Before a full study, careful planning includes a pilot and consideration of ethics.
Pilot studies
A pilot study is a small-scale trial run before the main study. Purposes:
- Check that the procedure works as intended.
- Spot ambiguous instructions or items in a questionnaire.
- Test that the equipment, timing and software function.
- Estimate how long each session will take.
- Check ethical procedures with a small group before scaling.
Finding problems in a pilot is cheaper than finding them after running 200 participants.
The BPS Code of Ethics
The British Psychological Society guides ethical practice in UK psychology. Six core principles for human participants:
- Informed consent. Participants must know what the study involves before agreeing. Consent must be documented; for under-16s, parental consent is required as well.
- Right to withdraw. Participants can leave at any time, during or after the study, without penalty, and can withdraw their data.
- Protection from harm. Participants must not be exposed to physical or psychological harm beyond what they would meet in everyday life. If harm is reasonably foreseeable, the study should be redesigned or abandoned.
- Confidentiality / anonymity. Participants' data must not identify them; codes are used in place of names and data stored securely.
- Deception. Should be avoided where possible; if deception is necessary (and approved by an ethics committee), participants must be debriefed afterwards.
- Debrief. After the study, participants are told the full purpose, given the chance to ask questions, and offered information on support if any distress arose.
Dealing with ethical issues
- Informed consent: detailed information sheet; signed consent form; "presumptive consent" (asking similar people whether they would agree) when full disclosure would invalidate the study.
- Withdrawal: state right to withdraw clearly at start and during the study.
- Protection: pilot the procedure for distress; provide support contacts.
- Confidentiality: anonymise data immediately; secure storage; aggregate reporting.
- Deception: pre-approval by ethics committee; full debrief; option to withdraw data after debrief.
Ethics review
At UK universities, every study with human participants must be approved by an ethics committee before recruitment begins. The committee weighs the scientific value against the costs to participants and society.
⚠Common mistakes— Common errors
- Confusing anonymity (not collecting identifying data) with confidentiality (collecting it but keeping it secret).
- Listing principles without saying how they would be addressed in the scenario given.
- Forgetting that the right to withdraw extends after the study (e.g. asking that data be deleted weeks later).
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