Case 56. Student Research on a Sensitive Topic

Situation

Professor Jack Kehoe regularly teaches undergraduate research methods and has developed a course in which he hopes to expose students to as many phases of the survey research process as possible. Every year he has students work in groups to design a questionnaire to explore student attitudes toward something controversial, administer the questionnaire to a sample of fellow students, use SPSS-PC to analyze the pooled data, and write up their findings using ASR as a model. He always chooses the topic himself to ensure that the research will be high in interest and that the respondents will have a variety of strongly held opinions on the topic.  Last year he chose attitudes toward the O.J. Simpson verdict; this year the topic is abortion. He thinks that this is an ideal topic because Missionaries to the Pre-Born have spent the past summer camped out at an abortion clinic close to the university.
         
About a month after the course begins a student comes to the Chair to report that she is very un-comfortable asking people about their attitudes toward abortion. In fact, she claims that she fears for her own safety as a result of doing so. The Chair asks the student why she hasn't talked to Professor Kehoe about her concerns. She says that Professor Kehoe speaks so cavalierly about abortion and his pro-choice position that she is concerned that he will not hear her concerns or will consider her a troublemaker for raising them. The Chair tells her that she feels that there are really no risks to administering a questionnaire on the topic of abortion to college students, but is sensitive to her discomfort and agrees to speak to Professor Kehoe without revealing her name.           

For his part, Professor Kehoe argues that the course is a massive undertaking on his part for which the Chair should be grateful, that the student should understand that he's teaching him/her to do what sociologists do and that includes studying sensitive topics, and that students aren't being asked to reveal their opinions on the topic to informants or anyone else. Moreover, most of the data have already been gathered and it is not practical to launch a difference study at this point. Finally, the research has been approved by the IRB and, from his point of view, the Chair is interfering with his academic freedom by intimating that his choice of research focus for the course was insensitive.

Questions

1.    Does the sensitive nature of the topic of this assignment raise ethical issues? If so, what are they?
2.    Does the principle of academic freedom and IRB clearance override any ethical concerns?
3.    Does the Chair have ethical obligations to do more than she has?



     Reflect on the above questions and form your own answers before clicking the Discussion key to review the commentary provided with this case.

Discussion

Depending upon the nature of the student's discomfort, this situation may pose an ethical issue which arises from putting a student in a situation where, in order to complete a course successfully, she has to act in a way that she perceives runs counter to a strongly held religious belief. It is advisable, therefore, for the Chair to determine, in a bit more detail, the nature of the student's discomfort. Assuming that her discomfort stems from her belief that she might be at risk of verbal of physical abuse while administering the questionnaire or trying to solicit informants, the Chair might suggest to Professor Kehoe that students be allowed to administer questionnaires in teams or suggest to the student that she ask a member of her group to work with her in administering questionnaire. There are several good practice issues that arise in this example. It is clear that Professor Kehoe's goal of having the students produce a questionnaire on a topic that would solicit a variety of strongly held beliefs could be met without resorting to sensitive issues. The Chair should certainly discuss this possibility with Professor Kehoe, although the choice ultimately remains in his hands. The Chair might also suggest that the next time he clears student research with the IRB that he not only seek their advise on the protection of informants, but also on the protection of student researchers. It is also the case that a student who is uncomfortable and/or feels threatened as she fulfills a required activity in a course is likely to also have a less than satisfactory learning experience. The fact that he may be undercutting what is a huge pedagogical effort by his choice of topic should also be discussed with Professor Kehoe.