"How's my PI?" Study

You are invited to participate in a voluntary research study. The purpose of this study is to gather basic information on perceptions of the social, emotional, and behavioral skills of principal investigators at research universities.

What procedures are involved?

Using an on-line platform, we will also ask you questions about your PI’s social, emotional, and behavioral skills, the climate and culture at your university and in your lab. In addition, we’ll ask some questions about you so we know more about you. We also will not ask for the identity of your supervisor so this study will in no way impact your principal investigator nor you.

Participating in this study will involve completing online surveys. Your participation should take approximately 30-40 minutes.

What are the potential risks and discomforts?

There are no known risks related to this research beyond those experienced in daily life: benefits related to this research including helping us to develop better feedback information to provide to principal investigators participating in leadership development programs. There is no in-person contact or risk of exposure to COVID-19.

Principal Investigator name and title: C. K. Gunsalus, Director, Principled Leadership and Research Ethics
Department and institution: Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Contact Information: gunsalus@illinois.edu

Will my study-related information be kept confidential?

Your responses will be anonymous and/or confidential depending on whether you sign up for the drawing. If you choose to participate in the drawing and provide your contact information, we will use all reasonable efforts to keep your personal information confidential, but we cannot guarantee absolute confidentiality. When this research is discussed or published, no one will know that you were in the study. But, when required by law or university policy, identifying information may be seen or copied by: a) The Institutional Review Board that approves research studies; b) The Office for Protection of Research Subjects and other university departments that oversee human subjects research; c) University and state auditors responsible for oversight of research

Will I be reimbursed for any expenses or paid for my participation?

We appreciate your willingness to participate and hope that you find the experience interesting. As a reward for your participation, we will provide you with immediate feedback about where your PI scores on social, emotional, and behavioral skills, and where you score on personality traits compared to other researchers.

Can I withdraw or be removed from the study?

If you decide to participate, you are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue participation at any time. Your participation in this research is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate, or to withdraw after beginning participation, will not affect your current or future dealings with the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. The researchers also have the right to stop your participation in this study without your consent if they believe it is in your best interests, you were to object to any future changes that may be made in the study plan.

Will data collected from me be used for any other research?

Your data will not be used for other research outside of this project, however the data collected will be aggregated and used to inform training materials, publications, and research within the scope of this project. All identifying personal information removed and no direct quotes or any identifying information will be used.

Who should I contact if I have questions?

If you have questions about this project, you may contact Brent Roberts bwrobrts@illinois.edu. If you have any questions about your rights as a participant in this study or any concerns or complaints, please contact the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office for the Protection of Research Subjects at 217-333-2670 or via email at irb@illinois.edu. If you would like to complete a brief survey to provide OPRS feedback about your experiences as a research participant, please follow the link here or through a link on the OPRS website: https://oprs.research.illinois.edu/. You will have the option to provide feedback or concerns anonymously or you may provide your name and contact information for follow-up purposes.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Notice/Consent

The University of Illinois Web Privacy Notice and Supplemental Privacy Notice for certain persons in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom describe in detail how the University processes personal information.

To assist in the analysis of our research, we ask in the following section certain questions about you. Some of the demographic questions pertain to special categories of personal information under Article 9 of the GDPR. As with all of the questions in the survey, answering the questions involving special categories of personal information is completely voluntary.

The legal basis for collecting the special category personal information is consent, which you may withdraw at any time; however, doing so will not affect the processing of your personal information before your withdrawal of consent.

I consent to the collection, use, retention (including through the use of cloud storage services hosted by third parties); and sharing with the research team of personal information concerning my:

I understand that even if I answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, I may still choose not to answer the associated survey questions. However, if I answer “no” to any or all of these questions but provide the information in the survey anyway, the conflict will be resolved by deleting my special category information.