Grades of tutored students were compared with grades of non-tutored students.
Data Analysis: Grade-point average of tutored students was 34% higher than grades for non-tutored students, and this difference cannot be easily explained by chance.
Conclusion: Tutoring improves grades.
3 Ethics and Cultural Competence in Social Work Research
Paul is a social work student who is an intern in a community center, where he provides services to persons who have recently been released from prison. He has decided to conduct a study that includes both his current clients and a group of persons who are presently in prison. His supervisor informed him that he would have to have this proposal reviewed by the institutional review board (IRB) of his university. When he consulted this board, he learned that prisoners are viewed as a vulnerable population for research requiring special attention. He would need to be sure to implement certain safeguards, including the necessity that the outcome of this research be beneficial to people who are prisoners. He should not, for example, ask prisoners to be subjects for a research study that is not especially relevant to being a prisoner because this population is not likely to benefit from it. Prisoners are vulnerable to feeling compelled to participate, so the benefit of the study must be to this population.
Voluntary participation, Paul has learned, is just one of many issues in the use of human subjects in research. This issue is especially important when the study subjects are members of vulnerable populations. He recognized that the theme of vulnerable population is one that ties together the subjects of ethics and cultural competence in research. The most important functions of social work, Paul believes, are services and advocacy for vulnerable populations. In this regard, knowledge of culture is essential. It is also essential that the social work researcher appreciates the various ethical considerations in the use of human subjects in research.
Paul also learned that the IRB monitors research projects for the protection of human subjects. In his university, researchers must submit reports to this board when human subjects are being asked to participate in a research project. The IRB must approve the project before it is being implemented.
Introduction
This chapter has two major sections, one focusing on ethics and one on cultural competence. These are two themes that you will consider when you conduct social work research. Ethics provide rules of behavior based on moral values. For example, you should not conduct research that would potentially harm the study participants or invade their privacy. And you should not engage in behaviors designed to coerce people into participating in your study. When you complete this chapter, you should have fundamental competence in the consideration of ethical principles for your research study and be prepared to deal with the organizational body that must review your research protocol for ethical concerns.
Cultural competence refers to competence that recognizes the influence of culture with regard to practice. For social work research, this means including culture in the review of literature about the behaviors being researched, recognizing cultural influences on the target behaviors in selecting a study sample, and analyzing data in a way that includes relevant cultural variables. This type of competence informs the research process in a way that makes it more meaningful for our understanding of the cultural influences on behavior.
This chapter addresses the themes of ethics in the use of human subjects in research and cultural competence in research. On the completion of this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
1 Define the concept of ethics in the use of human subjects in research
2 Identify several ethical issues in the use of human subjects in research with special focus on (a) protection from harm, (b) protecting privacy, (c) obtaining voluntary consent, (d) avoiding deception, and (e) weighing the risks and benefits of actions that might avoid certain protections
3 Explain several ethical principles that support the expectations related to the issues in the use of human subjects in research
4 Identify the nature of the IRB in the monitoring of social work research that employs human subjects
5 Report on some of the violations of human rights that led to the use of IRBs
6 Identify how cultural competence is relevant to social work research
7 Explain how cultural competence is related to various types of research
8 Identify several strategies for culturally competent evaluation
9 Report on the question of the extent to which social workers have been found to be culturally competent in survey research
10 Discuss one approach to rethinking cultural competence
A concept that binds ethics and cultural competence is the vulnerable population. People in a vulnerable population are viewed as vulnerable because they are likely to view their participation in research to be necessary because of the population in which they reside. For example, prisoners may feel that they cannot say no to the invitation to participate. Children are not viewed as being in a position to give informed consent because they are too young for this task. The institutional review board (IRB) of the University of Virginia lists several groups as being vulnerable populations. These groups include prisoners, children, cognitively impaired individuals, minorities, economically disadvantaged persons, terminally ill patients, students, and employees (Institutional Review Board for Health Sciences Research, University of Virginia, 2017).
This review board explained the inclusion of members of minority groups as follows:
In addition to requiring the equitable selection of women as research subjects, Federal regulations require the equitable selection of minorities as research subjects. The inclusion of minorities in research is important both to ensure that they receive an equal share of the benefits of the research and to ensure that they do not bear a disproportionate burden. (Institutional Review Board for Health Sciences Research, University of Virginia, 2017)
As you can see, there are two themes addressed: (1) the sufficient inclusion to the benefits of research and (2) the avoidance of excessive burden.
Section A: Ethics in the Use of Human Subjects in Research
Human subjects research is “research involving a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research obtains data through intervention or interaction with the individual, or identifiable private information” (National Institutes of Health, n.d.). The typical human subjects research that you will undertake (as a social worker or a social work student) will entail a survey of individuals where questions are asked about the variables in the study. The variables may be descriptive (gender, age, etc.) or related to study hypotheses (depression, attitudes about agency service, etc.). This means that you will be collecting data from a living individual; thus, it qualifies as being research with human subjects. If you collect identifiable private information from living persons through records, you will also be conducting research involving human subjects according to this definition from the federal government. If the data are not identifiable (e.g., the names of the persons are not attached to the data), your study does not qualify as the use of human subjects for research. If the names are with the information, however, your study qualifies for this designation, even if you do not plan to report the names of the persons with their information. If it is available to you as a researcher, your study is classified
