Therefore, the study raises concerns about the ethical principle of respect for persons. The study in which the researcher pretends to be a cancer survivor involves deception and research without any informed consent process. She plans to insert comments to see how the members respond. Which of the following online research strategies raises the most concerns regarding the ethical principle of respecting the autonomy of research subjects and the corresponding federal regulations requiring informed consent?Īnswer: A researcher proposes to join a moderated support group for cancer survivors posing as a survivor. Online surveys that force subjects to answer one question before going to the next violate the requirement that all participation in research is voluntary.Īnswer: Providing contact information for the researcher, privacy policies, and a description of the survey are important, but they do not address the requirement. Voluntary participation in research includes the right to withdraw from a study at any time and the right to choose not to answer questions. Which of the following strategies would help ensure that participation in a survey about a sensitive personal topic remains voluntary throughout a study? Using data that is publically available and de-identified is no longer private or personally identifiable, and would also not meet the federal definition of research with human subjects.Ĭonsent to participate in research is an ongoing process. Neither does gathering information about deceased individuals. Conducting an online focus group with live human beings to research familial support systems would therefore meet the definition of research with human subjects.Īnswer: Analyzing the number of visits to a website provides information about the website itself not about the people who visit it and does not meet the federal definition of research with human subjects. Thus, research with human subjects is defined as a systematic investigation (intent to contribute to generalizable knowledge) involving living individuals about whom a researcher conducting research obtains information through intervention or interaction with the individual, and uses, studies, or analyzes the information or obtains, uses, studies, analyzes or generates identifiable private information (Protection of Human Subjects 2018). The federal regulations define both a human subject and research separately, but both definitions must be met to qualify as human subjects research. Which of the following examples best describes an investigator using the Internet as a research tool?Īnswer: An investigator uses his Facebook wall to post a URL link to a survey he is hosting on SurveyMonkey. The Internet can be used as a research tool or as the object of a study. To minimize potential risks of harm, a researcher conducting an online survey can:Īnswer: Design the survey so that no direct or indirect identifiers are collected. Which of the following strategies would help ensure that participation in a survey about a sensitive personal topic remains voluntary throughout a study?Īnswer: Designing the survey so that subjects are not forced to answer one question before going to the next. Which of the following examples of using the Internet to conduct research meets the federal definition of research with human subjects?Ĭonsent to participate in research is an ongoing process. Which of the following methods could be considered a “best practice” in terms of informing respondents how their answers to an online survey about personal information will be protected?Īnswer: The investigator uses the informed consent process to explain how respondent data will be transmitted from the website to his encrypted database without ever recording respondents’ IP addresses, but explains that on the Internet confidentiality cannot be absolutely guaranteed. The researcher also invites subjects’ significant others to be a part of the focus group. Which of the following examples of using the internet to conduct research meets the federal definition of research with human subjects?Īnswer: Conducting an online focus group with cancer survivors to determine familial support systems.
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