Tribal College and University Research Journal — Volume 2 Leilani Ignacio, Bobby Lind, Hiram Small Leggs, Marie Washington, Colleen Berg, Dave Oreiro, & William L. Freeman
questions might trigger an emotional reaction. The same procedure used to distribute gift cards was used to notify a counselor that an identified student asked for help while preventing researchers from knowing any individual’s identity. The IRB taught the students how to apply for an IRB review and attend the IRB meeting. The students helped draft the online Informed Consent process and document. The IRB reviewed the research team plan, the draft of the online consent process and document, and the recruitment poster, requiring a few minor changes and approving the final plan. As noted previously, the answers to the “Other” questions were analyzed as qualitative data. A quick review by two mentors of some answers to the “Other” questions found that some students’ responses contained identifying information. We were quite concerned that such answers might link their identity with answers to questions asking about sensitive issues. The team discussed this issue ourselves and with the IRB. As a result of those discussions, we deleted all answers to the “Other” questions from the basic database used by the team, and assigned one mentor/faculty, the first author of this article, to conduct the qualitative analysis. The qualitative database was then stored separately from the main database, with no links to the quantitative database and with other special, additional protections.
Implementing the Survey The student researchers were instrumental in recruiting NWIC students to take the survey. The student researchers developed the recruitment poster, posted the recruitment poster widely on campus, and personally recruited classmates and fellow students in class. We launched the approved and finalized survey on March 19, 2015. NWIC students were solicited by posters in campus buildings, by repeated direct e-mails, and by way of conversations with student researchers. Students who answered at least the
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