I am doing a research study entitled “Assessment of Real Practice Systems Experience” to assess how well Real Practice Systems assignments and exercises have worked in courses, trainings, and continuing education programs as well as for individual practitioners.  I’m writing to invite you to participate in this study.

In this document, I describe how faculty might use this project.  You might assign students to read publications in this project and/or write papers.  The post includes templates of assignments that you can tailor to fit your educational goals.

Publications in this project are collected in this blog post.  You might particularly assign “Ten Real Mediation Systems” (and one or more accounts in that post), “The Critical Importance of Pre-Session Preparation in Mediation,” or “Real Mediation Systems to Help Parties and Mediators Achieve Their Goals.”

In this document I describe how trainers, sponsors of continuing education programs, and individual practitioners might use this project.

I ask faculty, trainers, and educational program sponsors who use these assignments or exercises to complete a short questionnaire about their experiences.  I ask individual practitioners to complete an exercise describing your own practice system.

It should take 10-30 minutes to complete a questionnaire depending on how much you want to write.

Note that your responses will not be confidential.  I plan to post responses on the Indisputably blog so that colleagues can read them for themselves.  I may disseminate information from the data in other ways as well.

There should be no risk to you for participating in this research.  There is no compensation for participation in this research.  You would get the benefit of knowing that you are helping colleagues and contributing to the development of our field.  Your participation would be voluntary, and you may skip any questions you do not want to answer.  If you refuse to participate or withdraw, there will be no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.  You must be an adult to participate in this research.

This form is for faculty to describe your experiences in your courses.

This form is for trainers and sponsors of continuing education programs to describe your experiences.

This form is for practitioners to describe your experiences completing an exercise describing your own practice system.

If you plan to use a Real Practice Systems assignment or exercise in your course, training, or educational program, I would appreciate it if you would let me know so that I can check back to ask how it went.

If you have any questions about this project, you can contact me at landej@missouri.edu.  If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the University of Missouri Institutional Review Board (IRB) at 573-882-3181 or muresearchirb@missouri.edu. The IRB is a group of people who review research studies to make sure the rights and welfare of participants are protected.  If you want to talk privately about any concerns or issues related to your participation, you may contact the Research Participant Advocacy at 888-280-5002 (a free call) or email muresearchrpa@missouri.edu.