Couples Daily Interpersonal Experiences Study

Concerned About Confidentiality? Don’t be!

Sometimes in the course of conducting survey research with people, researchers ask for personal information like names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Sometimes, too, the researchers may ask questions of a personal nature. Keeping personally identifying information like names and numbers and keeping sensitive responses private and secure is taken very seriously by professional researchers today. Confidentiality refers to the control, security, and access of private information.

At the university level, researchers must have air-tight plans to protect participant confidentiality. It is the law that these plans must be approved by an independent committee charged with the responsibility of overseeing all research activity within the university. The main directive of these committees, known as Internal Review Boards (IRBs), is to protect human subjects—and that includes protecting subjects from confidentiality breaches. This process generally takes several weeks to complete. No potential security issue is left unaddressed.

The IRB must not only approve the questions being asked but they must also approve of the storage methods used for the data. Frequently, as is the case with the African American Daily Interpersonal Experiences Study, personal data is collected separately from the rest of the survey. Individual participants are assigned a record number in the data set and their name or other personal information is not associated with their responses. Each participant in a sense is anonymous as the data is examined in the aggregate and not at the individual level. At Loyola, our data is held in encrypted files on password protected servers and only the main investigators get clearance to access the data.

We work hard to protect your data and your identity because we respect your participation. If you have any questions about any of the research you decide to participate in, do not hesitate to ask about the security policy the researchers have in place. You have a right to be protected throughout the research process. When working with the Self and Social Interaction Lab, you can rest assured that we have gone to great lengths to protect your confidentiality.

For Loyola University's Statement Of Institutional Commitment visit: http://www.luc.edu/irb/irb_I.shtml

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