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USYD research project suspended for questionable ethics
The University of Sydney’s Human Research Ethics Committee has suspended two academics’ research project for their use of pseudonyms in analysing participants.
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This is tricky. Surely the deception (sometimes a legitimate part of a study) was known about and approved by the HREC before the study was done. The role of an HREC is not to prevent such strategies being used if they are a legitimate tool, but to assess, ON BALANCE, the benefits and harms that could come from such a deception. One would presume that this as done when the HREC approved the study in the first place.
I was the recipient of the email. Providing the HREC committee approved the method, considered the time impact on the research subjects (like me), and assured the anonymity of responses I am relaxed about it. The direct impact on subjects was (prior to the survey which I was not offered) was small. Just one more of the hundreds of emails that could be responded to in around one minute, or most likely ignored by many.
If I was really worried about the time impact I would have ignored it. Who knows how the researchers would have interpreted that.
Graham