Push-Polling

There has been talk in the news recently about push-polling, which occurs when individuals or groups who support a particular political candidate plant in voters' minds negative (and completely baseless) ideas about an opposing candidate under the guise of political polling. So, for example, a caller posing as a legitimate pollster might ask a voter, "Would it influence your perception of [opposing candidate] to know that he has a secret pornography addiction?" The idea is not to assess voters' opinions of the candidate based on that hypothetical scenario, but rather to create the association in voters' minds between that candidate and a pornography addiction, thereby hopefully undermining his voter support.

Perhaps surprisingly, I had never heard the term "push-poll" before this week. Here, from the Wiki article, is what I found particularly interesting (with my emphasis added):

One way to distinguish between push polling as a tactic and polls which legitimately seek information is the sample size. Genuine polls make do with small, representative samples, whereas push polls can be very large, like any other mass marketing effort.

True push polls tend to be very short, with only a handful of questions, so as to make as many calls as possible. Any data obtained (if used at all) is secondary in importance to negatively affecting the targeted candidate. Legitimate polls are often used by candidates to test potential messages. They frequently ask about either positive and negative statements about any or all major candidates in an election and always ask demographic information at the end.

In other words, a dead give-away of a push-poll is the massive, unsystematic sampling strategy (to the extent that it even is a sampling strategy) and the brevity of the calls. Contrast this with the characteristics of sound research polling -- a systematic sampling strategy designed to achieve a representative sample and comprehensive data collection -- and it's easy to see why this is little more than a fear-mongering tactic masquerading as political research.

I bring this up because I thought it would be an interesting topic of discussion for those of you teaching research methods courses. At the very least, you can use it to spruce up dry, student-dreaded methods lectures with salacious talk about porn addictions!

P.S. Here is a story from TIME explaining why this topic has been in the news lately.

Validating beer goggles

An interesting piece in this week's New Scientist on research efforts to validate beer goggles as an actual phenomenon. The article is written with a whimsical tone at the onset, but it occurs to me this could actually be an intriguing way to engage students in a research methods course. Take a principle that is an established aspect of college life (assuming students are over 21, of course) and design different ways to test that principle. For example, the article discusses one study and how the results could either support the principle or be dismissed as a form of sampling bias.

Fortunately, Patch will be in Chicago 3 weeks from tonight doing his own field work in this area of research. I'll report back on his findings (including to Ms. Patch, who will certainly be interested in what he has to say).

Three Cheers for Velma!

Velma is too modest to share the good news herself, so I'll do it for her:

First came news that she has received a big-ass NIJ grant to study the efficacy of sex offender registration restrictions. Woo hoo! This is exciting news, indeed.

Then, as if that's not cool enough, some of the gun violence research she has conducted has received local media attention...including being picked up by Ted Gest's CJ news archive! Seriously, see for yourself here.

Pretty amazing, eh? To celebrate these accomplishments, please join me in offering Velma a congratulatory cheer:

V! (clap, clap, clap)
V-E! (clap, clap, clap)
V-E-L! (clap, clap)
V-E-L-M-A! (hey!)

P.S. While we're handing out kudos, Patch & Pap deserve some, too: their book is now officially on shelves! Woo hoo!

Tips for Good Reviewing

This morning, the Chronicle covered a recent panel at the ASA meetings in Boston regarding the importance of peer review. Several suggestions were made to potential reviewers to improve the process (short of providing pay for review services, which I'm sure would improve them dramatically). They are:

1. Communicate clearly: avoid bulleted lists of strong & weak points. Present a thorough analysis of the paper instead.
2. Give careful thought about revisions: are the problems fixable?
3. Be civil: boy, have I ranted about this in the past. The one that still kills me: "This author obviously knows nothing about statistics." I suppose that means all of you to whom I have taught statistics know nothing as well. Sorry about that, guys.
4. Don't be selfish: I admit, I do look to see if the authors cite me if the topic is close to my own work. However, my own vanity won't have anything to do with whether it's a good paper. AND, if they don't cite me and they should have, I always include a list of recommended articles to review related to the topic. After all, I wouldn't want to be obvious about it...
5. Don't be lazy. This is something I wish more reviewers took under consideration. Of course, reviewing takes time. Of course, we aren't compensated for it. But--how will the quality of articles published improve if we don't take the time to help others? I read SO, SO, SO many bad articles--honestly, it can get rather depressing. When I'm writing those reviews, I always keep in mind that the manuscript may have been written by a student. Any and all helpful comments I can provide will only improve their work, as I hope those who read my work will also provide constructive comments.
   

And here's one of my own:

1. Check for plagiarism. You'd be suprised how many people recycle literature reviews (or sometimes entire manscripts). As I've written previously, some journals do routinely check for plagiarism, but most don't. I received an article to review last month (DAMN--gotta send that back) in the mail. Snail mail. A HARD COPY. Seriously, isn't everyone electronic these days? Obviously, that journal cannot check for plagiarism very easily, but you can! (http://www.articlechecker.com)

How about it? Anyone else have suggestions for reviewers?

The Interaction of Genetic Factors and Social Control on Delinquency

The latest issue of the American Sociological Review arrived in my box a couple of days ago, and today I finally had a chance to glance at it. My usual routine with ASR involves scanning the cover for crime-related articles and tossing it on the shelf if nothing appears. This one hasn't made it to my shelf yet.

The authors of the second article (Guo, Roettger, and Cai) discuss the importance of genetic factors on crime, and also evaluate whether environmental factors can "turn on or off" certain genetic markers that can affect deliquency.

For example, the authors cite prior research indicating that:

• Rats whose mothers pay less attention to them (via licking/grooming) have a reduced expression of certain genes responsible for dealing with stress (i.e., they are less able to deal with stress than other rats).
  
• Monkeys raised without adult supervision differ genetically from those raised by a parent (or parent-group), displaying adverse reactions to stress, lower visual orientation scores and increased alcohol use among females (Watch out! Drunk monkeys!)
  

The authors suggest little is known about HOW these genetic changes occur, but they focus on methylation--which can occur under certain environmental conditions, and causes lower levels of gene expression (making more stressful rats, for example). They go on to say these genetic changes are stable over the life course once in place.

(OK, that's as comfortable as I feel discussing genetics--I'm starting to leave my comfort zone. Let's just hope I got it all right.)

Interesting, but how does this relate to juvenile delinquency?

Using the Add Health data, these authors test whether certain environmental characteristics interact with "crime prone" genotypes are present. They conclude that the answer is a strong yes.

First, genetic factors have significant direct effects on both serious and violent delinquency holding constant social control variables (many of which are also significant).

More importantly, genetic factors seem to interact with environmental effects. One of the most important variables the authors found significant was "on how many days per week do you eat dinner with at least one parent in the room?". This variable interacted specifically with the DRD2*178/304 genotype--kids with this gene AND who have weak attachment to parents have a greatly increased risk of delinquency over those with only one or neither risk factor.

(Is it just me or does anyone else think of this when "DRD" comes up in conversation? No?? Am I the only person who watched Farscape?)

The authors summarize:

In every instance of [the significant] interactions, a stronger social-control influence of family, school, or social networks reduces the delinquency-increasing effect of a genetic variant, whereas a weaker social-control influence of family, school, and social networks amplifies the delinquency-increasing effect of a genetic variant.

So, a person's genetic makeup is important with respect to delinquency. So are environmental factors. They are both very important when they occur together. It's not just nature, it's not just nurture--it's both.

Very cool. Should've been the lead article if you ask me (not to cast aspersions on Social Exchange and the Micro-Social Order, of which I know nothing.)

2007 Journal Citation Reports Now Available

Earlier this month Thomson Reuters published the 2007 Journal Citation Reports, allowing academics to evaluate the relative influence of various journals in their field. Using data on article citations and journal readership, the JCR "provides a systematic, objective way to evaluate the world's leading journals and their impact and influence in the global research community." I've listed the top ten journals -- ranked according to impact factor -- for various social science disciplines below. The name of the journal is followed by the impact factor in parentheses. You can search for complete JCR rankings by discipline here, though this link may not function properly for those not using a university IP address.

CRIMINOLOGY/PENOLOGY
(Rank out of 29 journals)

1. Criminology (2.344)
2. Crime & Delinquency (1.796)
   
3. Criminal Justice & Behavior (1.672)
   
4. Sexual Abuse (1.643)
   
5. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology (1.559)
   
6. British Journal of Criminology (1.296)
   
7. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency (1.294)
   
8. Journal of Quantitative Criminology (1.229)
   
9. Punishment & Society (1.189)
   
10. Journal of Interpersonal Violence (1.171)
    

SOCIOLOGY
(Rank out of 96 journals)

1. American Journal of Sociology (3.338)
   
2. American Sociological Review (3.277)
   
3. British Journal of Sociology (2.449)
   
4. Annual Review of Sociology (2.400)
   
5. Global Networks (1.886)
   
6. Sociology of Health & Illness (1.759)
   
7. Journal of Marriage & the Family (1.756)
   
8. Economy & Society (1.678)
   
9. Social Networks (1.644)
   
10. Social Problems (1.577)
    

WOMEN'S STUDIES
(Rank out of 28 journals)

1. Journal of Women's Health (1.522)
2. Gender & Society (1.400)
3. Women's Health Issues (1.338)
4. Psychology of Women Quarterly (1.253)
5. Gender, Work & Organization (1.185)
6. Violence Against Women (1.122)
7. Social Politics (0.972)
8. European Journal of Women's Studies (0.698)
9. Signs (0.671)
   
10. Sex Roles (0.652)

Discuss!

Pap at the National Press Club!

This is the most exciting news I've heard in a long time: Pap is going to be speaking about Internet safety at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. tomorrow! Woo hoo! He'll be speaking at a Department of Justice-sponsored "cyberbullying awareness" press conference beginning at 8:00 a.m.

As if that's not cool enough, also on the panel is Steve Largent, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver (and NFL Hall of Famer) who now is president and CEO of a telecommunications industry trade group. (Oh yeah, I almost forgot: in between those gigs he served as a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma).

Finally, the press conference has one more scheduled attendee that will just about make your head explode: McGruff the Crime Dog! I swear I am not making this up.

We are so proud of you, Pap, and expect a full report (with photos!) when you return!

P.S. Hopefully Pap will get to talk about the eagerly-anticipated new book he and Patch have co-authored about cyberbullying.

P.P.S. Doesn't this story have the makings for a terrific joke?

"Pap, Steve Largent, and McGruff the Crime Dog walk into a bar...."

P.P.P.S. During your remarks tomorrow, Pap, I would advise you against making any jokes about how West Virginians are inbreds...

Great Chronicle Article

My friend Sarah (about whom I've written before) sent me an interesting Chronicle article today about the invisibility of academic work (or, more specifically, of the idea formation and preparation that precede the actual writing stage of a research project):

People far removed from academe can spit out the tired, if still pithy, phrase "publish or perish." But explaining the process that leads to publication to the average Joe, or to a supportive and understanding partner named Mo, isn't easy....

What does it look like to do intellectual work? What does it look like to have an insight? To formulate a theory? To solve a philosophical problem? What does it take to get to the point at which you're ready to sit down and write something, ready to present something to the world?

The invisibility of this type of work likely has been the subject of countless academic blog posts, so it is hardly revolutionary to discuss it here. I did, however, particularly appreciate the author's use of metaphor to illustrate how efforts to measure academic "output" by metrics recognizable to those outside academia (i.e., articles published) can underestimate the amount of time and effort invested in a particular research project:

When I first started running competitively, each time I told my brother that I had run a race, he would ask me the same question, "Did you win?" It diminished any achievement I may have felt -- a personal best, feeling good the whole time, having a great day...[because it] meant that the months of hard work I did training for the race were made invisible by the way he had framed the question....

You don't need me to tell you that when you're working it can sometimes look to the rest of the world like you're curled up in front of the fire petting the cat. This column is for your husbands, wives, partners, parents, siblings, friends, and strangers who ask questions like "When are you going to graduate? It's been five years already." Or "Why hasn't that book come out yet? You've been working on it forever!"

Personally, I think the solution to this problem is right there in the article: perhaps we should all "pose like Rodin's sculpture" in our offices to convince others that we're actually working!

The aura of science -- even bad science -- trumps logic

Received this from a friend. Not directly linked to crime/crim, but I think this parallels that which we often lament in our own discipline...that people are cued to make decisions based on the wrong evidence (or no evidence).

----
The new issue of Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Vol. 20, #3, March 2008) includes a study: "The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations".

The article is by Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Frank C. Keil, Joshua Goodstein, Elizabeth Rawson, & Jeremy R. Gray.

Here's the abstract:

"Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation. We tested this hypothesis by giving naïve adults, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts brief descriptions of psychological phenomena followed by one of four types of explanation, according to a 2 (good explanation vs. bad explanation) x 2 (without neuroscience vs. with neuroscience) design. Crucially, the neuroscience information was irrelevant to the logic of the explanation, as confirmed by the expert subjects. Subjects in all three groups judged good explanations as more satisfying than bad ones. But subjects in the two nonexpert groups additionally judged that explanations with logically irrelevant neuroscience information were more satisfying than explanations without. The neuroscience information had a particularly striking effect on nonexperts' judgments of bad explanations, masking otherwise salient problems in these explanations."

The author note states that reprint requests may be sent to Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Department of Psychology, Yale University, P. O. Box 208205, New Haven, CT 6520-8205, or via e-mail.
---

I suppose an important reflexive question is whether the fact this comes from a professor at Yale make me more likely to accept the message, even though it suffers the classic limitation of psychology research (i.e., psychology is the study of college sophomores).

Zotero!

Thanks to Dr. Cranky for sharing the information about Zotero, the "next generation research tool". In case you missed the info, shared in a comment on Velma's recent post about EndNote, Zotero is an online/offline reference tool that combines elements of EndNote, word processing programs, web searches, etc. I just installed it and watched the online tour and demo. I have to say that, if it lives up to its description, Zotero might just be the greatest thing since...well, you know...

Open-Access Scholarship?

The New York Times reports today that Harvard University faculty soon will vote on a proposal to establish a free, open-access electronic repository for academic articles authored by Harvard scholars:

Faculty members are scheduled to vote on a measure that would permit Harvard to distribute their scholarship online, instead of signing exclusive agreements with scholarly journals that often have tiny readerships and high subscription costs.

Although the outcome of Tuesday’s vote would apply only to Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty, the impact, given the university’s prestige, could be significant for the open-access movement, which seeks to make scientific and scholarly research available to as many people as possible at no cost....

Under the proposal Harvard would deposit finished papers in an open-access repository run by the library that would instantly make them available on the Internet. Authors would still retain their copyright and could publish anywhere they pleased — including at a high-priced journal, if the journal would have them.

If approved, this system would include an "opt-out" function -- that is, faculty research would automatically be published online unless authors specifically request that their work be excluded.

This is such an intriguing idea, and I honestly am not certain how I feel about it. On the one hand, I understand the argument that such a system would undermine the livelihood of academic journals, which depend on subscription fees to thrive. On the other hand, I agree that scholarship published in journals tends to be insular and unnecessarily difficult to access outside of academia.

What I found most interesting about this discussion is the claim that an online repository would ultimately diminish the quality of academic research because it lacks a blind peer-review process. I don't know that I necessarily agree with this. This argument rests upon the assumptions that (a) the blind review process is successful at weeding out research that lacks "sufficient" rigor, and (b) that scholars produce rigorous research only in anticipation of the blind review process, and not out of an innate desire to generate sound scholarship. Needless to say, I find both of these to be dubious assumptions.

One problem I do foresee with the proposed system at Harvard concerns tenure. Given that the current tenure structure is based upon peer-reviewed publications, how would online publication of one's articles affect preparation of one's tenure portfolio? (Although, as noted in the Times article, online publication would not necessarily prohibit subsequent publication of one's work in traditional outlets.)

Interestingly, the Harvard proposal comes just after publication of Charles Tittle's essay in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of The Criminologist, in which he argues that dissemination of criminological scholarship in its current form stifles the scientific enterprise. In his essay, Tittle acknowledges that the entrenched "publish or perish" tenure structure makes it extremely difficult to modify the manner in which scholarship is disseminated:

A more serious drawback, however, may be the inability of [an alternate dissemination] process to inspire enough prestige to motivate scholars not sufficiently fulfilled by simply contributing to the store of knowledge. Lists of authored publications are the legal tender of stratification in our world, and we accord more recognition to those whose publications are in journals with high rejection rates.

So, what do you all think? Would an open-access publication system be a worthy step toward broader dissemination of academic research, or a foolhardy and dangerous threat to academic integrity? Should the proposal pass, would the prestige of Harvard University as an academic institution be enough to convince skeptics that an online repository has merit, or would universities be wise to encourage their faculty to adhere to the current system regardless of the outcome at Harvard? Is Tittle right? Is the publication process flawed and in need of redesign? Even if that is the case, is there too much inertia behind the current system to prevent it from ever being modified?

New Publication on Poverty

The other day I received in the mail a new (free) magazine called Pathways ("a magazine on poverty, inequality, and social policy") that is published by the Center for the Study of Poverty & Inequality at Stanford University. I'm not sure how I received this publication (perhaps by being a member of SSSP or some other organization?), but I enjoyed looking through it and thought that others might be interested in checking it out, too.

The inaugural issue of this magazine features brief essays written by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards detailing their respective plans for ameliorating poverty and economic inequality. It also includes essays by economists and public policy researchers from universities across the country offering suggestions for success in waging "a new war on poverty".

I must confess that I am troubled by the continued use of the "War on Poverty" metaphor. As I am fond of saying (in class and elsewhere), whenever we declare "war" against a social ill (be it the War on Terror, the War on Crime, or the War on Drugs), it is never people occupying positions of societal power upon whom war is waged. Rather, the targets of these wars uniformly are disadvantaged and marginalized populations (e.g., people of color, immigrants, the poor and unemployed, drug addicts, etc.). Nonetheless, I was intrigued to read the essays in this magazine, and was especially pleased by the stated goal of this publication to provide empirical research aimed at informing public policy surrounding issues of poverty and inequality.

If you are so inclined, you can check out the first issue of Pathways here.

"Undone by its Own Metaphor": The Failure of America's War on Drugs

About two weeks ago, NPR's Talk of the Nation took up the issue of America's War on Drugs. Featured in this discussion was Ben Wallace-Wells, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone who recently authored a damning account of U.S. drug policy entitled "How America Lost the War on Drugs".

I don't typically consider Rolling Stone to be a source of hard-hitting investigative journalism, but listening to Mr. Wallace-Wells' interview I was impressed and intrigued by the extent of his knowledge about the War on Drugs. When I finally sat down to read his article (linked above), I found it to be a fascinating and fairly comprehensive analysis of contemporary American drug policy. I know some of you may balk at this, but I would totally consider assigning this article in class, so impressive is its scope. (It's very lengthy; divided into twelve chapters, it took me over an hour to read.)

What I appreciated most about this article is that it recognizes, and sharply criticizes, the utter disconnect between contemporary American drug policy, on the one hand, and the findings of empirical drug policy evaluation research on the other:

Thanks to new research, U.S. policy-makers knew with increasing certainty what would work and what wouldn't. The tragedy of the War on Drugs is that this knowledge hasn't been heeded. We continue to treat marijuana as a major threat to public health, even though we know it isn't. We continue to lock up generations of teenage drug dealers, even though we know imprisonment does little to reduce the amount of drugs sold on the street. And we continue to spend billions to fight drugs abroad, even though we know that military efforts are an ineffective way to cut the supply of narcotics in America or raise the price.

This article also examines many criminal justice policies and initiatives that developed as a consequence of the War on Drugs: The Boston Gun Project and Operation Ceasefire, community policing efforts in Boston, High Point, NC, and elsewhere, drug courts, mandatory minimums, and so on. It also offers a cogent political analysis, deftly illustrating how thoroughly efforts to appear "tough on crime"-- by Republicans and Democrats alike -- have influenced and shaped contemporary drug policy, even while academic research has been largely ignored:

The federal budget that [former Clinton-era drug czar Lee] Brown's office submitted in 1994 remains a kind of fetish object for certain liberals in the field, the moment when their own ideas came close to making it into law. The budget sought to cut overseas interdiction, beef up community policing, funnel low-level drug criminals into treatment programs instead of prison, and devote $355 million to treating hardcore addicts, the drug users responsible for much of the illegal-drug market and most of the crime associated with it. White House political handlers, wary of appearing soft on crime, were skeptical of even this limited commitment, but Brown persuaded the president to offer his support, and the plan stayed. Still, the politics of the issue were difficult. Convincing Congress to dramatically alter the direction of America's drug war required a brilliant sales job. "And Lee Brown," says Bergman, his former legislative liaison, "was not an effective salesman."

...But in the early days of the Bush administration, police departments were in no hurry to experiment with an approach that focused on drug-related murders and mostly ignored users who weren't committing violence. [Criminologist and pioneer of the Boston Gun Project David] Kennedy's efforts proved to be yet another missed opportunity in the War on Drugs - an experience that made clear how difficult it is for science to influence the nation's drug policy.

Indeed, from an academic perspective, this is perhaps the most dispiriting observation of this article: that U.S. drug policy has been, and continues to be, woefully uninformed by criminological and governmental research and instead is shaped largely by political concerns:

But despite their evident success, the most forward-looking programs remain buried at the fringes of drug policy, featured not in the president's budgets but in academic journals and water-cooler talk in cities like High Point....Thirty-five years after Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs, the most promising ­programs continue to be shunted aside by Washington's unswerving emphasis on law and order.

I would love to hear others' thoughts on this article, given that I am not a drug researcher. What do you make of the author's conclusions? How can his research be used to inform discussions about the extent to which academic research matters to policy-makers? What does that mean for us as criminologists? I am left with many questions...not the least of which is: would I lose all credibility if I assigned a Rolling Stone article for my students?

Blogger Participation Post: Influential Readings

I received a very nice e-mail the other day from a former student, who shared with me how influential my classes had been in shaping her views of crime and justice issues.  (All together now...aww!)  In both of the classes in which I had her as a student, I assigned a lot of readings dealing with issues of social justice, power and privilege, and systems of inequality (race, class, gender, etc.).  Typically, these are not issues that the average CJ undergrad has explored in great detail, so I find it very rewarding to hear that exposure to critical scholarship challenges students to think differently about crime than perhaps they had before.  

This got me thinking about the readings from grad school that were most influential to me, and those that continue to inform my research and teaching years after having read them. I thought it might be interesting for each of us to share in the comments section which readings (from grad school or otherwise) most inspire or influence us. I'll go first.    

Happy Gilmore, Crimefighter!

An article in today's New York Times discussed a recent study that yielded sure-to-be controversial findings: Rather than affirming the conventional wisdom that violent movies, TV shows, music, and video games promote violent behavior, the study -- conducted by two economists and presented at the American Economics Association annual meeting this weekend -- suggests that violent movies actually reduce violent crime:

[The authors concluded] that violent films prevent violent crime by attracting would-be assailants and keeping them cloistered in darkened, alcohol-free environs. Instead of fueling up at bars and then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains slay in their stead.

The article describes the two competing schools of thought (i.e., violent entertainment begets violent behavior vs. violent entertainment diverts violent behavior), and offers analysis from experts on both sides.

Interested in the researchers' data and methodology? Here you go:

The study’s authors acknowledge that their research does not...address the long-term effects of exposure to violent media, an influence they view as pernicious. Rather, the research uses a decade of national crime reports, cinema ratings and movie audience data to examine what has happened to rates of violent crime during and immediately after violent films are shown.

This article leaves me with some methodological questions, most of which cannot be sufficiently answered without seeing the original study. However, this parting comment from one of the study's co-authors had me chuckling so much I forgot my methodological queries:

In other words, Professor Dahl suggested, Hollywood could help cut crime in more palatable fashion by cutting out the gore while making movies that still attract male teenagers and 20-somethings.

“We need more Adam Sandler movies,” he said. “Even though I’m not a big fan of Adam Sandler, that’s the implication.”

I tell you one thing: I am in the wrong line of work. I need to become an economist so that I can produce research with policy implications like "make more Adam Sandler movies"!

Thanks to EW.com for the heads up.

P.S. I wonder whether Bob Barker would agree with Dr. Dahl's categorization of Adam Sandler movies as non-violent? Ha Ha!

IRB

I am actually working on an IRB application as I type. My Mom sent this to me over the break, but I forgot to post it.

Dr. K Kringle
Adjunct Professor of Child Psychology
Far Northern University

Dear Dr. Kringle (Ph.D, M.D., D.O.? Please verify your credentials):
At the regularly scheduled December 24 meeting, the IRB reviewed your protocol, "A Global Observational Study of Behavior in Children" While we believe it has many good features, it could not be approved as submitted. If you choose to revise your study, please address the following IRB concerns:

1. You propose to study "children of all ages." Please provide an exact lower and upper age limit, as well as the precise number of subjects. Provide a statistically valid power calculation to justify this large of a study.

2. Your only inclusion criterion is "belief in Santa Claus." Please provide a copy of the screening questionnaire that determines such a belief. Provide a Waiver of Authorization under MPAA in order to record these beliefs prior to enrollment in your study. The Board recommends that you obtain a Certificate of Confidentiality as beliefs are sensitive and personal information.

3. You propose to "know when they are sleeping and know when they are awake." How will this be done? Will children undergo video monitoring in their beds? Will they have sleep EEGs? You list 100 elves as research assistants. Are any of them sleep physiologists? Please provide credentials of elves.

4. Your primary outcome measure is to "know when they've been bad or good." What standard is being used to determine "goodness"? Do children have to be good all year or just most of the time? Please specify required duration and provide the instrumentation, with appropriate consent forms, that will be used for operationally defining "goodness."

5. You propose to conduct your research by entering the subjects' homes through the chimney. Have you considered the liability potential, i.e., damage to the roof, carpeting, etc., that this will cause? Moreover, children are likely to be startled by your appearance late at night. Please revise your protocol to conduct your home visits between 9 am and 5 pm Monday through Friday with at least one parent being present and all risks and benefits carefully described.

6. You state that compensation for participation will be "sugarplums, candy, and toys" for the good little girls and boys. This may not be appropriate for the children with obesity, dental cavities, and hyperactivity. Also, your proposal to leave a lump of coal in the stockings of the bad children will be unfairly stigmatizing to them individually and as a group. In general, the Board suggests a small token of appreciation for all participants. Perhaps a $5 Toys-R-Us gift card would be more appropriate in order to avoid potential coercion.

7. The database of good and bad children will be kept "on a scroll at the North Pole." Please describe the location of the scroll and the security provisions you have in place to protect the data Is the scroll kept in a locked cabinet in a locked room? Who has access to the scroll? Are there backup copies of the scroll and how often are they compared to the original?

8. You mention the participation of "eight tiny reindeer" in your protocol. Please provide the Board with documentation of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee approval.

9. Please provide the Human Subjects Protection training dates for Mrs. Claus and the elves.

10. As this study involves prospective data collection and is more than minimal risk without prospect of direct benefit to the subjects, informed consent signed by both parents will be required. Please have the consent form translated into every language spoken by children and ensure that assent forms are signed by all.

Please submit 25 copies of your revised protocol to the IRB. The IRB will be on Holiday Season schedule for the next two weeks. If approved, you will be able to conduct your study sometime in the spring, if all items are appropriately addressed.

Sincerely,
E. Scrooge, MD

Chair, Institutional Review Board

Copyright 2006, David R. Karp