Vincent Prohaska said:
The second part of his comment brings up an even thornier issue - what
about when the students in the class are taking on the role of
investigator and collecting data from others (and in Paul's case,
minors).
On the one hand, I don't want to see IRB approval needed for the kinds
of
"research" that students do in their experimental methods class. But on
the other, we must ensure that such "research" does not violate ethical
standards (and I don't see how any research, even just for a class
project, can be conducted that involves minors without parental
approval).
Having been an active member on our IRB, I have had a number of
opportunities to address just this issue. Our board takes the stand that
if research is being done (for whatever reason--be it class project, thesis,
or faculty research) there must be IRB approval. We work closely with
faculty who require class projects to help them walk their students through
the IRB process. This does two things: 1) it protects research participants
(and even though class projects are usually innocuous, we have received at
least two in the last year that had serious flaws in them that could have
placed participants in jeopardy); and 2) it teaches the students, who are
usually junior- and senior-level psychology majors how to follow university
and government policy (which is a useful skill no matter what position they
take following graduation).
--Rick Grieve, Ph.D.
Austin Peay State University
