Educational Research Methods Essay

1. What is the general purpose of a human subjects review? The general purpose of the human subjects review panel is to ensure that the rights, interests and the welfare of the human subjects are maintained during clinical research, and the clinical trials is conducted in an ethical manner compliant with standards established.   The review panel has the authority approve, amend or even reject any human research.   During the entire process of the clinical research, the review panel would be studying the manner in which the research is being conducted, and ensuring that the guidelines are stuck to.   Several regulatory authorities would be ensuring that the review board monitors the research being conducted on human subjects. The review board would be approving the research protocol outline and would also be creating the informed consent form.   During the meeting of the review board, the protocol would be studied, and accordingly it would be approved, disapproved or modified.   The review board would have to ensure that during any clinical trial, the risks to the human subjects are minimal, and certain benefits could be anticipated.   The benefits gained from the trial should be maximal and the risks involved should be minimal.   It would also look into other ethical issues such as confidentiality, informed consent and deceptive practices (USAF, 1999 & St. Edwards University, 2006). 2. What kinds of people within your organization would you ask to be on the review panel? Explain your reasons for choosing each person? The human subject research board is usually composed of a minimum of five members.   They should be professionally competent to examine research proposals and give consent for them on human subjects.   The members of the review board should be professionally qualified and should have sufficient experience so as to make appropriate decisions with regards to the human subjects.   The members of the board should belong to various backgrounds and should be familiar of the issues that exist in the community research is being conducted in.   The members of the board are usually elected for about 2 years.   Men and women should be a part of the board, so that female issues could also be appropriately addressed.   At least one member of the board should belong to a non-scientific background, and one member should belong to a scientific background (Monmouth, 2007 & St. Edwards University, 2006). 3. Give examples of projects within your organization that may require careful review before they are approved and of those that may be exempt from human studies review requirements. The institutional review board (IRB) of my organization would be examining any clinical research project that requires the use of human subjects, and in which some amount of risk exists.   The main aim of the IRB would be to assess the amount of risk that exists and also ensure that the trial is being conducted in an appropriate manner so that the risk is minimal.   Choosing the subjects should also be done in an equitable manner, and the IRB would be studying this.   The IRB would also be examining the provision of monetary and non-monetary incentives to the subjects who are a part of the clinical trial (HHS, 2005 & USAF, 1999). Some of the programs in which approval of the board is not required includes evaluations conducted by the student and teachers (for educational purposes), evaluation of the research program, marketing research, employee evaluations, certain educational tests, diagnostic tests, interview or survey procedures, compilation of existing data, etc (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 2007)