Institutional Review Board (IRB) assessment aims to ensure that sufficient measures are undertaken to defend the rights and well-being of those participating as research subjects beforehand and through periodic evaluation. IRBs assess research procedures and related materials (such as informed consent forms and investigator brochures) in a group setting to ensure that the rights and welfare of research participants are protected (YouTube, 2015). Protection of human study subjects is essential as people are moral beings, and society has established laws to guarantee minimum moral standards in protecting subjects. Since study subjects will not volunteer if they are afraid of being harmed, protecting them is essential to the research. Everybody engaged in the research sector has a responsibility to protect the subjects. Therefore, IRBs have a unique role because it is the main reason they have been created.
I will evaluate the research studies I find in the news by considering factors such as currency, relevance, authority, and accuracy. While some of the items published on social media may be older and pertain to current events, they may not contain accurate or up-to-date information. The assertions could no longer be valid or have been disproven if the material is old. Even though particular articles seem to be discussing a hot topic, one must go past the headline to discover whether the content is pertinent to the given needs. Further, one must conduct the necessary research since being well-known does not always imply being authoritative, and judgments and perceptions of authority can be prejudiced and omit important voices. Scientific investigations gain credibility by using statistics as well. Using statistics in experimental design, procedures, and database structure will make my research more accurate. Holding greater knowledge about statistics and research will affect me moving forward to articulate my ideas regarding hypotheses and the best ways to glean significance from the data.
References
YouTube. (2015). Guiding Principles of Institutional Review Boards (Irb). YouTube.