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Use of Anonymous Survey Data
Every semester, a psychology professor asks his undergraduate class to fill out an anonymous survey form that asks many general questions about their beliefs and attitudes. Some of the questions deal with such issues as drug use, sexuality, and criminal behavior. The professor tabulates their responses and uses this information when preparing and presenting his lectures. While preparing an article that he will submit for publication, the professor decides to cite some of this data, data which reflects poorly on the students. The chairman of his department prohibits this, ostensibly on the grounds that neither institutional review board approval nor informed consent was obtained. It is obvious that, in reality, the chairman’s purpose is to protect the reputation of the school. How should the professor respond? C4L says: Regardless of how the data represent the students or the school, it cannot be used for these purposes since no consent to do so was obtained prior to its collection. The chairman is correct. J1G says: The larger problem is with the sample's generalizability. The anonymity issue is secondary to the fact that the data probably aren't meaningful outside the narrow community of students of that demographic. No good journal would want the paper anyway.
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