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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the ethics-committee dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Bath Spa University is conducting an internal inquiry into claims that it turned down an application for research on gender reassignment reversal because it was "potentially politically incorrect" and would attract criticism on social media.

James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specialises in working with transgender people, proposed the research about "detransitioning" to the university in south-west England, which, he said, initially approved the application.

When he went back with his preliminary findings that suggested growing numbers of young people, particularly women, were regretting gender reassignment, Bath Spa said his proposal would have to be resubmitted to the ethics committee, which rejected it.

Caspian, who enrolled on an MA course at the university, said he was "astonished" by the decision and had sought legal advice.

"The fundamental reason given was that it might cause criticism of the research on social media, and criticism of the research would be criticism of the university. They also added it's better not to offend people," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday.

I was going to add some snark here but they pretty well covered making a mockery of academia for me.

Source: The Guardian

Also at: The Times


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:04AM (7 children)

    by FakeBeldin (3360) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:04AM (#579704) Journal

    When he went back with his preliminary findings that suggested growing numbers of young people, particularly women, were regretting gender reassignment, Bath Spa said his proposal would have to be resubmitted to the ethics committee, which rejected it.

    1. Why did he show preliminary findings? Was it just "research excitement" sharing?
    2. First mistake: Bath Spa saying that he should resubmit.
            The proposal either had been submitted already, evaluated and approved, or it hadn't, in which case it wouldn't be a resubmission.
            Best case: the actual research executed deviates from the proposal. Then it hasn't been ethically evaluated, and should still be.
            That case is also not a resubmission, it is a failure of the researcher to adequately use the ethics process.
    3. Second mistake: ethics committee rejecting upon revision
            If it was an actual resubmission, they should have reached the same conclusion as before.
    4. Third mistake: the reason for rejection has nothing to do with ethics.
            Using the ethics committee for rejections based on PR drama is quite frankly a violation of ethics standards.

    Having said that, there are a number of unclarities in the story.
    A student that initiates and performs research unsupervised? Err, no. That's not what universities do. They teach students, as opposed to letting students flaunder about or doing what the student thinks is best. You don't need a university for that, you just do it.
    A psychotherapist that thinks he can do research, but doesn't have a masters in that area?

    Moreover, he talks about the case on his own homepage [transgenderawareness.co.uk]:

    In recent years there has been a change in the profile of people presenting at gender clinics, a rise in the numbers of young people, especially young women, and a reported rise in the number of people reversing their gender re-assignment. I set out to research this phenomenon by enrolling on an MA at Bath Spa university, the core of which was to undertake a substantial piece of research. I intended to present this at the European Professional Association of Transgender Health conference in Belgrade in 2017. This was not to be as the university vetoed my research.

    First up: I don't know a study that lets the student choose a research topic upon enrolling. Maybe that's because I have a science background, and this is a humanities study. But it would be weird: a study where the university doesn't know what they're teaching until the student decides...
    Secondly: I don't know how trivial it is to get research talks into the EPA Transgender Health conference. I do know how it works in the field of computer science. There, your research is evaluated before acceptance. It's called peer review. Stating that you were intending to present something at a conference that you have barely begun... that's not how science works.
    You don't talk about ideas that you still need to verify. You talk about ideas that you verified.

    Finally, he thinks he should fight this case.
    I don't get that. If he wants to do the research, go ahead. He can do the research. Not as part of a study at Bath University, but who cares whether or not you do your research as part of a university? If it's good research, we'll hear about it.
    Even if it came out of a Swiss patent office.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:25AM (#579709)

    If it's good research, we'll hear about it.

    Sure we'll. From a massed SJW smear campaign, as per usual.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:55AM (1 child)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:55AM (#579737) Homepage Journal

    A student that initiates and performs research unsupervised? Err, no. That's not what universities do.

    You're extremely incorrect there. Unsupervised research is required for quite a lot of majors. Especially of the social sciences variety. I've personally had my time wasted on silly research studies more than once by family and friends looking for a head-shrinky masters.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:56PM

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:56PM (#579966) Journal

      Well, as I mentioned, I have a science background.
      I can tell you how it works in a science curriculum - and yes, that's extrapolating from what little data I have.

      The core of the science curriculum challenge is that usually, there isn't enough time in the study to teach a decent background in the area. You end up having to make choices. So you're not going to waste time letting students flaunder when you could actually be teaching them something.
      Of course, if the flaundering is the whole point of the exercise, that's different. You see that e.g. in teacher training (for some levels at least): practice is over 50% of the curriculum. Similarly, a few of the social sciences groups around here teach people research methodology. So I'll admit that that could be the case: that this person enrolled in a programme that teaches (social science) research methodology. It's still more than a little weird to me that he'd go in dead set on what his research should be about though - part of learning about doing research is learning the questions to ask.

      If you go in knowing what to do already, what's the point of the programme?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @12:39PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @12:39PM (#579745)

    > I don't know a study that lets the student choose a research topic upon enrolling.

    One method that works is to bring your own funding. I know of one PhD that was done this way, at a large state university:
      * He worked for several years after completing a Masters degree (engineering)
      * Applied for and won a federal(USA) scholarship from Department of Transportation, his employer wrote one of the required recommendations, as did faculty from his Master's program
      * The award included funding for tuition, books, and a living stipend
      * Student discussed his chosen topic with faculty, got permission and agreed on scope
      * PhD completed a few years later, combined with part time work at the university that was funded by a fellowship from his employer

    But this is far different from most engineering PhD's that I'm aware of, where the student's funding is completely dependent on research funding that is obtained by their faculty advisor. If the advisor changes research interest (gets a different grant) it is entirely possible that the student will have to scrap completed research and start over with a different PhD topic.

    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:00PM

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:00PM (#579970) Journal

      One method that works is to bring your own funding. I know of one PhD that was done this way

      Ah! Continental crosstalk!
      PhD's are not a study where I am from - they're a job. Indeed, if you bring your own funding for a PhD position, then I can imagine this scenario.
      It might even be possible otherwise, although nowadays virtually all PhD funding around here comes from projects which outlines the expected research.

      (Sidenote: the person in the story enrolled for an "MA", which I took to be a Masters of Art. For master's programmes, I'd expect the curriculum to be fixed and not tailored to each individual student.)

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:56PM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:56PM (#579784) Journal

    First up: I don't know a study that lets the student choose a research topic upon enrolling

    I can only speak for the UK university system in this regard, but if it's Bath Spa then that's relevant here:

    Most masters and PhD applications require that you submit a research proposal as part of the application process. For a masters, it's quite unlikely that you'll actually do this research, but it's there for several reasons:

    • To ensure that you actually have an idea of what research is. It's surprisingly common that people apply for research degrees without any idea of what research entails. This is often a recipe for deep unhappiness and often for people to drop out, so it's good to filter them out early. Most people who haven't done a research degree don't have a very good idea of what research entails, which is one of the reasons that these proposals are, at best, the core of a real project and often disregarded entirely, but they should at least have some idea of what they're signing up for.
    • To check that there is some common interest between the faculty and the applicant. If they department has experts in X, Y, and Z, and the applicant is really really interested in A, then they're probably going to be unhappy when they arrive and find that there's no one who can / wants to supervise a project in their main area of interest. For example, in computer science, if you you submit an application saying that you want to look at a new idea for how to do branch prediction to a department that does no architecture research then you'll probably be encouraged to apply elsewhere (or, at least, told up-front that there's zero chance of doing this project).

    I don't get that. If he wants to do the research, go ahead. He can do the research. Not as part of a study at Bath University, but who cares whether or not you do your research as part of a university? If it's good research, we'll hear about it.

    That's not always true. Some forms of research require expensive equipment that is difficult for people who are not born rich to acquire on their own. Any studies involving humans (such as this) come with very large potential legal liabilities. This is why ethics committees exist: so that an institution can decide if they want to carry the legal responsibility for an action. An ethics committee decision doesn't say that the university thinks that an experiment is legal, it says that the university is willing to take responsibility if it isn't. If you don't have that, then all legal liability is yours and if someone claims that they were harmed by your experiment then that can be very expensive.

    --
    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:04PM

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:04PM (#579975) Journal

      That's interesting!

      Most masters and PhD applications require that you submit a research proposal

      I've only seen that for PhD applications, not for masters.
      (And only rarely for PhD's, since most PhD funding that I encountered came from dedicated project funding, so the research was already outlined)

      Thanks for sharing that - I learned something.