Information for Participation in a Research Study

Principal Investigator:  Dr. Catherine Larochelle, 540-231-5382, claroche@vt.edu

Other study contact: Patrick Bewick, 540-834-8997, pwb@vt.edu  

IRB# and Title of Study:  IRB-23-563 Edamame seed commercialization for mid-Atlantic region

You are invited to participate in a research study.  This form includes information about the study and contact information if you have any questions.

“I am a graduate student at Virginia Tech, and I am conducting this research as part of my dissertation.” The purpose of the research is to study consumer acceptance, willingness to pay, and satisfaction for our product, edamame cultivar ‘VT Sweet’, in the home garden market. Information from this study will help us understand our target market and how consumers make decisions about what crops to grow in their gardens".

If you decide to participate in this study, you will be asked to complete a 15-20 minute questionnaire on your home gardening activity and familiarity with edamame. You have the option to refuse to answer any question and to opt out of the remainder of the interview at any time.

As noted, your participation in this study is fully voluntary.  Your participation is confidential; no information that can be used to identify you will be maintained in the survey data. 

The study should take approximately 15-20 minutes of your time.

We do not anticipate any risks from completing this study.

You can choose whether to be in this study or not.  If you volunteer to be in this study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind.  You may also refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and remain in the study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so. 

We will make every effort to protect the confidentiality of the information we gather from you, including the disclosure of your personal information. We cannot promise complete confidentiality. Data and participants' information could be accessible to organizations that inspect research studies (IRB, Human Research Protection Program, other authorized representatives of Virginia Tech).

Any data collected during this research study will be kept confidential by the researchers. The responses that you provide in the questionnaire. Data will be stored securely and made available only to researchers conducting the study. In any reports, publications, or presentations summarizing the results of the survey, all data will be aggregated so that it will be impossible for anyone to identify information supplied by any individual respondent (farm or agribusiness).

The data will be stored for 10 years after the study has been completed and then destroyed. The ten-year period will provide the research team ample time for valid data analyses and generate publications and presentations from the data that may be presented in summary form at conferences, academic papers, the academic community, and as part of a thesis/dissertation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Patrick Bewick at pwb@vt.edu or Dr. Catherine Larochelle at claroche@vt.edu. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study.  If you have questions regarding your rights as a research participant, contact the Virginia Tech HRPP Office at 540-231-3732 (irb@vt.edu).