What do you think of this law school prof's controversial exercise?

[+ FreshFluff]

Was it appropriate to do this, or was it wrong so soon after the recent shooting in Oregon? If it were me, I would have skipped it this semester. And IMO, the students were not wrong to call the police if a stalker showed up in class.

 

An evidence professor at IU [indiana University] Law has apologized after she faked an angry intruder in order to prove that eyewitness testimony is not always trustworthy. People called 911 and hid under desks, and rumor has it at least one student left through the emergency exit.

 

 

Some person no one had seen before (maybe a relative?) played the intruder. The guy came in and said “Aviva Orenstein!” … slowly approached her … “You are the woman responsible for taking away my children!” She said, “No no, not in here!” and escorted him into the hallway.

 

 

A handful of students followed her out there to make sure she’d be OK. That’s when one student called 911.

 

http://abovethelaw.com/2015/10/what-was-this-law-professor-thinking-a-teaching-technique-triggers-terror-in-students/?show=comments#comments

 

This YT video shows the same demo done at another school.

[+ bigjoey]

A similar experiment occurred at the University of Michigan Law School in the late '60's when I was there.

 

When done, we all knew that eye witnesses were not reliable.

[+ sync]

OMG. In light of recent and on-going, real-time classroom tragedies, what could possibly go wrong?

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

I am an IU grad (School of Business) so I'm included to back up the theory of what was intended. Even though the aftermath may not have been intended; it does demonstrate the point that different perspectives can influence the recall of the event. If some in the class were worried about the professor's safety and others were concerned about their own safety; then this provides a great teaching of the differences of recall.

 

As a banker, as part of the training for anyone working in the bank is what to do in the event of a robbery. And the thing to do after the robbers are out of the branch, assuming that no one is injured, is to instruction everyone in the branch to not talk and write down what they remember seeing. It is important because if the manager states only two robbers, but there were three, then many of the others will question their recall and modify their statements to the police. If everyone gives a separate response, while there will be differences, the truth will emerge.

[+ quoththeraven]

Echoing what Bigjoey said, this is nothing new. In the late 70s, I witnessed a similar demonstration in which the "intruder" ran into the classroom just as class began, grabbed something (a book, probably) from the professor's desk, and ran out. Students' recall of what happened was incomplete and contradictory.

 

As far as I know, that same professor did this every time he taught evidence. Since then, many, many studies have demonstrated how unreliable eyewitness testimony is, but nothing brings that home more forcefully than a real life demonstration.

[Kenny]

Would have been helpful if a concealed carry student intervened, blowing away the intruder. That way, there would be no need for eye-witness anything. The heroism would have been obvious. Doncha think?

[Guest]

This is called human experimentation. In order to legally perform a human experiment, one must submit a protocol to an accredited institution's Institutional Review Board (IRB), which acts as a human subject protection committee. The protocol must include an informed consent document, which all subjects are required to read and sign. This document must, of course, disclose any risk to the subjects, among other disclosures. There are no exclusions to this rule for any group of people, including students or prisoners. In fact, there are extra protections built in for potential subjects who are in coercive situations (such as students or prisoners). What this law professor did was highly illegal, and there was certainly no excuse for him not to know this. He could be held liable on either a criminal or civil basis.

These experiments have been done before, and the results are known and predictable. A more appropriate course of action would entail making references to these studies during his lectures. The situation you described clearly demonstrates why we have laws and protocols to protect human subjects.

[+ FreshFluff]

"Class projects," whether done by individual students or the class as a whole,, are usually IRB exempt. At UT Austin, for example:

 

Research qualifies for the designation of student class project if:

 

• It is an activity designed as part of a course requirement for purposes of learning research methods and;
  
• The results and data will not be presented, posted, or published outside of the classroom
  

 

So this would qualify.

 

Law school profs, most of whom don't do experimental research, probably aren't used to working with the IRB.

[+ ursalex]

I am a law professor and I have done this type of exercise, but in a non-confrontational manner so the students were merely observing a conversation, not participating, and the conversation was banal, making it even more difficult to remember. But have a heart -- I'm sure that professor meant well, but we have become so politically correct that innovation and creativity are no longer encouraged, and things do occasionally go wrong.

[Guest]

It is an activity designed as part of a course requirement for purposes of learning research methods.

The activity you described was clearly not designed in order to teach research methods. It was designed to show the lack of reliability of eyewitness testimony, and was clearly experimental in nature. And it was most certainly not a "class project." What's worse is that it had the potential to (and did) cause emotional distress. People should not be experimented on without their consent. It's unethical and illegal.

[+ FreshFluff]

My guess is that the UT IRB would put more weight on the "learning" part of the clause than the particular area they're supposed to be learning about.

 

The emotional distress issue is very real, but some schools' IRBs are stricter than others. One school might decide that the potential for emotional distress outweighed any learning that resulted from the exercise. Others would be more lax.

 

The way the exercise was done in QTR's class (having someone come in, snatch something, and leave) might be a good compromise that causes less distress for students.