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Gwinnett County Public Schools

GCPS Research Standards

GCPS Institutional Review Board Research Standards

  1. The proposed research has sufficient value for the district (i.e., aligns with the district’s strategic plan) and is consistent with district legal obligations.

  2. Proposals conform to customary principles of educational research and scientific inquiry
    1. foundation in theory or prior research
    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
    3. clear research questions or hypotheses
    4. appropriate number of participants to achieve research goals
    5. valid research design
      1. quantitative studies
        1. external: results will be generalizable to a defined population
        2. internal: results may largely be attributed to the treatment
      2. qualitative studies: clear grounding in qualitative research theory
        1. valid and reliable instrumentation
  3. Requests for district data prioritize feasibility, preventing undue burden on district staff by promoting efficient and manageable data collection and transfer processes.
    1. Teacher, student, or staff time, or loss of instructional time or focus is minimized and not deemed to be overly burdensome.
    2. The collection of personal information about students or their families does not include information beyond that which is necessary to answer the research question.
    3. Data collection is not scheduled to begin until written approval is issued by the Executive Director of Research, Evaluation, and Analytics.
  4. Internal researchers have thoroughly addressed any potential or foreseeable conflict of interest concerns.
  5. 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.
  6. Proposals are professionally written and are formatted and submitted according to GCPS requirements.