Protection of Human Subjects

Who reviews the research

Your institution decides whether its administration of a Thriving Quotient instrument requires review by your institutional review board and whether it qualifies for an exemption. That determination belongs to your IRB, not to The Thriving Project. We simply supply the validated instrument, administer the survey when your package includes administration, and return your results. Most campuses find that a survey of their own students for institutional improvement is handled as an exempt educational survey, but your IRB makes that call. Human-subjects guidance for the instrument is available on request, and we will supply psychometric information and a sample copy of the instrument, should your IRB require it.

Voluntary participation and consent

Participation is voluntary. Continuation of the survey after the opening paragraph of informed consent is considered consent to include their responses. Respondents may skip questions or stop at any time, and a respondent who does not complete the survey is simply not counted. The invitation and the survey's opening screen tell respondents what the survey is for and how their data will be used, roughly how long it takes, any incentives the institution is offering, and that participation is voluntary.

The survey's opening screen reads:

Thank you for participating in this national survey of students’ experiences. This survey should take you less than 15 minutes to complete. By continuing with the survey, you agree to participate in this research about student thriving in college. No individual information will ever be reported; only grouped data will be reported to your institution. Your responses will help your institution better understand how to serve students. Because we value your time and input, those who provide their email addresses at the end of the survey will be entered into a drawing for several gift cards. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary, and you may discontinue the survey at any point. Once gift cards have been awarded, we will remove all email addresses from the database.

Confidentiality

Responses are confidential, not anonymous: they are identifiable to our team. Individual responses are never reported back to your institution in a way that identifies a respondent, and no subgroup is reported at all unless it contains at least 30 respondents — a stricter threshold than the 5 or 10 commonly used in higher education reporting.

Free-text comments are reported verbatim to the institution in a separate file that is completely de-identified, disconnected from any student identifiers and from all other survey responses, and alphabetized to protect student privacy. In the Thriving Campus Package, a thematic analysis of comments is also provided as part of the webinar.

How the data is handled

With the Basic Report Package, your campus distributes the survey link and responses return directly to The Thriving Project; your institution does not host or process the data. With the Expanded Report Package and The Thriving Campus Package, the survey is administered for you through our Qualtrics platform. Your institution may choose to administer the survey itself as part of any package, however. Your institution's results belong to your institution. De-identified responses also contribute to the national norms that make comparison reporting possible.

Individual responses are merged into the national database with all personal identifiers removed. This national database is kept indefinitely. The institution's database is then de-identified and remains with the institution. Any reports, publications, or presentations only report grouped data, never identifiable either by institution or by individual.

Researchers

Use of an instrument in a dissertation or research study requires written permission from Dr. Schreiner, obtained through the researcher proposal first. Researchers remain responsible for their own institution's IRB approval. See For Researchers.

Questions

Write to [email protected], or to Dr. Schreiner at [email protected] for research permissions. See also our Privacy Policy.