GCPS Institutional Review Board Research Standards

1. The proposed research has sufficient value for the district (i.e., aligns with the GCPS Strategic Initiatives & Priorities and supports the district research agenda and/or meaningfully contributes to a discipline important to education) and is consistent with district legal obligations.

2. Proposals conform to customary principles of educational research and scientific inquiry

    2.1. foundation in theory or prior research

    2.2. convincing and logical purpose statement or statement of the problem that demonstrates substantial need and value to educators, educational stakeholders, or the research community

    2.3. clear research questions or hypotheses

    2.4. appropriate number of participants to achieve research goals

    2.5. valid research design

        2.5.1. quantitative studies

            2.5.1.1. external: results will be generalizable to a defined population

            2.5.1.2. internal: results may largely be attributed to the treatment

        2.5.2. qualitative studies: clear grounding in qualitative research theory

    2.6.valid and reliable instrumentation

3. Teacher, student, or staff time, or loss of instructional time or focus is minimized.

4. The collection of personal information about students or their families does not
include information beyond that which is absolutely necessary to answer the
research question.

5. Data collection is not scheduled to begin until written approval is issued by the
Executive Director of Research, Evaluation, and Analytics.

6. Proposals are coherent, complete, and provide sufficient information on which to
base approval including all survey questionnaires, informed consent letters, and data
collection instruments and protocols.

7. Proposals are formatted and submitted according to GCPS requirements.

8. Proposals are professionally written.