What to Write About IRB Approval in Chapter 3 of Your Thesis or Dissertation

The ethics section of Chapter 3 is short, and examiners read it with care. It has one job: to show that the people who took part in your study were protected, and that an independent body agreed your plan could go ahead before you collected anything. Students who treat it as a formality tend to leave out the details that a committee member will ask about at the defense.

This article covers what to write once you have approval. For the steps to get approval, see our guide to IRB approval step by step. Where your university uses the term ethics committee or research ethics board, the same points apply.

What the section reports

A complete ethics section answers six questions.

Which board approved the study, and when? Give the full name of the institutional review board, the approval number, and the approval date. A sentence is enough: "The study was approved by the [University name] Institutional Review Board on [date], approval number [number]." Take these from your approval letter and copy them exactly. Many programs also ask for the letter in an appendix, so check your template.

What category of review did it receive? If your approval letter says the study was exempt, expedited, or reviewed by the full board, say so. The category tells the reader how the board judged the risk to participants.

How did you recruit participants? Describe how people were approached and by whom. Say whether any relationship existed between you and the participants, such as a manager and an employee or a teacher and a student, and how you kept that from pressuring anyone to take part.

How was consent obtained? Say what participants were told, how they agreed, and in what form. Most boards require that participants understand the purpose of the study, what they will be asked to do, the risks and benefits, how their information will be protected, that taking part is voluntary, and that they can withdraw. Report whether consent was written, electronic, or recorded verbally, and that participants received a copy.

How was confidentiality protected? For qualitative work, this means pseudonyms, removal of identifying details from transcripts, and who had access to recordings. For quantitative work, it means whether responses were anonymous or coded, and how the key linking codes to names, if one existed, was held.

How are the data stored, and for how long? Say where files are kept, how they are protected, such as encrypted or password-protected storage, and when they will be destroyed. Use the retention period your IRB or university sets, and not a figure of your own.

Writing it so it fits your study

The test used on every other part of Chapter 3 applies here. Could the paragraph appear unchanged in anyone else's dissertation? If so, add your own details. "Participants were informed of their rights" tells the reader nothing. "Each participant received a consent form by email and returned a signed copy before the first interview, and the researcher reviewed the form again at the beginning of each session" tells them exactly what happened.

Describe what you did, in the past tense, and not what you planned. The IRB application describes a plan. By Chapter 3 you are reporting practice. If something differed, such as a recruitment method that had to change or an interview held by phone and not in person, write what happened and note the approval for the change. Our article on Chapter 3 explains why reporting the real procedure matters across the whole chapter.

If your participants belong to a group that needs additional protection, such as minors, patients, prisoners, or employees of an organization you work for, say what safeguards the board required and how you applied them.

When the study changes after approval

Changes to the sample, the instruments, the recruitment method, or the timeline usually need the board's approval before you act on them. If a change was approved, report it with its date. If you made a change that needed approval and did not obtain it, speak to your chair and your IRB before you write another word, because the data may be affected.

Common mistakes

• Giving the approval number but not the date, or the reverse.
• Describing consent and confidentiality steps that differ from the application. The committee may have the application, and your IRB certainly does.
• Saying that data are anonymous when the study used names, recordings, or any code that can be linked back to a person.
• Leaving out the data retention and destruction plan.
• Placing the approval statement only in an appendix, with nothing in the chapter itself.
• Reporting steps you did not take. A statement that participants reviewed their transcripts is a claim a committee member can ask about.

Where it sits in the dissertation

Most programs place the ethics section toward the end of Chapter 3, after the analysis and quality measures. Some also want a line on the title or approval page, or the letter itself in an appendix. Chapter 3 shows how the section fits with the rest of the chapter, and our article on limitations, delimitations, and assumptions covers the neighboring section where your program places it.

If you want an independent read on whether your design and its ethical safeguards are described consistently, our research design and methodology review assesses the concerns most likely to delay approval. We do not prepare IRB applications or give rulings on what a board will accept. That decision belongs to your institution.