There are always risks when conducting research, though these are usually minimal (i.e., no greater than participants encounter in their everyday lives). Note, however, that the level of risk varies a little based on your group of participants. For example, students can expect very little danger in their daily lives, but if your participants are police officers of fire fighters, the threshold for minimal risk is actually increased because they do encounter significant risk in their daily lives. For example, there would be a lot more risk in asking a GAS or PHS student to run on a treadmill in extremely hot temperatures while measuring their performance on cognitive tasks, but it would be a more acceptable level of risk to ask trained firefighters to perform such a task as this is similar to what they do in their jobs. Neither of these examples are minimal risk studies, but I use the example to illustrate my point that risk is relative. Ok, now back on track to students!
The risk of coercion to participate increases greatly when you have a relationship (especially one of power) over potential participants. Psychological risk (stress) also increases for your students (versus students in another class/program) because of the pressure students may feel to keep their teacher happy because they control their grade. If possible, your study would be a completely anonymous online survey that is administered outside of class, and participants would be recruited by co-PI or other colleague. That way, you would not be present (during recruitment or when they complete the survey) and that removes a lot of the potential for participants to feel pressure to participate.
If that can’t happen, then the next best thing is to ask a colleague to read the recruitment script and collect the signed consent forms (and paper surveys if applicable) and keep them in an envelope until after final grades are submitted, then give you the envelope. If it is an online survey that is not anonymous, your co-PI or another colleague can set up the survey on their account so that you do not have access until after grades are submitted.
Remember that nobody (you, colleague/co-PI, other students) should be able to identify which students have agreed to participate and which have not. One way to do this with paper surveys or paper consent forms is to distribute a copy to each student and then collect a copy from each student. If they wish to participate, they turn in their copy of the consent form signed (and the survey completed) and if they do not wish to participate, they turn in blank papers (unsigned/uncompleted). This way, it all stays anonymous. If you are recruiting in someone else’s class (i.e., not your students), this is a good practice to follow as well.
If you need to link students’ answers on a survey with their grades, for example, you can use a unique identifier code (e.g., birth month + last 4 digits of their cell phone number) in order to link the two. Using this approach, students would write this code on both their consent form and their survey so that you can link them to add their grade and biological sex (for example) and then you could remove all of the identifying information from your data file and no longer be able to identify any particular student from your anonymized data.
Whatever you choose, you need to clearly outline this in your REB application for approval and try to do all you can remove coercion (and perceived coercion). This is especially important if you are recruiting your own students as your mere presence can make the students feel additional pressure to participate.
As always, if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see from me, please reach out to me via email (lynne(dot)kennette(at)durhamcollege(dot)ca) or on MS Teams, or pop in during my weekly “office hours” on whereby(dot)com(slash)drlynne (every Friday from 12:30-1:30).
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