[Air-L] IRB and blogs

[Denise N. Rall]

Dear Andre -

Might as well weigh in here - 

I did anonymize my interviewees (four key participants). I chose one Hebrew name, one Spanish name, and two non-gendered names (Chris, Lee). I did not include any Muslim or Japanese names, as I didn't interview any Muslims or Japanese people.

However I will say from the point of reviewers that Participant A is a bit cumbersome, awkward and very tiring for the referree. In my situation, I had Case A, B, C, and D. Making Participant X, Case B a nightmare. It all gets too hard to read.

One older anthropological text I read used double initials, such as "A.B." which I found more reasonable to read, although again, with my cases labeled A, B, C, and D, was really not an option.

And finally, what is wrong with anonymizing according to the background of the participants, who may all be middle-class, white Anglo-Saxon. That's sad, but how many psychology studies have used white male and female college students for their tests over the years, the S.A.T.'s and so forth, included. Only today is that bias being addressed. My favourite statistic on that is that heart medication in the USA was tested on white males until the 1980s or even 90s. . . of course, women and African Americans had to take the drugs once 'approved' by men. Hah!

My study focussed on career paths so I made sure that I had participants from their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50+ - something that I thought more germane to my topic than ethnic (?) distribution which wasn't what I was measuring to begin with . . . 

FWIW, Denise






 
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Premier Participant, Lismore Art in the Heart
- Fibre Feast & Fantasy Exhibition - with the Lismore Spinners & Weavers
15 Oct - 23 December, adjacent to the Lismore Regional Gallery
in the former Left Bank cafe, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/