Eek, IRB approval still has not come. At this point, best case scenario—we finish conducting studies end of week 9. Not ideal but nothing I can do. At least we spent this entire week getting extremely ready so that when IRB approval does come, we pounce.

I talked about being slightly concerned about participant fatigue with Dylan and Tian’s study last week. Turns out, the 20 videos? Not so bad. I got invited to do a pilot study with them myself this week and it went by quickly, just under 30 minutes. Yesterday during the team meeting, Dylan and Tian told us that they adjusted the format of their study design so that participants won’t have to keep switching back and forth between the zoom and survey and that they will instead embed the videos within the survey. I think that will be much more convenient on both ends; a good idea on their part.

We are watching a movie today—the PhD Movie 2! It seems comical, at least from the trailer. On the topic of PhDs, I am not sure if I still want to pursue one, at least right out of undergrad. There are just so many interesting things to explore, and I don’t know how I can commit to the in depth study of just one thing for a really long time. And now that we’ve been in this slump waiting for IRB approval the past 2+ weeks, I don’t know if I will be able to handle the slow times in grad school. Perhaps people have smaller side projects they work on or courses they assist in or journal clubs they attend, other people to talk to in person. And I know it’s the process that’s important, but I also really care about the end goal or the product.

I was at Shaw’s this morning (before work) with my mom, and Shaw’s was having this July 4th weekend sale where a bunch of groceries had discounts if you downloaded their app. So you download the app using their in-store wifi and then sign up with your email and “clip” all the discounts you want to apply in your account. Then, when you go checkout, you have the cashier scan your individual QR code and all the discounts are automatically applied. I couldn’t help but notice the ease with which this entire process unfolded. The app downloaded quickly, its use was self explanatory, super easy, and just overall smooth execution. These days where every corporation has their own app, usually chock-full of bugs and essentially unusable, this Shaw’s app—definitely 5 stars. The designers and developers of the application put a lot of thought and effort into this product and it’s very cool. Anyways, my point is—I think product-oriented research suits my palate…but uh, I do see I’ve strayed very off topic here…

Anyways, vacation this upcoming week and we’ll see if we have any studies done by the end of week 8!