1. Is student participation in SOLSTICE compulsory if enrolled in a SOLSTICE-participating course?
While we hope students and faculty will join the SOLSTICE grant, enrollment is not mandatory. Students have the choice of consenting to the study when completing the IRB Consent Form above.
2. How can the study be anonymous if surveys and assessments collect student names?
All student responses remain anonymous to faculty and instructors of their enrolled course and principal investigators of the SOLSTICE grant. Only the Research Coordinator has access to names of student participants.
3. How will student personal, private information be protected during the study?
After completing surveys and assessments, the Research Coordinator will assign every student participant a study identification number. The student's name will be replaced with this identification number to protect student privacy. Even after de-identification, survey results and assessments will not be distributed to faculty and instructors. However, de-identified results will be shared with Principal Investigators on the SOLSTICE grant.
4. What is the student time commitment for SOLSTICE?
Completion of consent forms will take no more than 5 minutes. All surveys and assessments have been designed to take no more than 15 minutes each. This means that baseline information will be recorded in ~30 minutes, end-of-term progress information will be recorded in ~30 minutes, and follow-up information will be recorded in ~15 minutes.
5. What is the faculty time commitment for SOLSTICE?
Faculty are asked to participate in the SOLSTICE grant for two years (or two semesters of the same course). The first year will serve as a pilot year where faculty will be asked simply to administer SOLSTICE surveys, assessments, and consent forms as described above. In the second year, faculty will be asked to incorporate elements of the SOLSTICE approach into their course curricula and once again administer surveys, assessments, and consent form as in the prior year. We will use student progression in the pilot and SOLSTICE-enriched courses to evaluate benefits of the SOLSTICE approach.
