Survey on Research Decision-Making FAQS

The Survey on Research Decision-Making is a national study of research practice in four general disciplinary fields of biology, psychology, sociology, and social work.   We are interested in how and what researchers from these fields decide to do when faced with conflicting interests in the day-to-day practice of their scholarly work.  The literature in this area is very sparse and this study is intended to contribute to our theoretical understanding of the factors involved in certain kinds of decision-making.

The principal investigator for the study is Anita M. Gordon, Ph.D.  Dr. Gordon is conducting the study as an affiliated research scholar in the Department of Social Work.  She is collaborating on the study with the Center for Social and Behavioral Research (CSBR), directed by Dr. Mary Losch.  Dr. Losch and her staff are coordinating the administration of the survey. 

The study is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services under Award # ORIIR140008-01-00.  Further information about the grant award is available upon request 

Full-time faculty members from selected departments and universities across the U.S are being invited to participate.  About 120 universities were randomly selected from a total of 270 research-intensive and post-baccalaureate institutions identified for the study from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.  From those, a random sample of faculty members from the four disciplinary areas have been identified through public web sites.  Approximately 4,800 faculty members have been invited to participate.

Some individuals will receive surveys through postal mail, some through email, and some will receive invitations and surveys by both methods.  If you received an invitation by one mode but would like to complete the survey by the other, please email us and request to receive a new survey or survey link (see instructions below for how to request a new survey).  Be sure to specify that you are requesting to switch mode of administration. 

The first section of the survey presents two hypothetical scenarios from different fields.  Each scenario is followed by three vignettes in which the hypothetical researcher must make a decision about how to proceed.  Respondents are asked six questions after each vignette regarding how they would feel about the researcher’s action and what the results would be for them at their own university under the same circumstances.  The second, brief section of the questionnaire has three multi-part questions about the allocation of resources for researchers at their universities, followed by several questions about the respondent’s demographics and background. 

For most people, it should take about 30 minutes or less to complete the survey.

We recognize that some of the scenarios do not contain all of the details some of us might like to have to make a judgment on a given situation.  Please just do the best you can with the information provided. 

 It was not possible to select enough scenarios or vignettes so that all disciplinary areas could be represented without making the survey too long.  We are hoping that the ones we selected will have enough commonalities in the scholarly experience so that every respondent can relate to at least some extent to most vignettes. 

There are no anticipated direct benefits to individuals from participation.  We do hope that respondents will find the scenarios familiar and engaging, and that the vignettes will perhaps stimulate their thinking about how they and others should and do respond to various challenging situations in today’s research environments.   

The risks to individuals from participating in the study are minimal.  The survey instrument does not request any information about the respondent’s actual behavior or that of colleagues, only perceptions about hypothetical scenarios involving research practice. 

Names and contact information have been drawn from university web pages and we will be tracking whether or not individuals respond to the survey so that we can assess how well these particular survey methodologies succeed with university faculty participants, which is itself not well-documented. 

Tracking will be done for the postal surveys by placing a code number on the survey that corresponds to an individual’s name on a tracking sheet.  Once a survey is returned, that code number will be entered on the tracking sheet.  The survey data will then be entered into a survey database.  Survey data and direct identifiers are not being stored together, and the code number that links them will be destroyed at the end of the survey administration period.  

Tracking for the online surveys will be done by the Qualtrics survey program, which can internally track which IP and email addresses respond to survey invitations while separately recording the survey data received.  After both sets of information have been separately downloaded and stored for analysis at the end of the survey administration period, as above, the link between them will be destroyed. 

All data will be stored on secure servers and accessed only by authorized study personnel.

If you are not interested in the study, you may easily opt out by returning a blank survey if you received an invitation through postal mail, by clicking on the opt-out link if you received an invitation by email, by emailing or calling us directly (see below), or by simply ignoring your invitation(s) to participate. 

If you lost your survey or otherwise need to request a new one, you can request another survey or survey link either by emailing the CSBR Director Mary Losch at mary.losch@uni.edu or by calling 319-273-2135 and indicating the name of this study, “Survey on Research Decision-Making”. 

Questions about the purpose, design and conduct of the study should be directed to the Principal Investigator Anita Gordon at anita.gordon@uni.edu. 

Questions about the survey administration and logistics (e.g,. to request a new survey) should be directed to Mary Losch at the Center for Social and Behavioral Research at mary.losch@uni.edu or you may call CSBR at 319-273-2135, indicating the study name, “Survey on Research Decision-Making”. 

Questions about your rights as a participant in research should be directed to the University of Northern Iowa Institutional Review Board (IRB) Chair at helen.harton@uni.edu. 

Surveys must be returned no later than April 15, 2015.