Looking for volunteers for "research"

purposes and looking for them on Facebook is going to give you a really good random sample isn't it? The results you get from that sample are going to be even better aren't they?

There was a post on FB yesterday from someone who was doing some behavioural research. That person was looking for volunteers to complete an online survey. The "university" in question is one of those which appeared when someone decided that there should be more degree granting institutions in this country. It may be doing some good work. It may even be doing some excellent research but what was going on in the FB post disturbed me. 

The research concerns "obsessive/compulsive" behaviour. If the research proposal had come up in front of an ethics committee at any of the universities I attended or have worked at then it would not have passed muster.  

You will not get a random sample by asking for volunteers in research of this nature through FB. Without a random sample your "results" are, to put it gently, "questionable". The description of the nature of the research and the process also raised questions for me.

I suspect that, although it looked official (and is on the website of the university in question) the person doing the research is a student who has not been given the guidance they need. If their supervisor(s) approved the approach then then the level and the competence of the supervisor(s) also needs to be questioned.

I did question the approach in a comment on FB but have not had a response. That is not unexpected. 

What is also not unexpected is the small article in today's paper about research funding for things like "decolonising breast feeding" - for which a grant of a million dollars has been given. There is another for almost as much given to an "anti-racist dentist curriculum". Both of these may have more value than the paltry $18,000 given for a drag show for scientists but why is that being funded at all?

I remember all too clearly the hours of work which went into getting renewed funding from the Research Council for major projects in England. There would be meetings in the research unit I was attached to, lists, research into the research, queries to other places and much more. Even my own work, which had no funding attached to the SSRC grant, came into it. Everything was scrutinised and analysed. Then everyone went around looking anxious until the grant came through again. It might have been less than asked for but it meant people could still get on with the job. 

I am not sure this is happening here. Apparently someone has been given a grant for promoting a "colonial resistance dance" and to someone who designs tea towels for the purpose of "challenging racial stereotypes of First Nations people". 

I can think of more valuable things on which to spend limited research funds...and better ways to conduct the research.