How to finish in a reasonable amount of time…
- Before you start your project find other articles similar to what you want to write about. Why? Because that is what doing research is about. Don’t reinvent the wheel. You can copy the format other authors use, their experimental designs, their citations (if you read them), their jargon, etc. This will save you time
- Before you gather your data or implement your intervention, write a short version of your article. Create any surveys and interview questions that you might use. Decide how you will present your data and, if applicable, how you will statistically analyze it. Make up some data (e.g., if you class has 30 students, make up data for 30 students); analyze the made-up data, and include it in your draft.
Why? Because, if you collect data first, if you do your intervention first, before you know how to present it, how to analyze it, you may collect data which is difficult to present, or time consuming to analyze; or that won’t further the theme of your paper; or that won’t address issues that you want to address. You might have plans for a complicated analysis, however your sample size might be too small for the effects you are trying to measure, or the analysis might be beyond your statistical training. On a practical level, to get IRB approval, you need to know what your project is about, before you actually do the project. E.g., you will need to submit your survey questions (if you are conducting a survey) to the IRB before you give them to your students.
- Meet with your school’s office of research and get IRB approval for involving students in your research. Warning! Sometimes it takes MANY WEEKS to go through the IRB approval process, so don’t wait till the last minute. Typical steps to get IRB approval (based on CUNY policies):
- Take CITI exam https://about.citiprogram.org/en/homepage/ The CITI exam will teach and test you on how to ethically involve human subjects in your research.
- Submit project proposal as directed by your school’s office of research. It can take a very long time to fill out the forms. You will have to submit the actual surveys you plan to use.
- Wait for approval. Sometimes this can be quick, other times, there can be a long wait. If your proposal is turned down, you will have to modify your proposal and paper work.
- Finally, if applicable, collect your classroom data, do your intervention, and re-work your article with the real data and insights from the real data.
Note that some SoTL articles do not involve students and so do not need IRB approval. For example, your paper might be qualitative comparison of different methods of teaching some topic based on the literature and your experiences. In fact, some SoTL articles don’t actively involve students, nor do they have any statistics in them. One example of such an article is: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/22812/31881
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