IRB - don't be in a hurry to send in the application - reread it - have other people reread it. Include all materials that the participants may see (including flyers, ads, etc.). Spell and grammar check - be professional! You can write to Walden IRB early in the planning process and ask them questions. They are really wonderful about helping you on issues- it is better to find out early that something is a problem than to wait until you have everything approved by your committee.

Early pilot

Dr/oldest old study: Amy Sickel volunteered to take the Health Efficacy survey, she pointed out some issues we hadn't considered. We changed the likert scale points and modified some questions and will try some other people on it. 

LOC study: We are still fussing with the earliest memory rating sheet for our judges, hope to get that going soon.

Filling in blanks

LOC study - Marty Giles and I talked about the qualitative analysis on the transcriptions.Briefly, we previously found that it was possible to determine locus of control from people's earliest memories. People with an internal locus of control believe that they control what happens to them in life. External locus of control means that a person believes that others control their future - such as fate or luck. In the LOC study we collected earliest memories from people across the lifespan, we also had them take the formal survey to determine their locus of control. We now need to have some judges who will give their opinion on each memory based on specific criteria.I will then take the ratings the judges give us and correlate them with the scores on the formal survey, and see if we are really on to something.

Also, the missing data from the student who had mislabelled data showed up today, yay! So I entered all of that.

Considering changes

We have been discussing that we will need to file a Change of Procedures with IRB. There are a number of minor issues that we want to add or change, but I think we will wait until we do the pilot studies that have already been approved, then we can file the amended changes. Some things on the list yet to do:

Do the pilot study which will be a focus group of older individuals to have the interview questions tested.
Do the pilot study to pretest the Health Efficacy survey with some elderly people
Write an introduction letter to participants from the faculty researchers
We want to tweak the procedure for the Health Efficacy scale to do a reliability check 2 weeks post interview

On another topic, we have been discussing the syllabus for the lab course. We recently asked our former student researchers for suggestions on how to improve the subject recruitment process. They had some great ideas (thanks to all who responded!) - such as specific training on how to recruit, including the opportunity to practice; and having a letter from the faculty to give to potential participants that makes it feel more legitimate. Another idea that we incorporating, is giving participants options of how and where they can be interviewed, in their home, a neutral location such as a coffee shop, on the phone, or even on skype for the technologically minded.

A good day!

Today was a good day! We got IRB approval for the new Dr/old study which I forwarded on to the grants office - we should now be able to access our grant funds.

I also finished entering the data and transcripts for the LOC study (except for the one student's who is mislabeled). Just to bring you up to date on this study - we looked at a new research method that we are calling a multi-point referral method. This is a modification of the traditional snowball technique which is commonly used in qualitative research (Creswell, 2008); in the snowball method a group of informants, known to the (single) researcher are contacted and asked for referrals. However, this method is rarely used in quantitative or mixed method research due to the criticism that it limits the diversity of the informants (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998).  In the present study we started with 8 student researchers from across the US who were instructed to ask for referrals from their social network, with the rule that their final participants must not be known to them. Some results for you:

We ended up with 42 participants, 45% were white and the rest of different minorities. This is extremely diverse which suggests that we are on the right track. According to the US Census 75% of the US describe themselves as white. For you stats types - the race of our student researchers was strongly correlated with race of subject (r(41) = .61, p <.0001). So something to consider in the future.

Highest education level achieved: 4.8% had not finished high school, 14.3% had graduated high school or got a GED, 45.2% reported some college, 21.4% received a Bachelor's degree and 14% had graduate work. According to the US Census 19.6% of the US have not completed high school, 28.6% completed high school, 27.4% some college, 15.5% Bachelor's, 8.9% graduate work. So our sample was more highly educated than the US in general.  I will pass along more results as it becomes available.

Creswell, J.W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting an evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall.

Taylor, S.J. & Bogdan, R. (1998). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: A guidebook and resource, 3^rd ed. NY: Wiley.

US Census.gov

Transcriptions

I did more transcriptions today, I will be so glad to get them finished! I only have about 4-5 left. As Dr. Sickel mentioned - we had a conference call/ lab meeting today - to work out some details on the projects. We have been debating the best way to do the ecomaps. This is a graphic representation of a person's social network. We are requiring students to get referrals for participants from their family and friends - then update their ecomap to show who participated and who referred them. Last quarter, we wanted to students to use Microsoft Publisher - it turned out most students didn't have that. So we have been thinking about the best way to do it - one low tech alternative is simply to have them draw it out, which may make the most sense.

We also debated what do with data from a student researcher who did not follow protocol. As mentioned above, we wanted students to interview people they did not know based on referrals, but one person interviewed a couple of family members (we did not realize this until we saw the ecomap). We decided to not include that data in the analysis. There is an important reason for this rule. Someone you know answers differently than someone you do not know. You also respond to them in a different way than someone you do not know. Picture the difference between interviewing your grandmother vs. a stranger. You may not push for an answer in the same way with grandma as you would with the stranger. She may be more likely to share info than others may be.... or the reverse - she may be more likely to withhold embarrassing info than a stranger. This is why you should establish research protocols and insist that they be followed.

I was back in the literature today, continuing my search for test-retest reliability work on self-efficacy scales within an elderly population. Again, this was very interesting both because self-efficacy is a construct which allows for the creation of a task or skill specific self-efficacy scale for virtually anything that requires ability (e.g. 'partnership efficacy'; 'falls efficacy'; 'bicultural self-efficacy'; etc...) AND because there are special considerations with regard to the idea of efficacy in an elderly population. One study, for example, noted that cognitive impairment of their elderly participants affected test-retest scores, so this is something we may want to consider in our work.

So far, while some test-retest work allows for more brief (e.g. 5-7 days) time between tests and some allows for rather large time between tests (e.g. one year) by far the majority of studies reviewed to date use about two weeks between tests.

As we (myself, Dr. Stadtlander and Dr. Giles) discussed earlier on a teleconference, time frame may have unique meaning in our population. Certainly, our population could have a significant change in health status rather quickly and this is something we must consider.

Baby steps

We had some progress today. With the Dr/oldest old study we received the IRB feedback, they had some very minor tweaks - so I did that and returned it. We are thinking about adding a reliability check to the new health efficiacy scale in the study. To do this we need to have the same people retake the scale 2 weeks after the first time. If it is reliable, they should get a comparable score. If we decide to do this I will need to submit a Change of Procedure form to IRB.

I think I have made a decision on one book for the lab (probably for 2nd and 3rd quarters) it would be: Sternberg, R.J. & Sternberg, K. (2010). The psychologist's companion: A guide to writing scientific papers for students and researchers. NY: Cambridge.

I received the mixed methods books, but want to go through those more carefully before making any decisions.

A minor setback on the LOC data. I realized that one of the student researchers mislabeled the recordings they sent (e.g., said was 22 year old male, but was an 86 year old female). Doesn't say the person's name, and I have not received all of the student's paperwork, so not sure who each participant is.

Moving forward in baby steps...

Today I did some preliminary literature review for test-retest reliability work on self-efficacy scales in our population. If we wish to test the reliability of our health care provider self-efficacy scale over time, as opposed to the internal consistency of that scale, we will need to specifically test for it.

So far, it appears that in this population and regarding self-efficacy scale test-retest reliability - two weeks is the amount of time often used between measures. We need to continue to assess how such reliabilities have been previously tested, as we don't want memory/the effects thereof to interfere with our reliability assessment.

More work to come on this!

Hi Ladies - I found you!

I am very glad to have found our blog - what a great way to discuss and digest lab related information.

I like the health care provider efficacy scale and am eager to see how it pilots. Drs. S and G did a great job of pinpointing key provider issues for our population. What is particularly exciting is that should this measure pilot and work well in the main study, because there is truly a dearth of literature on such constructs, this will be a significant contribution to the field.

Ethical Issues

With all of these things that Dr. S has talked about there is always the ethical considerations. We have had to look at informed consent for both the students and the participants, cooperation letters if the participants are in facilities, how to ensure confidentiality, and a zillion more issues. What if the subject says he/she is being abused, what if he/she has a severe emotional reaction to the questions, what if he/she refuses to continue in the middle of the interview.... so many things to think about before the request to proceed with the study goes to the IRB. We have to make sure that each student knows the laws about mandated reporting in their own state, as laws very from state to state. Over all we have to ensure that the benefits of the study out weigh the risks to the subjects.... It means a lot of critical thinking about each question and each assessment and about what the answers may provide. All in all, there is a lot more to looking at the study beyond just what we want to do.....

Waiting Game

I feel like I am mostly waiting... waiting for the IRB approval.. waiting for books so I can do the new syllabus. I always try to do other things in the meanwhile - I worked on transcriptions today - but I am still very aware that I mostly waiting.

I thought it might be useful to talk a little about time management when you are doing research. I know as a student the inclination is wait until the last minute to do things... this is not a good strategy when doing research. When people start to feel rushed and stressed, there is a tendency to start cutting corners... which can easily slip over to unethical behavior with research. I go by the "a little bit everyday gets it done" idea. Everyday I try to work at least an hour on research, and do more when I can.

There are so many details involved in a project, particularly when you are doing it online! Before you start a project you must think through all of the details. A few examples - we are having students do our interviewing - how can we monitor what they are doing/saying? We are having them use digital recordings of the entire time they are with a participant which allows for quality control and also gives us the basis of the transcript. The digital recording can be directly downloaded into the computer and sent to me. So another detail we have had to consider is that the Walden email system will only handle a certain amount of info and locks up with large recording files (we learned this the hard way!). I discovered that there is a website yousendit.com that lets you download large files to their site (for a fee of course) they then tell the receipent it is there and they can upload it to their computer.

Email Notifications

We have discovered a problem with email notifications in our blog, The Transparent Lab. If you want notifications and you have NOT received a notification of blogs posted in the last few days, you need to do an additional step. Please go to the blog: http://transparentpsylab.blogspot.com/

At the top right corner of the page click on SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS – choose ATOM

It will take you to another page- at the top of the page will be a box SUBSCRIBE NOW. At the bottom of the box is a link for Get the Transparent Lab delivered by email

If you click that a form will have you submit your email address and have you enter a word to eliminate spam from the blog

Thanks for being patient while we figure the blogging program out!

Quiet break day

This week we are on break, which has given me a chance to work on the background and paperwork aspects of the studies. On the LOC project, data is still trickling in and I spent some time entering data in SPSS and working on transcripts. Once I get all of the survey data in I hope to share some results with you.

On the oldest old dr. project I worked on the syllabus for the lab. I discovered there are some new issues when you have to plan for 3 quarters working with the same students. I have syllabi from previous one quarter labs, so used some of that material, but we need to think about how to best prepare students for the data analysis and writing portions in quarters 2 & 3. I ordered a few books on mixed methodology and writing for publication, so hopefully some of those will work out.