Interim Guidelines for students, teachers and parents

Will your investigation involve yourself or other people in:

• tasting, touching or smelling different foods or other substances?
• taking any medicines, drugs or other substances?
• applying any substance to their bodies?
• undergoing any physical or medical tests?
• giving you any information of a personal, private of confidential nature?
• giving information that could identify them?

If it does then you must think about the safety of yourself and the participants involved. How important is research design?

People should only be asked to contribute to research that will give meaningful results.  Design the research carefully and think about how you are going to use or analyse the results before you ask people to contribute to your work by being research participants. 

If your project involves asking questions, you could try them first on your friends or relatives to determine whether they appear reasonable and acceptable, particularly from a stranger if that is how it will be posed.

What information do I need to give my research participants?

When you ask people to participate in your research, you need to tell them, in a language they can easily understand:

• the purpose of your research
• what will be required of them
• what risks or benefits there will be to them if they agree to work with you
• that they can withdraw from your research at any time
• if you are collecting information about people they should know beforehand whether or not the information can be linked to a particular person, what you will do with that information, who else will see it, and how you will dispose of your records when the project is over.

It is best to give this information to people in a written form and to give them a chance to think about it and to ask any questions, before they make any decisions.

What level of risk to research participants is reasonable?

Any research that involves bodily fluids or the ingesting of material (eg such as taking any kind of medication, ingesting substances, testing body tissue, saliva, skin scrapes, use of pain or deprivation of basic food or drink) should only be done under the guidance of a medical person.  It is very unlikely that you will be doing such projects while still at school. 

Any project should only involve minimal risk ie any adverse effect should be very small, and the probability of that effect occurring should be low.  For instance, if one is asking people for information, it should only be the sort of information it would be safe, easily volunteered and appropriate to ask in an ordinary conversation, or if you are asking people to exert themselves, physically it should only be to a level that that person might do in everyday life.

Who needs to give permission (or consent) for someone to participate in research? 

A parent or guardian needs to give their permission for anybody under 16, as well as the young person agreeing.  The parent or guardian needs to have all the information that you would give a research participant. You should keep records of who has given consent and how it has been given whenever the research involves more than observation of individuals in their normal activities.