Mike Phillips
502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
Class Overview
Introduction
Class Video- Jim McDavid and Jim Macgregor
Human Research Ethics Form- Cosmo Howard
Quantitative Analysis- Lindsay Tedds
Next Week- Scope Review Due !
Introduction
This class was broken into the following parts:
 The first part was a detailed and descriptive review of human research ethics at the
University of Victoria and the School of Public Administration. We watched two
videos, reviewed the human ethics research form, and Jim McDavid gave us a short
lecture.
 The second part of class was a brief introduction to quantitative research methods.
 Finally, the class concludes with a discussion on how to use the template and its
embedded macros.
Last Week’s Wiki
To insert Powerpoint or other applications into your wiki you click: Insert- more plug-ins- office
apps.
Class Videos: Human Research Ethics
The videos walk you through the human research ethics policies and procedures at the School of
Public Administration by McDavid and Macgregor. The videos are located on the 598 resources
site which is being updated. Ethics are extremely important in research projects and many of us
will need to complete the ethics form for our 598 projects. You can get information on
research ethics and download the forms here by using your netlink id
https://www.uvic.ca/research/conduct/login.php?redir=/research/conduct/regapproval/hum
anethics/index.php
Video: Jim McDavid
The video outlines the essentials of the ethics policies and procedures. It gives you a big picture
understanding of seeking, completing and reviewing approval for ethics. All students and
faculty require either ethics approval or a waiver form before conducting research.
1) Policy mandate on conducting research involving human participants
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502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
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Ethics policies are designed by national research councils in collaboration with
individual universities such as UVic.
2) When to submit a full ethics application
Anytime you use primary data collection methods such as: surveys, interviews, focus
groups, tests, you need to submit an ethics application. As a general rule, anytime your
research involves human interaction of any sort, you should complete an ethics form.
The vast majority of us will need to complete this form. It is quite detailed and
requires a significant amount of time to prepare and complete.
3) When to submit a waiver application
 You are using only secondary data that is anonymous (private data)
 You are researching a living individual
 You are observing people who are seeking public visibility (Example. Politicians)
 You are observing people in public places
 Your research project is a part of a faculty member’s research and he or she has
already obtained ethics approval for the project
4) When not to submit any application
 You are conducting library based projects (now called data sources) such as
internet projects, and simply use information on websites that is publicly available
 Your research is for a Uvic department or school and focused on quality assurance
and control testing. This must be done for a client within the university and must
not become publicly available.
Class Video: Jim MacGregor
The video goes through the main aspects of applying for ethics approval and succeeding in the
process. 598’s are a slightly different process for ethics approval than the University Graduate
Studies ethics process.
University Process
Ethics Form Required
Supervisor
Ethics Office
Board Members Review
Takes 6 to 8 Weeks
598 Process
Ethics Form Required
Supervisor
Public Admn Ethics Reviewer (McDavid and
Good)
Chair of Ethics Board
Takes 3 to 4 weeks
Mike Phillips
502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
Research Ethics Form: Cosmo Howard
Most of us will need to complete this form for the 598 projects. This form takes a significant
amount of information and time to complete. It is important to plan ahead and prepare
accordingly in order to complete this form on time. It can be found by logging in with your
netlink id and is under the heading “Forms” and then “Standard Ethics Application”
https://www.uvic.ca/research/conduct/forms/index.php
A. Project Investigator- This is where you include your contact details and your
supervisor’s contact details.
B. Project information- This is where you state the basic information of the project
including: the start and end date of the project, the location of your study, key words
associated with your research project, and the names and roles of other research team
members.
C. Agreement and Signature- This is where you, your supervisor, and the ethics Chair
must sign the research ethics agreement. It requires the following conditions:

I have read this application and it is complete and accurate.

The research will be conducted in accordance with the University of Victoria
regulations, policies and procedures governing the ethical conduct of research
involving human participants.

The conduct of the research will not commence until Ethics approval has been
granted.
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The researcher(s) will seek further HREB review if the research protocol is
modified.
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Adequate supervision will be provided for students and/or staff.
D. Project funding- If you receive or apply for funding for a project you must declare it to
the Ethics Board.
E. Level of risk- As a general rule the benefits of your research must outweigh the costs.
Note: You should err on the side of caution and explain any risks associated with your
project regardless of how minor they are.
F. Scholarly review- For 598’s and 599’s we select box 2
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External Peer Review (e.g. granting agency)
Supervisory Committee or Supervisor—required for all student research projects
None
Other, please explain:
G. Other Approvals and Consultations
Do you need to seek approval from other agencies, community groups, First Nations,
local governments, etc? If yes, you are required to provide more specific information on
the group you are working with and your purpose for the research. You also need to
ensure that the people you have consulted are aware of your research intentionsGet it in writing!
H. Description of research project- This is where you say what the project is about
including the following:
 The objectives of the project and the research question.
 The importance and contributions of the project to the community.
 If applicable, any background or contextual information that helps the Human
Research Ethics Board understand the study.
I. Recruitment- This includes questions regarding:
 How are you going to recruit people, what types of populations are you recruiting,
and why are you interested in that specific population?
 What is the desired number of participants, what are the salient characteristics?
(age, gender, race, ethnicity etc.)
 How will you recruit/contact participants, what is your relationship with the
participants and from what sources will the participants be recruited?
 Power Over- Are you or any of your co-researchers in a position of authority over
your research subjects? If yes, describe the nature of the relationship, why is it
necessary to conduct research with participants over whom you have power, and
what safeguards will be taken to minimise inducement?
J. Data Collection Methods- Describe the logistics of your research including whether you
are going to be interviewing, observing, surveying, or recording participants. When
analyzing secondary, public data you do not need a waiver. You do need a waiver when
data that was used for previous purposes is now used for your own purpose.
K. Possible Inconveniences, Benefits, Risks, and Harms to Participants
 Inconveniences- not the same as risks and usually just involve time and travel
time.
 Estimates of risks- err on the side of being caution and make sure you are
transparent.
 Most serious is social risk because it involves the possible stigmatization, loss of
status, and privacy of individuals.
 Deception- you need to fully inform people.
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502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
L. Compensation- Are you compensating people for participating in your research? If so, it
can raise red flags and therefore it is advisable to provide an absolute minimum amount
of compensation for your research participants.
M. Free and Informed Consent- The following questions address the competence of
participants to give consent, the process used in your research to obtain consent, ongoing
consent, and the participants’ right to withdraw. Are you going to get signed, verbal,
implied or other consent? It is probably the most important part of the form.
Things to consider: Do not get rid of consent forms. For longitudinal studies you need to
continually get consent. How are participants going to be informed of their right to
withdrawal?
N. Anonymity and Confidentiality- It is composed of three terms:
 Anonymity - Do not know people in survey.
 Privacy- Participants are able to shield their life from you.
 Confidentiality- It is the way in which the data is handled and stored and includes
how you protect the identity of the individual.
O. Use and disposal of data- How are you going to use the data, will the data be analysed
for purposes other than this purpose? You need to explain how you will get consent for
other research projects and need to explain if you are keeping data. How do you plan to
disseminate the data?
P. Researchers- This section asks you whether there might be a conflict of interest during
your research study and ask what qualifications, if any, you have in order to carry out
your research. It also asks if there are any risks to the researcher from conducting your
research.
Q. Further or Special Questions- Depending on your proposed research methods, you
might be asked further information.
Jim McDavid:
McDavid quickly spoke to us about the following:
 The resource site for 598’s is being revised and updated and will be posted on the school
website. The School is considering hiring a 598 assistant to help us with our projects.
 Typically, students start to think more clearly about potential topics around their 2nd coop
so that by January 2011, we are in a position to start.
 You need to get written approval and clarification from your supervisor, your client, and
the ethics board. Verbal approval is not enough
 Not many people undertake a thesis (599), however if you want to do your PhD this is
something you might want to consider. It is more detailed and more in-depth including a
full literature review and must add new knowledge.
 Bottom Line- anytime you are interacting with other humans, colleagues, subordinates,
in your research you need to complete a full ethics review. It is also important to err on
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502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
the side of caution and ensure that your ethics application is detailed and accurate. Failure
to do so will slow down your research project.
Quantitative Research Methods
This is the last of the material for 502a and is just the tip of quantitative research- it really is an
umbrella term for anyone who uses data in research.
Overview of Quantitative Research:
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Qualitative vs. Quantitative- Video PC vs. Mac parody
Main Goals of Quant Research
Operationalization & Measurement
Types of Variables
Levels of Measurement (Variables)
Data & Statistics @ Uvic
Introduction
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Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Characteristics of quantitative analysis (502 b is a very small snapshot of quantitative
analysis)
o Numbers and statistics (counting) “We count beans. Which beans are worth
counting?”
o Objective, context-free, precise measurement, analysis of target, and clear and
conceptualized concepts.
o Researcher is separate from the data and is objective.
o One reality- (Positivists) one world, that makes the research a narrow focus
because you can generalize to the larger population.
o Representative- Quantitative research is heavily concerned with
representativeness and the importance of sampling.
o Efficient- The fact that quantitative research lacks contextual information it is
more efficient.
Main Goals of Quantitative Researchers
Measurement: What does it mean to measure? We need more parameters to achieve sound
measurement.
 Generalization- You need to be able to generalize from your data set to the larger
population. In your sample, it requires holding for people, places, and times and does
it apply to all people and all time and all places? If not, it is not generalizable.
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502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
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External Validity How sound your research is? It is sound if it explains and measure
what you said it would. You need to have an appropriate research design and method
and conceptualized variables that are also appropriate to the research question you’ve
asked. The degree to which you have generalizability, is the degree to which the
people places and time in your study are studying what you have intended to study.
Replication- This is an essential component of natural science methods and of vital
importance to quantitative research.
Reliability- Whether you can produce consistent results. Example smoking cessation
drugs and whether your overall conclusion is the same study after study.
Establishing causality- Not all times is there a need to establish causality- a lot of it
is descriptive.
o Internal Validity- flaws within the study such as not controlling the right
variable. Example: If you measure civic engagement by measuring voting
behavior you have only measured a part of civic engagement because voting is
only a part.
Research Question

Operationalizing Variables – This is really important and can seem easy to do but it
is super easy to have faulty measures.
Example: Measurement in terms of AIDS incident.
The UN traditionally measured infection rates among women receiving prenatal care. Can you
generalize HIV from this to the entire population? No, you can’t. This is an ecological fallacy.
This is because the participants are more likely to be young, more urban, and wealthier- because
they are accessing health care- and they are obviously sexually active.
 Measuring Variables
o Reliability
o Construct Validity
Types of Variables- Once you have operationalized and defined measurement you need to
classify your variables.
 Variables
o Categorical or Qualitative? Example: likert scales (strongly disagree, disagree
etc.) and the responses are given values (1, 2) and those values are used to
quantify and analyse the responses.
o Numerical or Quantitative?
o Discrete – set intervals, 1,2,3,4 etc.
o Continuous- income, every observation within that continuum.
Levels of Measurement
Data can be classified into one of four levels of measurement:
1. Nominal
 Qualitative variables that can only be classified into categories and counted
 Categories have no logical order- they are an indicator
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502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
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Categories are mutually exclusive and exhaustive
Atlantic
Canada
1
60
Quebec
2
316
Ontario
3
343
Prairies
4
114
B.C.
5
77
2. Ordinal
 Mutually exhaustive and exclusive categories, counted, and ranked but we can’t
distinguish the magnitude of the difference between the categories
 E.G. is “Always” twice as much as “Sometimes”?
Never
1
4
Sometimes 2
23
Frequently 3
27
Always
8
4
3. Interval
 Mutually exhaustive and exclusive categories, counted, and ranked and we can
distinguish the magnitude of the difference between the categories and the difference
between values is a constant size. Example: Temperature and dates
4. Ratio It is a hierarchal way of looking at the data and how you are going to display it in a
table and a graph. Categorical is different than quantitative.
 Mutually exhaustive and exclusive categories, counted, and ranked and we can
distinguish the magnitude of the difference between the categories and the difference
between values is a constant size
 The zero point is meaningful as is the ratio between two numbers
Mike Phillips
502a Week 10 Wiki Notes
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Most quantitative data fall into this category. Example: Income

For help with Data and Statistics sources, contact Kathleen Matthews, Data Services
Librarian to see if data exists already! It is probably better to access previous data
sets rather than you do it yourself and it will save heaps of time.
kmatthew@uvic.ca
http://library.uvic.ca/site/data/default.html
 Published statistics are available from a variety of print and online sources. Consult
the Libraries Subject Guides and you can also contact Inba.
For a quick overview, you can check statistics by topic from Statistics Canada.
For help in finding published statistics, Ask a Librarian, or contact the Subject
Librarian of your choice. http://webapp.library.uvic.ca/kb/?View=entry&EntryID=35
Next Week
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We are in the computer lab in the HSD basement (See Moodle)
Work through the Excel tutorials in advance
We will cover based data analysis techniques and practice them in the lab
Scope and Limitations
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Template – We all need to be quite familiar with the template. All of the formatting
is embedded in the template for you and all you have to do is enable macros…. but,
Words of Wisdom: “Do not screw this up.” This can cause a lot more work and a
lot more frustration.
We need to read and follow of our Scope Template. Everything you need is
already there- don’t make up anything on your own. One of the suggestions is that
the source should be turned on to highlight formatting errors. Do not delete page
breaks, or other items! Make sure you have a print copy.
Other key item, scope should include what will and will not be included in the
project- This is very important.
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