Question

Which of the following proposed studies would constitute human subjects research as defined under the federal regulations? A researcher uses ships' manifest records of people who entered America between 1875 and 1880 to track the restrictions immigration laws imposed on certain ethnic immigrant groups. A researcher from a school of social work obtains access to students' academic records (including identifiable information) to assess the effect of drug awareness programs on student academic achievement. A researcher conducts a comparison of the comments made in a publicly available blog and the blogger's comments on a similar topic in a weekly magazine. An organization for women academics in engineering asks a federal agency to provide the number of women investigators funded by that agency to include in a report for its membership.

Answer 1

It would seem most likely that the study that would constitute human subjects research would be - a researcher from a school of social work obtains access to students academic records (including identifiable information) to assess the effect of drug awareness programs on student academic achievement. For this study the researcher has specific personal information about the subjects he wants to study, all the subjects are real students, they are all identifiable, they aren't just a number or statistics or anonymous people.