Needing a desperate break from the IRB was the heaviest straw in my decision not to enter the academic job market. Folks keep telling me that this institution or that institution is not that bad, but when I talk to folks, it depresses me beyond belief just what concessions academics are willing to make to make IRBs happy. It's never about better protecting subjects; instead, it's about better protecting fearful institutions. Research shouldn't be like that and most of the projects that I want to work on next would never fly through an IRB because of their necessary rogue nature. I'm playing by the rules in order to graduate, but I'm leaving academia because of it. I hope to come back at some point, but I won't return while working on projects involving teens. I also keep hearing of folks who work in industry who decide against graduate school because of IRB requirements - they feel more free to do research in industrial settings, even if they can't publish. That's depressing. On Aug 14, 2007, at 4:40 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
* * * Mary L. Gray, an anthropologist at Indiana University at Bloomington, described her work in graduate school, which raised all kinds of red flags with her IRB at the time.....
Gray said that "IRB fatigue" is discouraging researchers - especially graduate students - from even trying to get projects approved. * * *