{"id":186,"date":"2013-01-07T01:38:55","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T01:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcwagner.com\/fieldstudy\/?page_id=186"},"modified":"2013-01-07T04:19:29","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T04:19:29","slug":"protecting-and-respecting-research-subjects","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jcwagner.com\/fieldstudy\/?page_id=186","title":{"rendered":"Protecting and Respecting Research Subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doing a class assignment vs. your own research project<\/strong>
\nThe fieldwork you are doing in this course is an \u201cinstructional assignment.\u201d The purpose of the assignment is to help you learn something about doing field research, which is not quite the same thing as \u201cdoing field research.\u201d If the work you were doing were a research project per se, the purpose would be to develop new knowledge that you could and would communicate to other researchers and the public. Hopefully, your fieldwork assignments will lead you to some new knowledge, but your fieldwork assignment does not extend to making public reports.\u00a0 To the contrary, the only reports you should be making about the field work assignments you complete for this class are the oral reports you make in class and the papers you turn in to your instructor or share with other students in the course.<\/p>\n

The distinction between an \u201cinstructional assignment\u201d that involves field work and a bona fide project of field research is an important one in several respects: First, as an instructional assignment, the instructor is responsible for how your field work is designed and evaluated. Among the more important instructor guidelines are (a) a requirement that students conceal the identity of research subjects; and (b) refrain from sharing identifying details of their own field assignments (or the assignments of any other students) with people who are not enrolled in the class.\u00a0 Second, the audience for your research is the class itself\u2013not the larger public.\u00a0 These audience and access restrictions are important for two quite different reasons:\u00a0 (a) they hopefully create a safe place for students to experiment with different ideas about their field work observations and interviews, a kind of experimentation that is essential to enriched understanding; and (b) they provide a safeguard against potential reputational harm to the people students observe and interview as part of these assignments.<\/p>\n

Three key principles<\/strong>
\nIf you were conducting fieldwork as part of an independent research project, and not as a class assignment that you instructor is supervising, you would need to file an application with the UC Davis Committee on the Protection of Human Subject\u2019s, IRB (Institutional Review Board). In that application, you would describe the purposes of your study, your research methods, the potential risks that these might involve for the people you are proposing to study, and how you intend to minimize these risks.\u00a0 You would also need to describe how you would ensure that people could freely choose whether or not they want to participate as subjects in your study. Assuming you did a good job of describing all this, and the risks to subjects were relatively low compared to the value of what you might learn through, the Committee would approve your \u201cprotocol\u201d and you could then proceed with your research.<\/p>\n

If you are completing a field assignment for a class, you don\u2019t need to file an application with the IRB, but you do need to follow some guidelines I\u2019ve established for ensuring that your field work minimizes risks to the people you are observing or interviewing and that it also reflects three key principles: (1) respect for persons as autonomous individuals; (2) beneficence; and (3) justice. As spelled out in the \u201cBelmont Report\u201d (1978), these three principles serve as a foundation for current thinking about the protection of human subjects, at least some of which has been codified in government and institutional regulations.<\/p>\n

Guidelines for the interview and field observation assignments in this course
\n<\/strong>
\nWe will discuss throughout the quarter how these three principles might apply to different forms of fieldwork. We will also try to follow some specific guidelines.\u00a0 Along those lines, please share the following information with the people you would like to observe or interview. If these guidelines are agreeable to them, proceed with the observation or interview.\u00a0 If the person does not find these guidelines agreeable, look for someone else to interview or observe, or consult with me about making other provisions.<\/p>\n

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SAMPLE CONSENT STATEMENT<\/strong> (for people you interview or observe<\/em>)<\/p>\n

1. Purpose: I am a student at UC Davis. I am doing this fieldwork as a class assignment for a course in qualitative research that is taught by Jon Wagner for the School of Education. If you have questions or concerns about this assignment, you can contact the course instructor:\u2028Jon Wagner, School of Education, UC Davis, Davis, CA\u00a0 95616\u2028.
\nEmail: jcwagner@ucdavis.edu<\/p>\n

2. Privacy and confidentiality: I will not attribute anything I observe or hear during this fieldwork assignment to particular persons. In preparing reports based on my observations and interviews I will remove or conceal any references to your identity. The reports I prepare will be shared with the instructor of this course. Following the instructor\u2019s guidelines for ensuring privacy and confidentiality, some parts of my reports may also be shared with other students taking the course this quarter or in the future.<\/p>\n

3. Your voluntary consent: To go ahead with this observation or interview, I need to know that you are willing to participate and that your choice to do so is entirely voluntary. Along those lines, you can choose to not answer any questions I ask, and you can choose to end the interview at any point. If you ask me to stop observing, taking notes or interviewing, I will stop. Does all this sound agreeable to you?\u00a0 If so, let\u2019s move ahead.\u00a0 If not, let me know what your concerns are so we can examine those before we get started
\n.
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Who should know what about whom in this course?<\/strong>
\nThe table below summarizes the kinds of information that different groups of people involved with this course should have about each other if students follow course guidelines in preparing reports based on their field observations and interviews:<\/p>\n

Individual students enrolled in this course WILL<\/strong> have access to<\/p>\n