Research using human subjects requires the researcher to conduct additional steps that must be taken to ensure the research is conducted ethically and that the rights of all human participants involved in the study are protected. To ensure that this is accomplished at the University of Toronto, the research project must undergo ethics review by a committee. Student researchers must have a faculty member supervise their research, and each party has their own roles and responsibilities in ensuring the research is following the appropriate ethics channels and policies (Student Guide on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Human Subjects). While the university does have procedures and policies in place for student researchers, I wonder if there are instances where these are not followed and the ramifications are to the student researcher, their supervisor, and the university?
Knight's chapter this week is informative. I found the section entitled "Being Pragmatic" to be especially useful because he raises the discussion of what can happen when the research goes wrong. I am writing my research proposal assignment, and the points that Knight made in this section have helped my thought process when proposing my study. For example, accounting for people not being interested in participating in the proposed study, and thinking through how I would handle low response rates to my questionnaire. The researcher may have carefully constructed their questionnaire but no matter how interesting the study, if they did not account for a lack of response from participants, the study may not come to fruition. Thus when completing a research study, researchers must plan for all possible scenarios.
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