Hello,
You are invited to take part in this research project, which is called ‘The effect of emotional intelligence on decision-making in pilots’. You have been invited because you are currently a training or practicing air pilot.
This Participant Information Sheet Consent Form tells you about the research project. It explains the processes involved with taking part. Knowing what is involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the research.Please read this summary information carefully, as well as clicking through to the Full Participation Information Consent Form, which will detail the full scope of the Information and Consent form.
Ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or want to know more about. Before deciding whether or not to take part, you might want to talk about it with a relative or friend.
Participation in this research is voluntary. If you don’t wish to take part, you don’t have to.
If you decide you want to take part in the research project, you will be asked to sign the consent section. By choosing ‘I consent’ to the consent section and proceeding to the survey you are telling us that you:
• Understand what you have read in this summary as well as the attached Full Participation Information Consent Form,
• Consent to take part in the research project
If you wish to keep a copy of this form for the future please contact the researchers (contact details provided below).
- What is the purpose of this research?
This research aims to provide an understanding of the association between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and decision-making in trainee, commercial and military pilots. In reviewing the literature and analysing data collected in this survey, we will be exploring the concepts of EI and decision making in pilots, including concepts that directly impact EI and vice versa such as sterile cockpit theory. The results of this research will be used by the researcher Christine Beling to obtain a Bachelor of Business (Honours) degree.
- What does participation in this research involve?
The survey will consist of some demographic questions (gender, age, flight hours, etc.). We will be asking you questions about your skills in appraising emotions and constructively directing your emotions. We will also present you with some hypothetical scenarios. We will ask you to consider how you might respond to these and tell us a little bit about the factors informing your decisions. We estimate this survey will take you approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, but it may be longer or shorter depending on the detail you wish to give in response to open-ended questions.There are no costs associated with participating in this research project, nor will you be paid.
- Do I have to take part in this research project?
Participation in any research project is voluntary. If you do not wish to take part, you do not have to. If you decide to take part and later change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the project up to the point of submitting your survey. Your decision whether to take part or not to take part, or to take part and then withdraw, will not affect your relationship with the researchers or with RMIT University.
Submitting your completed questionnaire is an indication of your consent to participate in the study. You can withdraw your responses any time before you have submitted the questionnaire. Once you have submitted it, your responses cannot be withdrawn because they are non-identifiable and therefore, we will not be able to tell which one is yours.
- What are the possible benefits of taking part?
There will be no clear benefit to you from your participation in this research. This research will potentially contribute to the growing body of knowledge on EI and on decision-making. In exploring these concepts in pilots, this research may aid our understanding of emotional intelligence in aviation, but potentially in other industries that use aviation-based process models and learning, such as the medical field.
- What are the risks and disadvantages of taking part?
Psychological distress
We appreciate that the survey asks you questions about your work as a pilot, and that if your employment situation has been affected by Covid-19 you might prefer not to participate. You may feel that some of the questions we ask are stressful or upsetting in recalling your work as a pilot. If you do not wish to answer a question, you may skip it and go to the next question, or you may stop immediately. If you become upset or distressed as a result of your participation in the research project, members of the research team will be able to discuss appropriate support for you.
Inconvenience
The time taken in completing this survey may be of inconvenience to you, however, you are able to stop at any time before submitting the survey and exit out of the survey screen.
Information about the disadvantages of taking part in an online survey can be found in greater detail later in the form in the section 'What will happen to information about me?' or the Full Participation Information Consent Form.
- What if I withdraw from this research project?
If you do consent to participate, you may withdraw at any time before you submit the survey. If you decide to withdraw from the project, you do not need to notify the research team, and we thank you for considering this project. If you have submitted your survey you cannot withdraw from the research as we are not collecting identifiable data and will not be able to locate and destroy your individual submission.
Partially completed forms will be deleted from the Qualtrics system after a one week of inactivity and not be viewed by the researchers or used in research.
- What happens when the research project ends?
The results of this research will be used in researcher Christine Beling’s final thesis for the Bachelor of Business (honours). A summary of the results will be provided to the organisational representative that was initially contacted by the researchers, if any publications result from this data that will also be sent to your representative.
- What will happen to information about me?
· No immediately identifiable information will be collected (name, address, date of birth).
· All data will be stored protected with access only by the supervisors and research student and remain confidential.
· The research results will be used in the student’s thesis, the latter of which will be placed in the RMIT Repository which is a publicly accessible online library of research papers. The results from the study may also appear in journal or conference publications.
· Data collected will be kept securely at RMIT for 5 years, before being destroyed. The final research thesis will remain at RMIT in assignment format and potentially be read by the public.’
· It is anticipated that the results of this research project will be published and/or presented in a variety of forums. In any publication and/or presentation, information will be provided in such a way that you cannot be identified.
Online Surveys
This project will use an external site to create, collect and analyse data collected in a survey format. The site we are using is Qualtrics, which has security protocols that are known and approved by RMIT University's Ethics Committee. If you agree to participate in this survey, the responses you provide will be stored on their host server. No personal information will be collected in the survey so none will be stored as data. Once we have completed our data collection and analysis, we will import the data to the RMIT server where it will be stored securely for five (5) years. The data on the host server will then be deleted and expunged.
Human Research Ethics Information
This research project has been reviewed and approve by RMIT's Human Research Ethics Committee, further details are found in the Full Participation Information Consent Form.
- Further information and who to contact
If you want any further information concerning this project, you can contact the researchers:
Name: Dr Prue Burns
Position: Chief investigator / Primary supervisor
School/Institute: Lecturer Early Career Development Fellow at RMIT School of Management
Telephone: 03 9925 2065
Email: prue.burns@rmit.edu.au
Name: Dr Graham Wild
Position: Co-Investigator / Supervisor
School/Institute: Course Coordinator and Senior Lecturer, Aviation Technology at School of Engineering & IT, UNSW Canberra
Telephone: 02 6268 8672
Email: G.Wild@adfa.edu.au
Name: Christine Beling
Position: Principal Research Student
School/Institute: Bachelor of Business (Honours) at School of Management, RMIT University
Email: s3551554@student.rmit.edu.au
Should you have any concerns or questions about this research project, which you do not wish to discuss with the researchers listed in this document, then you may contact:
Reviewing HREC Name: RMIT University
HREC Secretary: Vivienne Moyle
Telephone: 03 9925 5037
Email: human.ethics@rmit.edu.au
_______________________________________________________________________________
Acknowledgement by Participant
By clicking ‘I consent’ you are agreeing to the following:
I have read and understood the Participant Information Sheet and all the information in the Full Participation Information Consent Form.
I understand the purposes, procedures and risks of the research described in the project.
I have had an opportunity to ask questions and I am satisfied with the answers I have received.
I freely agree to participate in this research project as described and understand that I am free to withdraw at any time up until point of submission of the survey without affecting my relationship with RMIT.