Participant Consent Form

This study on ways of conferencing for professional learning is part of the “Evaluation of Individual Pedagogical and Technological Perspectives Across Educational Contexts” research project, that is being conducted by Dr. Valerie Irvine, who is director of the Technology Integration and Evaluation (TIE) Research Lab at the University of Victoria.

Purpose and Objectives

The purpose of this research project is to:
  • to document individual perspectives and experiences with technologies for learning,
  • to document individual perspectives and experiences regarding different forms of learning design,
  • to explore variables that influence their perceptions and practices with technologies and learning, and/or
  • to inform theory and research about learning design and technologies.

Importance of this Research

As we adopt new approaches to learning design and/or practices integrating technology, we need to learn more about perceptions and experiences and the factors that affect them. The results could help to determine how we can make improvements to educational practices.

Participant Selection

You are being asked to participate in this study because you are a participant in a scholarly/professional conference.
What is Involved

If you agree to voluntarily participate in this research, your participation will include the completion of demographic questions and a 10-minute survey on the topic of your delivery mode preferences for your courses and programs and your perceptions around online learning. In addition, some participants may be invited separately for an optional interview or focus group. Follow-up contact will be made using the contact information provided below. You may be invited to participate in a follow-up survey, focus group, or interview at some point in the future based on your responses. All components of this research will use technologies that will allow you to participate remotely (online web-conferencing, telephone, online surveys). You will not be required to attend any in-person meetings. There are no known or anticipated risks.

Voluntary Participation/You Can Withdraw at Any Time

Your participation in this research must be completely voluntary and you may withdraw anytime without any consequences. If you do withdraw from the study, then any data received would be withdrawn from the study unless you agree to the use of your data, or if it is logistically impossible to remove individual participant data in which case data will be used in summarized form with no identifying information. Any compensation received would be unaffected. To withdraw from the study, please use the contact information at the end of this form.

Anonymity & Confidentiality

In terms of protecting your anonymity, no disclosure of personal identity will be made in any presentation or publication of the survey or interview/focus group results, unless you specifically request otherwise.

We will protect confidentiality in the following ways:
  • Data will be summarized and stored in a spreadsheet that will identify participants by a random case number rather than by name.
  • Data reported in publications and presentations will be summarized across students for survey data, or presented using pseudonyms in for interview or focus group data

Dissemination of Results/How Data Will Be Used

Findings from this study will be shared in any of the following ways: academic publications and presentations, student thesis work, reports to OTESSA, professional organizations, government, education administrators or instructors, professional development materials, or the media. Other planned uses of this data include reanalysis for future research questions that may arise. These research questions will be limited to topics associated with education and access to data will be limited to research affiliates (i.e., graduate students and faculty members) who sign a statement of confidentiality. For example, the participant data collected in one year could be compared with responses from participants collected in an earlier year. Furthermore, it could be compared with participants responses received from another group or combined with a similar data set.
Storage and Disposal of Data

Data will be encrypted and password-protected. Any paper printouts will be stored in a locked cabinet or secured space. Key codes will be used to separate personal information from raw data whenever possible. Anonymized digital data will be created under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license to ensure ongoing access is available for public good and may be kept in a secured Canadian data repository. This is indefinite to support federal initiatives to create open data sharing for knowledge development.

Please be advised that this research study includes additional data storage outside of Canada (e.g., the U.S.A.). For example, during the data collection and analysis phase, various tools hosted outside of Canada will be used, such as SurveyMonkey for survey data, Zoom, or other participant-preferred video tools for online interviews or focus groups, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365 for collaborative access to files, Dedoose, NVivo, and similar tools for analysis, and YouTube, Wordpress, or similar tools for dissemination. As such, there is a possibility that anonymized information about you that is gathered for this research study may be accessed without your knowledge or consent by the U.S. government, in compliance with the U.S. Freedom Act. Please note that we will only upload anonymized data we collect unless you request otherwise.

Contacts

If you have any questions about this study, you may contact Dr. Valerie Irvine, Director, Technology Integration and Evaluation Research Lab, at 250-721-7778 or virvine@uvic.ca. In addition, you may verify the ethical approval of this study (citing ethics protocol number 19-0074), or raise any concerns you might have, by contacting the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Victoria (250-472-4545 or ethics@uvic.ca).

Question Title

* 1. Selecting 'Yes, I consent' below indicates that you understand the above conditions of participation in this study, have had the opportunity to have your questions answered by the researchers, and give consent to participate.

Do you consent to participate in this survey?

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