Human subjects scenarios for STEP
1. One of the goals of the STEP program at your host high school is to increase the number of students applying to, and attending, college. You know that many of the students’ parents did not finish high school, and you suspect that they are not providing adequate encouragement to their children. In order to effectively target the underlying problems, you want to do a little research to get a clearer picture of the home life of the students, of the parents’ background, and of the student-parent relationship. You therefore decide to interview students and record their responses.
- What issues would be of concern to the IRB? Why? How would you address these concerns? How might the issues of cultural sensitivity be relevant? Which questions would be appropriate, which wouldn’t?
2. You want the students at your high school to start feeling more comfortable using technology in their education. You arrange to reserve the school’s computer lab during exam time and put all of the main tests for the course into an electronic format. The students are taken to the lab for the test periods and take the tests on the computer.
- Do you need permission forms to do this? Do parents need to be notified? What are the issues that might be of concern to the IRB? Why? How would you address these concerns?
3. You decide to do a longitudinal study of the students in your senior level class looking at the relationship between grades and interest. You want to survey the students about how interested they are in careers and future education that makes a substantial use of math and science. You intend to look at their school records to track the grades they have gotten in each of their math and science classes since freshman year to see if you can find a relationship between the grades received and the interest in pursuing these fields.
- Do you need permission forms to do this? Do parents need to be notified? What are the issues that might be of concern to the IRB? Why? How would you address these concerns?