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Students and Employees

Students

Medical students traditionally have served as subjects for biomedical research and psychology students have often participated as subjects in behavioral research. The obvious concern is that their participation may not be truly voluntary, because of a desire to appear particularly cooperative or highly motivated, or because participation in research is a course requirement.

Various procedures have been suggested to reduce the possibility of unintended coercion, while still permitting students to participate as subjects in research. These include:

• Posting HSPC approved advertisements throughout the university to recruit subjects from a broad base of students;
• Avoiding any personal solicitations of students by faculty, graduate assistants, or fellow students;
• Providing a number of research projects from which to chose, if participating as a subject in research can be used as a course requirement;
• Providing alternative and equal methods for meeting course credit (or extra credit) requirements, such as attending a series of research presentations by faculty, writing a brief paper, conducting one’s own research.

Employees

University employees, such as office staff, lab technicians, and post-doctoral fellows, are similar to students in that they are vulnerable to perceived, even if not intended, pressures to appear cooperative and supportive of their supervisor’s work. Accordingly, many of the same procedures (described above) to reduce the likelihood of coercion in recruiting student volunteers apply equally to university employees. It is HSPC policy not to approve recruitment procedures that include employees from the investigator’s own lab or office. The HSPC, however, will reconsider policy on a case by case basis.