Research and Experimentation in Teaching Effectiveness: The Ethical Review Process and the IRB

SoTL and the Institutional Review Board: Considerations before navigating the application process for classroom research in higher education

“…Swenson and McCarthy (2012) elaborate, "faculty must attend to competence in teaching by using scientifically sound practice and safeguarding the very students who are participants in the pedagogical research" (p. 22). Pecorino, Kincaid, & Gironda (2008) call for a separate "ethical review process" for classroom research (p. 2). While students can certainly be empowered by participating in research on teaching and learning, particularly when they participate as co-PIs or co-authors, students have also been perceived as a vulnerable population in three main areas: the power differential between students and teachers who will be grading current students who are also research subjects (Hammack, 1997;Pecorino, Kincaid, & Gironda, 2008); the value judgments made by teachers who incorporate new texts, assignments, assessments, technologies, or learning procedures for the purpose of SoTL research (Burman & Kleinsasser, 2004;Pecorino et al, 2008); and the "dual-role conflict" (Hammack, 1997) created when "the research may be intended, in part, to further the career of the teacher/researcher by generating publications or conference presentations" (Pecorino et al, 2008, p. 5; see also Burman & Kleinsasser, 2004).…”