Results

Milgram's Obedience Studies
James M. DuBois
In the early 1960’s, Stanley Milgram used deception to recruit subjects for a psychology experiment. Subjects were told that the research concerned the effect of punishment on learning, when in fact it studied obedience to authority.

Hepatitis Studies at the Willowbrook State School for Children with Mental Retardation
James M. DuBois
From 1956 through 1971, residents at the Willowbrook State School for Children with Mental Retardation were infected with live hepatitis in order to develop a vaccine. Parents gave permission for their children to participate in this study, often because it guaranteed acceptance into the overcrowded facility.

Full Disclosure: Use of Control Groups in Behavioral Intervention Research
Celia B. Fisher
Fearing that parents of children who are in the control group of a school-based substance abuse intervention study will feel slighted, a researcher does not mention the intervention– only the questionnaire – in the control group parental permission form. Fisher presents this as an example of poor research practice.

It's All the Same
James M. DuBois
A psychiatric researcher feels that a research coordinator recruiting patients for drug trials may be giving participants false hope about the experimental treatments being tested.

Seifromax
James M. DuBois
A clinician-researcher who is participating in a multi-site study of an anti-depressant for adolescents refuses to prescribe the drug off-label to patients whose parents do not consent to enroll them in the clinical trial. One parent complains to the IRB.

Severe Emotional Disturbance Studies
James M. DuBois
Dr. Randall has proposed two studies involving children with severe emotional disturbance (SED), one involving a control group and the other random assignment into foster care.

Jumping to Conclusions
Patricia Keith-Spiegel and Gerald P. Koocher
A researcher makes conclusions from her data that are inappropriate given the study design. The authors present this case as an example of poor research practice.

A "Modest" Proposal on Alcohol Experimentation
Peter Finn
Researchers want to examine the relative contributions of the pharmacological effects of alcohol and the belief that one has consumed alcohol on aggressive behavior in a controlled experiment. Researchers plan to deceive subjects regarding the type of beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) they receive and the true purpose of the experiment. Following the experiment, subjects will be debriefed regarding the deception, the type of beverage they received, and the true purpose of the study.

Students as Research Subjects
William Timberlake
A researcher recruits students to participate in study to test an experimental treatment for depression. Several students who are randomly assigned to the control group voice complaints about their lack of treatment.

Disulfiram
Peter Finn
A researcher designs an experiment to test the effectiveness of disulfiram alone versus in combination with three other treatments (alcohol education, relapse prevention, or Alcoholics Anonymous). Subjects are volunteers who have sought treatment for alcoholism elsewhere but cannot afford to enter a clinic program.

To Control or Not to Control
Brian Schrag
For her M.S. research thesis in counseling, Sherry would like to develop and test an educational intervention for students having academic difficulty at the technical college where she is an academic counselor. While Sherry feels having a control group would deny at-risk students the opportunity for improvement, her committee argues that a control group is needed in order to strengthen her research design.

Proposed Study of the Natural Course of Schizophrenia with Self-Help Supports
Jean Campbell
In response to the suggestions of advocates, mental health consumers, and researchers that people with mental illness suffer more from the disabling effects of psychotropic medications, institutionalization, and other treatments than from the disease itself, government scientists propose a study of the natural course of schizophrenia.

Ensuring Fair Representation of Minority Children in Research
Emily E. Anderson
A multi-site study comparing several treatment modalities for children with ADHD using random assignment seeks to ensure fair representation and access to research benefits for minority children given issues of potential overdiagnosis and underrepresentation in care.

Placebo Trials with Prevalent but Unproven Treatments
Emily E. Anderson
At a residential treatment center for persons with mental retardation, lithium is frequently used to treat aggressive and self-injurious adolescents. However, this use of the drug has never been systematically tested on this population. Investigators propose a placebo-control experimental design but some staff members believe this is depriving patients of an established treatment.

Accruing Patients for a Problem-Solving Intervention for Suicidal Young Adults
Emily E. Anderson
You are a researcher considering how to conduct a randomized trial of a behavioral intervention.