Researchers should view the institutional approval process not as a bureaucratic hurdle, but as a constructive opportunity to thoroughly consider the ethical dimensions of their study. This process encourages consultation with committee members and peers who can offer diverse perspectives and extensive experience, thereby enhancing the research's ethical foundation.

Value of the Institutional Approval Process

During the institutional review, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) may identify ethical concerns or questions about a proposed study. Researchers must respond to these inquiries in good faith and without delay, which may require them to make additional modifications to their research design and procedures to better protect participants prior to resubmitting their protocol.

Addressing IRB Concerns

A researcher's ethical obligations do not end once a study receives institutional approval. It is critical to adhere strictly to the submitted research protocol throughout the study. If any adjustments beyond minor changes are required, the researcher must seek additional approval from the institutional review board before implementing those modifications.

Adhering to the Protocol

What is the primary purpose of securing institutional approval before beginning a research study?

Before beginning a study, researchers must secure formal permission from their institution or course instructor, following specific local policies. This procedure typically requires submitting a detailed research protocol to an oversight committee, like an Institutional Review Board (IRB), to confirm that the proposed study adheres to ethical standards and adequately safeguards participants.

Google

A research protocol is a detailed, formal document outlining a proposed scientific study that investigators must submit for institutional approval. It comprehensively describes the study's core objectives, methodological design, step-by-step procedures, risk-benefit assessment, strategies to minimize potential participant harm, and plans for obtaining informed consent and conducting debriefing.

Research Protocol

An institutional review board is a committee required by federal regulations for universities, hospitals, and other institutions receiving federal support. Its responsibility is to review research protocols for potential ethical problems, ensuring that risks are minimized, benefits outweigh risks, research is conducted fairly, and informed consent procedures are adequate. The board must consist of at least five people with diverse backgrounds, including scientists and nonscientists, men and women, various professions, and at least one person unaffiliated with the institution.

Institutional Review Board

The eighth section of the APA Ethics Code focuses specifically on the ethical conduct of psychological research and scholarly publication. It establishes critical standards that researchers are expected to follow, encompassing essential areas such as securing institutional approval, obtaining informed consent, carefully regulating the use of deception, conducting thorough debriefings, ensuring the humane care of animal subjects, and maintaining strict scholarly integrity in reporting results, assigning publication credit, and sharing data.

Standard 8: Research and Publication

https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/

KPU Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition

Institutional Approval

Which of the following best describes a research protocol?

An experimental psychologist wants to investigate the impact of stress on problem-solving abilities. Below are two potential procedures for the study. As a member of the committee that reviews research proposals to ensure participant safety and ethical conduct, which procedure would you approve? Justify your decision by referencing at least two distinct ethical principles that guide such reviews.

Ethical Review of a Research Proposal

A psychologist proposes a study to examine the effects of 48 hours of continuous sleep deprivation on the problem-solving skills of student volunteers. The proposal states that participants will be compensated and that the findings could have important implications for understanding workplace safety. When this proposal is submitted for review, what is the most critical issue the review committee responsible for protecting human participants will focus on?

An informed consent form is a formal written document that participants review and sign to officially agree to partake in a study. It comprehensively outlines the research procedures, potential risks and benefits, and the participant's right to withdraw, adhering to specific ethical standards (such as APA Standard $$8.02$$a). To ensure comprehension, researchers typically supplement this form with a clear verbal explanation of the study.

Informed Consent Form

Minimal risk describes a level of potential harm in research that does not exceed the risks individuals ordinarily experience in their daily lives or during routine physical or psychological evaluations. Establishing this threshold is essential for institutional review boards (IRBs) to determine the necessary level of oversight, such as qualifying a study for expedited review.

Minimal Risk

Expedited research involves studies that pose a somewhat higher risk than exempt research but still expose participants to no more than minimal risk, which is defined as risks encountered by healthy individuals in daily life or during routine examinations. Because the risk is minimal, expedited review can be conducted by just one member of an institutional review board or by a separate committee under the board's authority, rather than the full committee.

Expedited Research

In federal research regulations, exempt research represents the lowest level of risk and includes studies such as the evaluation of normal educational activities, the use of standard, non-sensitive psychological measures that maintain confidentiality, or research utilizing existing public data. Once this type of research receives initial approval, it is considered exempt from regular, continuous review by an institutional review board.

Exempt Research

What is the primary responsibility of an Institutional Review Board (IRB)?

Researchers must maintain their integrity through the publication process and beyond. Because the scientific goal is to learn about the way the world actually is, researchers have a duty to report their results honestly and accurately. The APA Ethics Code outlines these obligations, which encompass strict prohibitions against data fabrication and plagiarism, as well as the accurate assignment of authorship credit.

Scholarly Integrity

When recruiting participants for a study, psychologists must make reasonable efforts to avoid offering excessive or inappropriate financial or other inducements, as such rewards can become coercive. If researchers offer professional services as an incentive, they must clearly explain the nature of those services, including any associated risks, obligations, and limitations.

Offering Inducements for Research Participation

According to the APA Ethics Code, researchers must uphold scholarly integrity when disseminating their findings. This standard explicitly prohibits the fabrication of data. Furthermore, if psychologists discover significant errors in their already published data, they are ethically obligated to take reasonable steps to correct those errors through a formal correction, retraction, erratum, or other appropriate publication means.

Reporting Research Results

In the context of the APA Ethics Code, psychologists who act as reviewers for materials submitted for presentation, publication, grants, or research proposals have a strict ethical obligation. They must respect the confidentiality and the proprietary rights of the individuals who submitted the information, ensuring the work is not improperly shared or used.

Reviewers

Deception in psychological research occurs when investigators intentionally mislead participants about the nature or purpose of a study. While utilizing deception conflicts with the moral principle of acting with integrity and being truthful, researchers sometimes employ it because certain important scientific questions—such as understanding obedience to authority—are difficult or impossible to study accurately if participants are fully aware of the research design.

Deception in Research

Debriefing is the ethical procedure of informing research participants about the true purpose and design of a study as soon as possible after their participation. During this process, researchers must reveal any deception used, correct any resulting misconceptions, and take proactive steps to minimize or reverse any harm or negative emotions induced during the experiment.

Debriefing

Informed consent is the process of obtaining and documenting an individual's voluntary agreement to participate in a study after they have been fully informed of everything that might reasonably affect their decision. This practice is fundamentally important for respecting a person's autonomy, as it ensures they are aware of the study's true nature, risks, and procedures before agreeing to participate, preventing situations where they might be subjected to undisclosed harms.

Informed Consent

Plagiarism is an unethical practice that involves using someone else's words or ideas without giving them proper acknowledgment. In academic research, maintaining scholarly integrity during the writing and publication process requires researchers to actively avoid plagiarism by correctly citing original sources.

Plagiarism

During the publication process, collaborators must address publication credit early on to determine who will be listed as authors on the research and the specific order of those authors. To maintain scholarly integrity, authorship must accurately reflect the importance of each individual's actual contribution to the research.

Publication Credit

Duplicate data publication is a breach of scholarly integrity where researchers publish the same dataset a second time, presenting it as though it were new, original research. This practice is unethical because it distorts the scientific literature and misleadingly amplifies the impact of a single set of findings.

Duplicate Data Publication

As a principle of scholarly integrity, researchers are ethically expected to share their data with other professionals. Making data available allows other researchers to verify the findings and promotes transparency and collaboration within the scientific community.

Data Sharing in Research

Standard 8.09 governs the humane treatment of nonhuman animal subjects in psychological research. Psychologists must acquire, care for, use, and dispose of animals in compliance with all regulations and professional standards. Researchers must make reasonable efforts to minimize pain and discomfort, and may only subject animals to stress or pain when alternative procedures are unavailable and the study's value justifies it.

Humane Care and Use of Animals in Research

While the majority of contemporary psychological research relies on human participants, a significant minority involves nonhuman animal subjects. This practice is especially prevalent in fields such as the study of learning and conditioning, behavioral neuroscience, and the development of surgical or drug therapies for psychological disorders.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After