IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 63

reviews, has demonstrated that,
through the micro-management of
IRBs, many of them control the
operational autonomy of qualitative
social-science researchers. Additionally, it can be concluded that
they are not aware of qualitative
techniques, and evaluate qualitative social-science research within
the framework of quantitative techniques. For instance, in example
1, the researcher was told by the
IRB to convert his research questions into a hypothesis, to conduct
an anonymous survey, and also to
conduct face-to-face interviews.
Similarly, in examples 3 and 5, the
IRB asked for the exact instrument,
which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of qualitative socialscience research. Also in example
3, the IRB requested the amendment to the researcher selection of
study sites. The researcher studying
tenure (example 5) was instructed
by IRB to change her recruitment
strategy of female subjects. Example 2 shows that the IRB was not
aware that snowball sampling is an
accepted qualitative technique.
When IRBs are slow in approving applications, the qualitative
social-science researchers' operational autonomy to carry out the
research as they see fit is adversely
affected and research suffers. As
example 4 shows, the IRB took five
months to request the modification.
In example 3, the IRB took eight
months to approve the application.
The examples also show that
informed consent, risks, and confidentiality assurances create apprehension among human subjects.
Further, it places qualitative socialscience researchers in an extremely
uncomfortable and defensive position (examples 9 and 10). Moreover,
by requiring calculations of risk and
benefit, which are not appropriate or feasible, IRBs impose limits to the operational autonomy of
the researchers. When this is coupled with complex legal informed
consents, which do not take the
human subjects' actual context into

consideration (example 8), it has the
potential to skew qualitative socialscience research findings.
Often, IRBs have interfered with
qualitative social-science researchers' strategic autonomy. To receive
approval, the researcher in example 5
assured the IRB that she would transcribe interviews personally, rather
than have them transcribed by others. In example 3, the IRB required
that the transcribers were listed as
investigators on the project proposal, which is the prerogative of the
researchers on the basis of the intellectual contributions to the project.
Academic institutions have been
characterized as autonomous organizations in which faculty members
enjoy a high degree of autonomy
from a centralized administrative
control. Professional autonomy
theory states that social-science faculty members engaged in qualitative
research have a systematic body of
relevant knowledge without which
they cannot perform research. The
studies that they are engaged in cannot be performed by researchers who
lack similar knowledge and training
in qualitative research. Faculty members have competence in carrying
out qualitative research with proper
notions of success and failure. Their
knowledge of qualitative research
is not static; instead, the knowledge
base continues to grow as new conclusions from the same information
immerge and errors are removed.
These faculty members understand
how to perform qualitative research
and why, under some circumstances,
they should follow one technique
rather than another. Therefore, it is no
surprise that faculty expect to initiate
and conclude qualitative research by
controlling the substance, method,
and pace of their work. They seek
to make their own decisions without pressure from those who are not
members of that profession.
Within academic institutions,
however, IRBs control research involving human subjects, ensuring
compliance with federal regulations
for government-funded as well as

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

non-funded or privately-funded research. Scholarly literature reviews
and empirical examples have both
indicated that IRBs tend to follow a
fixed checklist, and therefore, misread the qualitative research design,
seek meaningless clarifications, and
ultimately delay the start of research.
IRBs consist of reviewers who may
be of any rank in any field and thus
may know little about qualitative
social science research. In terms of
successfully carrying out qualitative
research, the aspects of research that
IRBs view as problematic may not
coincide with what a faculty member
views as problematic. IRBs tend to
assume that they are better trained
to evaluate qualitative research and
manage qualitative data than faculty themselves. Faculty members
are accountable for their academic
fields, the standards of qualitative
inquiry, colleagues, and the public.
As professionals, they must base
their research on the best practices of
qualitative inquiry, which are subject
to scrutiny by their peers in order to
maintain research quality. Generally,
faculty do not intentionally cut corners in qualitative research and make
errors that can be fixed only by IRBs.
The main mechanism used to
minimize risk to human subjects is
the use of informed consent. However, the basis of informed consent
is rooted in the philosophy of rights
to information. Essentially, through
subjects' informed consent, IRBs
are assigning full liability to participants for damages suffered by them
during the research process. Realistically, this does not protect human
subjects. However it does protect the
institutions from possible litigation.
In qualitative research, human subjects are protected when the faculty
treats them ethically. Such ethical
notions are a part of professional
discretion and represent a key part of
what it means to be a professional.

IRBs are not
Functioning Constructively
It can be concluded that IRBs play
a significant role in biomedical and
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014