Welcome! My name is Nellie and I’m part of the Writing Committee for the Young People’s Advisory Group. The young people’s advisory group is a community determined to discover the personal ideas and observations of young people regarding scientific and ethical issues.

In our first meeting we discussed the topic of research…

• We explored the premise of interviews and how certain factors can change the outcome of the results collected. For example the body language of the interviewer can determine how at ease the interviewee will be, which defines how much they will reveal at a personal level.
• We also discussed some terminology used in research, such as correlation; observing and comparing, experimental, manipulation of the environment.
• Having discussed how to conduct research and how to ensure we receive the most accurate results when doing so, we have to consider researchers’ and participants’ ethical and legal requirements. For instance, we discussed some potential satisfactory compensation for the research participants and we learnt that the participants need to have a clear understanding of the research and an appropriate reason for participating.
• We were introduced to a real life study, which enabled us to get a better idea of how research works and what happens to the results. In particular, we reviewed a questionnaire made for an experiment on the moral views of young people. Upon observing the questionnaire we suggested that frequency of the experiment should be kept to a short amount of time per day so participants do not lose interest and that the amount of answers per question should be limited in order to get a more precise and accurate result.

During this meeting we covered many interesting topics and I look forward to learning more at the next meeting, thanks for reading!

Nellie