I received a first round of clarification requests for my IRB application, which was quite extensive. I suppose this was to be expected, since this was my first IRB application attempt. The requests did bring to light many areas in my proposed initial study that I had not fully thought out, so going through this process is clearly useful. This did mean that I had to once again put off active production of the project and focus on fine tuning my study design, which I am now realizing I have not yet discussed in this blog.

My initial study proposed inviting individuals with airport-related anxieties, or those with persons close to them that experience airport related anxieties, to participate in a two-part study. The first would involve an interview that could serve to better inform the design of CYO Airport Story. The second would involve having participants interact with the first iteration of CYO Airport Story, followed by a response survey that focused on their experience. I proposed a 3-week gap between the first and second parts of this study. I also mentioned that individuals could participate on either part or on both parts. My reasoning for this design was to cast a wider net on potential participants and to provide flexibility for the participants and for myself. The level of engagement was left to the individual to decide and I would be able to make project adjustments based on the initial interview, before showing participants the first iteration of CYO Airport Story.

I learned that there were several issues with this proposal, the main one being that any individuals that would be discussed by the participants would also have to sign consent forms, which would prove to be much more complicated than I had hoped. For this reason, I decided to narrow the potential participant pool down to individuals with airport-related anxieties specifically. Dividing the study into these two parts is also overly complicated, so I will be doing a 1-part study only that involves an interview and a less formal preview of CYO Airport Story followed by a survey. I also needed to work through the specifics of how I will be recruiting. I do want to focus on neurodivergent individuals but it is important to make this project open to anyone with airport-related anxietes, included neurodivergent individuals. This approach was initially suggested by my advisor as a way to simplify the IRB Application process, though I am seeing that this is generally a better approach.