Volunteer Subjects Wanted for Online Research
CanadianAudiologist.ca is pleased to provide a service for our readers where interested audiology clients can be referred for an on-line experience to be a volunteer subject in an experiment/survey being run by researchers at Canadian universities.
Following is a brief overview of the research that has been approved by their university’s ethics approval board. Each of these research overviews can be printed out and advertised in your office for interested patients.
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Relationship between COVID-19 and Hearing Thresholds
By Steve Aiken, PhD
We're calling on all Canadian clinics to be part of a research project to determine whether there are any effects of COVID19 on hearing thresholds. This work is being conducted by Dalhousie University PhD student Patricia Van Roon, and supervised by Dr. Steve Aiken (Dalhousie University) and Dr. Hilmi Dajani (University of Ottawa), and has been approved by the Dalhousie Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (#2020-5185).
The project itself is relatively simple: Some individuals will come in for an annual hearing test who will have had COVID-19 in the past year. We would like to know whether this has affected their hearing. The easiest and best way to find out is to compare their post-COVID-19 audiogram with their pre-COVID-19 audiogram. Since hearing can change from year to year, we ask for two annual audiograms before contracting COVID-19. This will allow us to compare year-to-year threshold changes in a healthy year (2018–2019) with threshold changes in a year with COVID-19 (2019–2020/2021). You would need to obtain consent from your client for this data to be sent to us (in an anonymized form), along with two questions about COVID-19 severity.
As there may not be many (or any) post-COVID-19 clients in each clinic (with at least two annual audiograms before contracting COVID-19), we would like to include as many clinics as possible from across Canada. This will help us answer the question clearly to know whether this virus affects the auditory system.
If your clinic may be able to participate, please send an email to patricia.vanroon@dal.ca so that she can send the instructions and forms (e.g., the consent form). It is essential to do this in advance so that if you happen to come across someone who has had COVID-19 in the last year, you will be ready with the information about the study and the consent form.
Dancers Wanted
By Daniel Cameron, PhD
Help us study how dancing can change our perception of musical rhythms! We're interested in how expertise in moving with rhythms—dancing—can change those rhythms' perception. We're running an experiment in which dancers will complete a short survey about their dancing experience (how long they've trained, what styles, how many hours per week they dance) and then give ratings about their perception of the rhythms in a series of drumming patterns that use different types of rhythms. If you're a dancer, please consider participating! It will take only about 30 minutes to complete the survey and task, and you'll help improve our understanding of dancers' mastery of movement and rhythm. If you aren't a dancer but know someone who is, please consider sending them this information!
Dancers (over 18 years old), please click the link to participate: https://surveys.mcmaster.ca/limesurvey/index.php/132726?lang=en
Participate in Research on Musical Rhythm
Why is it that some rhythms feel irresistible and bring an audience to the dance floor? We're trying to find out what it is about those particular rhythms that make us want to move. We're looking for anyone interested to participate. Participating is easy—you'll complete a simple survey and then give ratings about your perception of the rhythms in a series of drumming patterns that use different types of rhythms. The whole thing should take only about 30 minutes, and you'll help us solve the mystery of rhythm's ability to make us move.
Click this link to participate now: https://surveys.mcmaster.ca/limesurvey/index.php/684656?lang=en
Participants are needed for a research project titled:
Hearing aid personalization with adolescents: A virtual synchronous focus group study to explore end-user and clinician perspectives.
By Danielle Glista, PhD
We are looking for audiologists who work with children aged 12-17 and who wear hearing aids to participate in study lead by researchers from Western University’s National Centre for Audiology. This study involves participation in a virtual focus group on the topic of adolescents using mobile applications to personalize their hearing aid fitting(s). Participants will attend one online videoconference lasting approximately 2 hours. This study may contribute to an understanding of the perceptions around and the future design of mobile applications for teenagers. For more information or to volunteer, please email Danielle Glista, at the National Centre for Audiology: daglista@nca.uwo.ca.