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Teaching CAM: Preparing Young Scholars for the Ethical Review Process

Supervising our students’ research is one of the most rewarding aspects of being an academic, not least in the exciting realm of children and the media. As we take our students through the process of identifying understudied areas, formulating probing research questions, developing data-gathering procedures and entering the field, both mentor and mentee benefit from this journey of introspection, deliberation and discovery. To be sure, challenges do present themselves along the way, one of which must be the task of securing ethical/institutional approval for research. While obtaining ethical approval is never an easy process, it is even more daunting when conducting research on minors, particularly those from vulnerable segments of the population. As academics, our duty is to prepare our students for dealing with this inevitable, yet necessary, step in the research endeavour. Beyond guiding our students on the substance of ethical review queries which will undoubtedly differ from study to study, we need to instil in them two key attitudinal stances. The first is to always keep an open mind about the ethical review process. Academic researchers are often heard to lambast institutional review boards for being conservative, risk-averse, obstructive, fastidious and bureaucratic (Lantos, 2009). While such criticismsmay be justified, they do obfuscate the sound and legitimate reasons for ethical review—to safeguard subjects from the intrusiveness of the research process by advancing their rights and ensuring their welfare (Diekema, 2006). It behooves us as educators to remind our students of these foundational principles, even as we commiserate with them on the trials of negotiatingwith the institutional review board. Cognisance of these tenets will help student researchers recognise the value of ethical review and regard it as an opportunity to clarify one’s research objectives. Encourage students to refrain from approaching the review processwith a defensive or even adversarial outlook, but to engage in open and constructive communication with the review board and its representatives. In so doing, mutual appreciation of both the researcher’s and review board’s objectives can be wrought, thereby facilitating the collaborative development of a research protocol that meets the study’s goals, while respecting the rights of subjects and the concerns of the institution. This lesson was drawn into sharp relief for me when I conducted research on the media use of juvenile delinquents (Lim, Chan, Vadrevu, & Basnyat, 2013). I was inundated Journal of Children and Media, 2014 Vol. 8, No. 4, 498–500, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2014.953753