Title of Study: Civilian Secular/Spiritual Well-Being
Investigator: Ryan T. Cragun, Ph.D.; Joseph H. Hammer, M.Ed.; Karen Hwang, Ed.D
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of a scale designed to measure secular/spiritual well-being in those who have NOT served in the U.S. Military (those who have should consider participating in the "Military Secular/Spiritual Well-Being" study listed on the Center for Atheist Research website). You are only eligible to participate in this study if you are 18 years of age or older, speak fluent English, and do not have a significant cognitive disability which would impair your ability to complete the survey.
DESCRIPTION OF PROCEDURES
If you click the “I agree” button on this page to confirm your participation in this study, you will be linked to the online survey. Your participation is completely voluntary and will last between 15 and 35 minutes.
RISKS
We do not anticipate that these procedures will cause you any harm, but if you experience discomfort you may talk to the investigators about your concerns. You are free to skip any question that you do not wish to answer or that makes you feel uncomfortable. You are also free at any time to choose to end your participation. There will be no negative effects if you choose to skip a question or discontinue your participation in the study. If you choose to end your participation all data collected will be erased.
BENEFITS AND COMPENSATION
If you decide to participate in this study, there may be no direct benefit to you. It is expected that the information gained in this study will benefit the scientific research community by learning more about the validity of a scale designed to measure secular/spiritual well-being. You will not be compensated.
PARTICIPANT RIGHTS
Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you may refuse to participate or leave the study at any time. If you decide to not participate in the study or leave the study early, it will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The following procedures are in place to help maintain confidentiality. First, each survey will be randomly assigned a research identification number for the purposes of data collection and analysis. Only the researchers of this experiment will have access to the responses. The data will be stored on a password protected office computer, which is behind a locked door. If the results are published, your identity will remain confidential.
At the end of the survey, we will ask for your permission to contact you approximately six months from now to invite you to participate in Part 2 of this survey. If you give us permission, you will be asked to provide an email address where we can send the survey invitation. To protect your confidentiality, your email address will be stored in a password-protected file separate from all other data collected. This contact information stored in the protected file will be linked to your data only with an random identification number. Your contact information will be destroyed once follow-up data is merged with prior data.
Records identifying participants will be kept confidential to the extent permitted by applicable laws and regulations and will not be made publicly available. However, federal government regulatory agencies, auditing departments of University of Tampa, and the Institutional Review Board (a committee that reviews and approves human subject research studies) may inspect and/or copy your records for quality assurance and data analysis. These records may contain private information.