Correction: "Committee assists Tech with April 16 research," (CT, March 11) had a mistake. Jack Finney is the associate dean of science at Tech. The Collegiate Times regrets this error.
Months after the Virginia Tech shooting last April, the university's office of the provost established a group that would supplement the traditional process of institutional review and add an extra stratum to the studies regarding the shootings that may be conducted.The Committee for Assessment and Research After the Tragedy was organized by Mark McNamee, University Provost, as an aid to members of the university and national communities interested in doing research on the shootings.
University policy denotes that any research that involves human subjects must go through a process called the Institutional Review Board. The IRB reviews all research plans and ensures that they are technically sound and not potentially detrimental to the university community.
Though the board must give a serious, rigorous review and give approval on all topics, they do not explore what the main content of the research is. The new committee has strived to examine each individual proposal, gaining an understanding for its context amongst the other surveys also being distributed.
"We set up this committee after April 16 because the thing that was different was the feeling that a lot of people here and elsewhere would be looking to do research on Virginia Tech," McNamee said. "Our concern was the unusual situation of people getting 10 different surveys in a few week period, asking the same questions. Though each one has passed an IRB review, taken together they could be a problem."
As stated by McNamee, the main service provided by this committee is the assurance that they are screening all of the proposed research projects for duplicates. While they can prevent multiple surveys that are identical from happening, they also work to ensure that specific groups and individuals on campus are not being sampled repetitively.
In its prior state, the Institutional Review Board did not have to worry about this replication of subjects.
"Chances are, you could get a survey topic on something similar once every three years," McNamee said.
The topics presented to the committee for surveying include project ideas from all of the universities' colleges. Mostly focusing on different social groups, such as students, faculty and staff, many ask questions that can enable investigators to have gauges for levels of post traumatic stress. Though others do focus on what coping methods are being used, the major type of research is survey -- or interview -- based, employing the idea of random samples.
Jack Finney, chairman of the committee and associate dean of science at Tech, expressed that many of the projects look specifically into the psychosocial adjustments of faculty, staff and students. Finney described one specific situation in this field as rather general.
"Much of those questions are similar to those that would be asked after any tragedy and trauma," Finney said. "The research group conducting that study had also conducted research after Hurricane Katrina."
In addition to psychosocial adjustments, Finney said the group has seen a large number of proposals relating to how the shootings have affected people and changed their plans for the future. This focuses specifically on how April 16 affected and disrupted students' plans for after graduation. Another group of researchers proposed a study to the committee that will look into how a sense of community has developed such as the one that took place at Tech.
Largely because of the experience of those serving on the committee, McNamee noted that they have seen a great deal of success.
"The committee understands the IRB process," McNamee said. "They understand the nature of the research; they know the implications of a research project. We haven't needed to change anything."
Though the committee's goal is to prevent duplicate studies, Finney noted that they still allow most surveys to be completed.
You might be interested in...- Column: Celebrate victories of summer grads
- Tech Department of Recreational Sports
- Blacksburg police make narcotics arrest
