RES 6013 Module 5 Research Ethics Plan and Proposal Outline Example

Studying Nurses I Helped Train: Ethical Protections and a Proposal Outline for a Mixed Methods Study of First-Year Turnover in Small Rural Hospitals

Student Name

American College of Education

RES6013: Research Methods

Module 5 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 9, 2026

Introduction

Over four modules, my study of why new nurses leave small rural hospitals has gained a paradigm, a problem statement, a design and a sampling plan. Each step raised ethical questions that this final paper gathers in one place. The study is not dangerous in the way a drug trial can be, but it asks nurses to talk about their workplaces, sometimes critically, to a researcher who helped train many of them, in towns small enough that a quotation can identify its speaker. The first part of this paper applies the principles of research ethics to those risks. The second assembles the proposal outline.

The Principles That Apply

My plan starts from the Belmont Report (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979), whose three principles I read here in practical terms. Respect for persons, for this study, means a nurse can say no to me without consequence and knows what she is agreeing to. Beneficence means the interviews should not leave anyone worse off for having talked. Justice means that the new nurses who give their time should see something come back to them and to the nurses hired after them. Working through these three in the setting of my own hospitals proves more useful than reciting them.

Respect for Persons: Consent and the Insider Problem

Many potential participants in the interview phase completed the residency program I run. A nurse who still works at one of the hospitals may feel unable to refuse a request from me, and one who left may feel she owes me an explanation. Unluer (2012), reflecting on research in her own workplace, observed that insider researchers gain access and trust that outsiders lack but also face role conflict and the risk that participants tell them what they think they want to hear. For this study, the insider problem is not a side issue but the main threat to free consent.

Four steps address it. Invitations will come from the human resources office, not from me. The consent form will state plainly that taking part or declining will have no effect on employment, references or future contact with the residency program. Current employees will be interviewed off site or by video, outside work hours. And I will not interview any nurse I currently supervise or precept; those interviews, if needed, will be conducted by a trained colleague from the university.

Consent itself must be understood, not only signed. Grady (2015) reviewed evidence that participants often misunderstand long, complex consent documents and argued for shorter forms and processes that check understanding. My consent form will be two pages in plain language, and I will ask each participant to describe in her own words what the study involves before she signs.

Beneficence: Risks and Their Management

The main risks are emotional and social. Talking about a difficult first year can be distressing, especially for nurses who left after a medication error or conflict with a coworker. Participants may stop or skip any question, and each will receive a list of free counseling resources, including the employee assistance program for current staff. The social risk is identification. In a 25-bed hospital in a county of 10,000 people, a quotation that mentions a unit, a shift and a family situation can identify a nurse to her former manager. Quotations will be stripped of identifying details, hospitals will not be named and any quotation that could identify its speaker will be shown to the participant for approval or withdrawn.

The survey phase raises a different risk: linking survey answers to employment records. If a hospital could see a nurse's answers, she might face consequences for criticism. The linking code described in Module 4 is held only by me, and hospitals will receive only summary results for groups of at least 10 nurses.

Incentives Without Pressure

Interview participants will receive a $40 gift card, and survey participants a $10 card. Head (2009) examined the ethics of paying participants in qualitative research and noted that payment can recognize the value of people's time and widen participation, while raising questions about whether it shapes who takes part and what they say. The amounts here are modest relative to an hour of a nurse's pay, and the card will be given whether or not the participant completes the interview, so that no one feels obliged to continue in order to be paid.

Justice: Who Bears the Burden

Justice asks whether the people who carry the study's burdens will share its benefits. New nurses in small rural hospitals give their time and stories; the findings are meant to improve their working conditions and those of the nurses who follow them. To keep that promise, a plain-language summary will go to every participant, and the participating hospitals will receive a report with recommendations. Including leavers, who are often left out of workplace research, also serves justice, since their experiences are the ones the problem statement most needs.

Withdrawal and Data Retention

Participants may withdraw at any point. An interview participant who withdraws before analysis begins will have her recording and transcript destroyed; after themes are developed, her data can be removed from quotations and the audit trail, though her contribution to themes already formed cannot be fully undone, and the consent form will say so. Survey participants may withdraw until their responses are linked to 12-month employment status, after which the data are coded and cannot be traced back. De-identified transcripts and survey data will be kept for three years after the study ends, the period the IRB is expected to require, and then destroyed. No data will be shared with the hospitals at the individual level.

IRB Review

The study will go to the university's IRB and, through a reliance agreement, cover the participating hospitals. I expect expedited review, since the study involves minimal risk and uses interviews and surveys, but the insider relationship and the linking of survey data to employment records may lead the board to ask for changes. No recruitment will begin before approval. Any change to the protocol after approval, such as adding hospitals, will be submitted as an amendment first.

Proposal Outline

Chapter 1, Introduction, will present the problem statement and its evidence from Module 2, the purpose statement, the three research questions, definitions of key terms and the significance of the study for hospitals, communities and nursing education. Chapter 2, Literature Review, will cover first-year nurse turnover and its measurement, transition to practice, rural nursing work environments and the gap left by studies of larger hospitals, along with the theoretical framework of transition shock. Chapter 3, Methodology, will state the pragmatic paradigm from Module 1 and the exploratory sequential design from Module 3, describe both phases' sampling and data collection from Module 4, explain qualitative analysis, survey development, the logistic regression and integration through a joint display and close with the ethical protections described here and the study's limitations. Chapters 4 and 5, written after data collection, will report findings by phase and integration and discuss their meaning, implications and recommendations.

Conclusion

The ethical plan treats the insider relationship as the study's main risk and builds consent, interviewing and reporting around it, while managing emotional and identification risks and keeping incentives free of pressure. The proposal outline shows how each module of this course becomes part of a dissertation able to explain early departures from these hospitals and point leaders to reasons they can address.

References

Grady, C. (2015). Enduring and emerging challenges of informed consent. New England Journal of Medicine, 372(9), 855-862. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra1411250

Head, E. (2009). The ethics and implications of paying participants in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 12(4), 335-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570802246724

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/index.html

Unluer, S. (2012). Being an insider researcher while conducting case study research. The Qualitative Report, 17(29), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2012.1752