In the name of science?

ELKCHSR

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SHOCK QUIZ PAYS GUINEA-PIG KIDS

By ANDREA PEYSER

W HO says public education doesn't pay?

Hundreds of Manhattan sixth-graders are being recruited — in their classrooms — with $25 cash payments to serve as guinea pigs in a psychological study that some parents are calling blatantly racist.

The study's 11-year-old targets are asked questions so potentially upsetting, researchers say they've put shrinks on call in case kids freak out.

What is this study? Well, the content is kept secret from parents and taxpayers. But I've obtained a copy.

It's called "Project RAP," short for Real Adolescent Perspectives. Armed with a $2.5 million National Science Foundation (news - web sites) grant, researchers at NYU are using public schools to enter the heads of preteens.

But at what cost? Here are a few questions your kids are being asked during school hours:


* How much does your father or mother like or love you? 1) Little or none 2) Somewhat 3) Pretty much 4) Very much 5) The most

* How often do you feel that adults treat you like you're NOT smart because of your race or ethnicity? 0) Never 1) Rarely 2) Sometimes 3) Often 4) All the time.

* We have given you a list of the names of all the kids in your grade. Who gets picked on a lot? Who is not liked by teachers?

Some of the multiple-choice questions don't even permit a positive response.

Mothers and teachers can get in on the action. Moms get paid up to $180 to dish on their kids. And teachers rake in $3 a head for writing student behavioral evaluations — illegal if done during school hours, an education official warned.

Professor Diane Hughes of NYU's Steinhardt School of Education, one of two lead researchers, defended the teacher payouts as "respectful of their time."

Some parents are not happy. Bonnie Wan, whose son Alex attends sixth grade in MS 104 on East 21st Street, told me her boy came home from school bugging her to sign a permission slip — so he'd get paid $5 for the first batch of research questions, another $20 for a follow-up interview. She signed.

Then her son told her about the study.

"One question was, 'How often do you spend time with your father?' " Wan said. "My son said only two days — because my husband is a restaurant worker, and he's at work when my son gets home.

"What kind of question is that? It seems like they are aiming at mostly a minority population." She withdrew her consent.

Granville Stevens forbade his daughter from joining the study. Stevens, who is black, objected to the racial tone of questions.

"They reinforce social stereotypes," he said.

Hughes admitted that "race is a large component" of the study.

"I think [schoolkids] do experience discrimination in certain ways," she said. She stressed that the study is "not only of black and Latino kids."

So why does the consent form tell parents: "If at any point your child feels upset or uncomfortable, we will provide a list of phone numbers where (s)he can talk to someone about her/his feelings"? Hughes said no kid has taken the counseling offer so far.

About 500 sixth-graders have signed up from these schools: Booker T. Washington, Tito Puente, Sun Yat-Sen and MS 104. Researchers hope to study 1,000 kids and follow them to eighth grade.

Another sore point is that participants get pulled from class. At first, math and social-studies classes were interrupted.

But parents rebelled, and now the study is performed during gym class.

Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said city officials approved the study — but taking kids from any class is not OK: "If students were filling out questions during math, social studies or even gym, that would not be part of the agreement."
 
Uh duh, it's optional! Stop whining, just don't do it. :rolleyes:

Does anyone see a serious problem with any of those so-called shocking questions? People are getting so PC nowadays it makes you want to puke. Plus I seriously doubt any of those questions are at all bugging the kids who are probably perfectly fine with all of this.

Y'all want some shocking, disturbing questions, come take one of my polls. ;)
 
the point is?

I analyzed stuff sort of like this from studies at the medical school here. You can't ask kids questions, till you know what's good for adults and you can't experiment of adults with drugs, until you know it works on animals. The first adults to get experimental drugs are those that have failed every approved drug and are terminal. Lots of cancer experimental drugs.

I'm really glad we have the FDA in the US. In Europe and south America, people are hurt by a lot of experimental drugs, because they don't have the safe guards that we have here in this country.

Here's an example of the effects questionaires have on people. We've done drug abuse intervention studies here. When the heavy drinkers get in a study, the first thing they have to do, is go over all their past drinking history, how it occurs or does not occur, like with friends, alone, etc. Its amazing, people going over all of that in a systematic way, just to be in a study. That is the biggest effect, study enrollment. After that, we have the placebo drug effect. Wow, now I'm on a drug, that will help me control the drinking, and it does, even though its a placebo drug. After that, we get to the real drug and/or treament effects.

It looks like that education study is trying to get at the extent of home problems, as part of its goal. The author didn't tell us the goal though. Informed consent, requires that the goal be stated, before they enroll, unless its just answering simple questions, then the local Institutional Review Board, required by federal law, to review risks and benefits of human research, might get relaxed. I think there is public information available, if you want it, from the IRB that approved that research as well as the agency that funded it. Like CRISP, go a google search on that.
 
ok num 1 they have no buissnessaskin kids question like that and teachin kids to make money off parents that wrong if i understand right what i read and they get sued why not mcdonalds got sued for people gettin fat oh dear hey they wanna go there eat tempting food their fault no offense to big people but i understand temptaion i cant get fat so i sorta know what like lots i live with big about all but me sigh even the cat :eek: hehe like that icon
 

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