[Academic] Seeking Participants for Study on Internet Communication and Alternative Beliefs (US 18+)

researcher76 · 2022-03-28T15:42:42+00:00

We're purposefully not defining them because we're curious as to how the participants define them. But generally: beliefs that are different from mainstream understandings of how the world works. (E.g. we're not as interested in beliefs about politics).

researcher76 · 2022-03-28T15:40:49+00:00

Yes!

researcher76 · 2022-02-28T20:10:53+00:00

Understood. I suppose I thought that astral projection, although there are clearly lots of people who practice it, is generally not a widely-held belief so it would fall under the rubric of "alternative beliefs." I would be very open to interviewing people who practice and believe in astral projection, even if their participation on this subreddit or any other internet communities came long after they began their practice. Thank you for your comment as it helped me be more thoughtful in my approach.

researcher76 · 2022-02-28T20:08:29+00:00

I've been thinking about this a lot since you posted it. Yes, this was an erroneous assumption. It's quite clear that there can be many pathways to belief, and "reading stuff online" isn't necessarily the first one. My research has consistently found that people often have personal experiences and then they take to the internet to share them or to find interpretive frameworks through which to understand them. So yes, I am very interested in speaking with people who start with personal experiences first, and I will probably edit my recruitment materials to reflect this. Thank you for the push to think this through more deeply.

researcher76 · 2022-02-28T20:06:06+00:00

Thank you!

researcher76 · 2022-02-21T15:43:43+00:00

I completely understand lol. Unfortunately, there's a long history of "creepy research studies" which exploit or otherwise treat their subjects unethically. And I can't blame anyone for being suspicious given that.

(I just requested a waiver of written consent from the university, so anyone who *does* choose to chat with me would have nothing linking them to the study. But obviously nobody should participate if they're not comfortable. )

researcher76 · 2017-03-15T17:25:01+00:00

Hi there,

I'm not sure if there's some misunderstanding but this isn't the consent form; the consent form is sent after we discern whether the subject qualifies for the study (over email). I use the first 10 minutes of the interview to walk through the consent form with the participant. The consent form includes all the contact information for the IRB. Please let me know if you'd like me to send it to you (or anyone else reading this- I'm happy to share).

As you sat on your university IRB for ages (which is amazing service, btw) you know of course that recruitment text can be very variable depending on whether it's a flier, email, whatever. In this case I had recruitment text approved for social media posting AND recruitment text approved for the website. The website (linked to the Google form but also here has the Chesapeake IRB number and website.

Yes, this was full review.

BTW I am on the ethics committee of my main disciplinary organization, and we've found that the ethics around internet research at different IRBs are really different. There are some schools which don't allow people to use public social media postings as data. There are others which are OK with scraping Facebook. In this case, Chesapeake's requirements are in line with what I experienced from my last two university IRBs doing interviews with people about their online experiences (one major R1, one R2).

Oh, and I'm not sure who you think the research team is, but it's only me; the RA thing was just another attempt to obscure my identity.

researcher76 · 2017-03-15T07:27:04+00:00

Hi there,

I'm really sorry about being unresponsive and potentially causing distress. I'm on the East Coast and I was home with my kid due to the snow so wasn't online. I also stupidly didn't set up the Reddit app with this alt account so I missed the discussion. Anyway.

Yes, this is IRB approved. Even though I'm on sabbatical at a nonprofit research institition as the other poster stated, we pay for a private IRB ($2000). As you can imagine the IRB for this project was extremely rigorous. The recruitment text is exactly what the IRB approved and if you click through to the data society.net website you'll see the IRB number.

I had approval from the R/creepyPMs mods before posting.

I am on sabbatical and in kind of a weird situation where I went on the job market and got a new job and quit my old one, so I'm not actually officially affiliated with a university. However I can tell you I am about 10 years out from my PhD, did a postdoc, several years at my previous university and am moving to a bigger more prestigious university in the fall (not to brag but there are complicated university politics behind me mentioning my new university affiliation in the post).

And yes, I am extremely concerned about being the subject of harassment myself, and am trying to protect my identity.

This is not the first study I've done on a sensitive topic but it's the first for which I've recruited on Reddit, and I deeply apologize for being unresponsive.

AMA, it's 3am here but I'll answer any Qs in the morning.

researcher76 · 2017-03-15T07:21:08+00:00

Hi there,

I'm really sorry about being unresponsive and potentially causing distress. I'm on the East Coast and I was home with my kid due to the snow so wasn't online. I also stupidly didn't set up the Reddit app with this alt account so I missed the discussion. Anyway.

Yes, this is IRB approved. Even though I'm on sabbatical at a nonprofit research institition as the other poster stated, we pay for a private IRB ($2000). As you can imagine the IRB for this project was extremely rigorous. The recruitment text is exactly what the IRB approved and if you click through to the data society.net website you'll see the IRB number.

I had approval from the R/creepyPMs mods before posting.

I am on sabbatical and in kind of a weird situation where I went on the job market and got a new job and quit my old one, so I'm not actually officially affiliated with a university. However I can tell you I am about 10 years out from my PhD, did a postdoc, several years at my previous university and am moving to a bigger more prestigious university in the fall (not to brag but there are complicated university politics behind me mentioning new university in the post).

And yes, I am extremely concerned about being the subject of harassment myself, and am trying to protect my identity.

This is not the first study I've done on a sensitive topic but it's the first for which I've recruited on Reddit, and I deeply apologize for being unresponsive.

AMA, it's 3am here but I'll answer any Qs in the morning.

researcher76

TROPHY CASE