In order to better understand online bullying triggers, a group of researchers will recruit secondary school students who are social media users. Researchers will first approach students at school with a questionnaire concerning online harassment on social media sites. Among those who report at least one instance of online harassment in the past year (and with further permission of their parents) researchers will invite them to participate in more in-depth study. In this more in-depth phase, researchers will be given access to view the student’s social media platform on which the harassment occurred. The researchers will study the initial circumstances surrounding the harassment, in order to ascertain the proximate causes of such harassment.   Developed for use at an October 2016 CENTRES workshop on the Social, Behavioural and Educational Research. © 2016 National University of Singapore. All rights Reserved.   Questions for Discussion What are the main forms of subject […]

A group of Singaporean students who are concerned with the long-term health effects of smoking want to study the effectiveness of behavioural therapies in helping secondary school students quit smoking. Posters will be put up on notice boards at 10 secondary schools inviting students who want to quit smoking to register their interest to participate in the study by attending a free talk on smoking cessation at a designated venue. 50 students attending the talk will be invited to participate in the study and attend a series of behavioural therapy sessions. Six months after the end of the therapy sessions, participants will be interviewed by phone to find out whether they have ceased smoking. A further follow-up will be carried out 12 months after the end of the therapy sessions.   Developed for use at an October 2016 CENTRES workshop on the Social, Behavioural and Educational Research. © 2016 National […]

A group of researchers from a university want to study the correlation between climate features, population density, construction site activity, and the Dengue incidence rate. Anecdotal evidence suggests that several factors are predictive of spikes in infection rates: heavy rainfall, population density and construction site activities. The result of this research is a risk map, which will allow for the effective prediction of ‘hot zones’. Authorities will then be able to use their resources more effectively when deciding on appropriate preventive measures.   In order to carry out this study, the researchers intend to among other things, obtain health data over the last twelve months as well as over the next twelve months, from all public hospitals in Singapore regarding patients who have been diagnosed with dengue. Although researchers do not require names and IC numbers, they will need to know where the patients live and their places of work/study. […]

An ongoing study aims to measure the long-term effect of regular consumption of specially-formulated protein milkshakes on the match performance of adult football players at a local community club. One of the researchers, however, misunderstood the meaning of ‘adult’ and recruited several 18 year olds into the study. They have been consuming the shakes and had their performance monitored for several weeks. The PI discovers the error, and must decide what course of action to take.   Developed for use at the February 2016 CENTRES workshop on the Human Biomedical Research Act. © 2016 National University of Singapore.   Questions for Discussion What should the researcher, her IRB and/or her research institution do? Who has been or could be exposed to liability under the Act, and under what potential penalties?