Faculty Use of Students in Research

The Institutional Review Board

Faculty Use of Students in Research

Researchers who are in a position of authority over their participants must be particularly careful to avoid the appearance or possibility of coercion. The power dynamic between students and their instructors and mentors requires careful consideration. When researchers have a dual role as an instructor or mentor, it is important that measures are taken to prevent any possibility for coercion. Although you may feel like your research is not coercive, students may feel pressured to participate.

The JCU IRB has developed the following guidelines for faculty members/instructors who wish to use their own students in a research project regardless of the level of risk or type of research project.��

Researchers are asked to recognize that coercion to participate in a study, however benign, adds an increased level of risk to the participants. To mitigate this risk, the IRB suggests that the following procedure be followed:

For those studies where the class material will be used in the study, students should be notified early in the semester that they will be asked to consent to the use of their data in a research study (this step is especially important when the data includes reflection pieces or personal essays).
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Consent materials should be distributed and collected by someone other than the instructor (an independent third party such as a colleague, graduate assistant, or department administrator).
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Completed consent forms must be withheld from the instructor until grades have been posted at the end of the semester.
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Surveys with Students:

For one-time surveys distributed during class, written consent should be waived so that there is no record of who participated and who did not.
The survey could be distributed during class and returned to an independent third party (department administrator, GA, other faculty, etc.) at a later time.
Surveys completed during class should be distributed and collected by an independent��third party, not the instructor.
Completed��surveys should be withheld from the researcher until after grades are posted.
Anonymous online surveys using Qualtrics or Google Forms may eliminate some coercion.
Identifiers such as handwriting and��demographic data��may make a survey identifiable and breach privacy.
Peer coercion may be an additional factor for in-class completion of surveys.

Faculty members/instructors who wish to use their students in a research study are strongly encouraged to discuss their project with the IRB Administrator prior to designing the protocol to delay approval of the project. The IRB Administrator may be able to suggest other ways to mitigate coercion and/or increase privacy protection.

For more information on this topic, see also:

(Teachers College, Columbia University)
(Syracuse University)
(Advarra IRB)
Swenson, E. V., & McCarthy, M. A. (2012). “” In R. E. Landrum, M. A. McCarthy, R. E. Landrum & M. A. McCarthy (Eds.), Teaching ethically:
Challenges and opportunities. (pp. 21-29). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

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The Institutional Review Board

Faculty Use of Students in Research

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