This website provides useful resource for students taking various research courses within the Counselling and Psychology Department at HKSYU. It offers support for ethics review applications, including essential information about the ethics review process and templates for necessary documents.
Ethics Review Process
All theses or final year research projects involving human participants conducted by students in the department must be reviewed for ethics by the Departmental Research Subcommittee. To begin the review process, applicants must submit an ethics review application form. Applicants should compile all necessary information into a SINGLE application form file.
The file of the application form should be coded as the specific format. For example, Chan Tai Man is a psychology major student (SID: 123456) taking PSY401, then the file name of his application form should be like: PSY401_123456_CTM_2025, whereas '2025' is the year he firstly submitted the form.
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Undergraduate Projects
Completed application forms should be submitted by late April. The first round of reviews typically takes place in mid-June. Any applications from undergraduate programs submitted after the end of the second semester will be reviewed in the second round, which occurs in late July.
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Decisions for the first round of submissions will be announced after mid-June. For applications that require resubmission, amended versions should be submitted to the respective supervisors within a month. These will be reviewed, together with the late submissions, in the second round, scheduled for late July. Following that review, applicants who need to revise their submissions must submit their updated work within a month to ensure their forms can be reviewed again in late August.
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Additional processing time is needed for any application submitted other than the proposed due dates.
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Postgraduate Projects (MSSCP & MSSPSY)
Students in the MSSCP and MSSPSY programmes should submit their ethics review form by late July, with reviews taking place in late August. Please note that applications submitted outside the specified deadlines will require additional processing time. Those wishing to apply for the early review round can submit their applications to their research coordinators, Dr. Fu Wai, by May 15 (CP540/1) and Dr. Miki Leung, by 1 July (PSY509). These applications will be reviewed in mid-June and late july corespondingly.
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Postgraduate Projects (MSSPT)
Part-time students in the MSSPT program are required to submit their ethics review form by mid-May. Applications will be reviewed in mid-June. Any submissions made after the deadline will be considered in the second review round, taking place in late July. Resubmissions should be submitted within a month and will be reviewed in late August. Full-time students should submit their ethics review form by late December, with reviews occurring in late January. Applications submitted outside of the specified deadlines will require additional processing time.
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Part-time students may apply for the early review round by submitting their applications to their research coordinator, Dr. Sandrine CHUNG, by April 15. Applications will be reviewed within two weeks. ​​ ​​
Consent and Debriefing
In any study involving human participants, obtaining informed consent is essential. When recruiting undergraduate participants aged 17 or older participants, it is mandatory for them to sign an informed consent form. Both the participant and the research student should keep a copy of the signed consent form. For data collection using online questionnaires or platforms, please ensure that participants are presented with and agree to the consent information before the data collection process begins.
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For research involving children aged 12 to 16 years, if the study qualifies for expedited review and ensures anonymity, passive parental consent is deemed adequate. However, it is essential to clearly communicate to the students that their participation in the study is voluntary.
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For research that involves recruiting children under the age of 12, obtaining a parental consent form is necessary prior to commencing the study.
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If the study takes place in external organizations, such as schools, an invitation letter to the relevant external agency should be included in the single application form file.
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Once data collection is complete, it is customary to conduct a debriefing session with the participants or distribute a debriefing note to them. The debriefing notes should be written in plain and straightforward language, avoiding technical jargon. The purpose of the debriefing is to inform the participants about the reasons behind the study and the anticipated outcomes. It is important to remember that even if you are using fellow undergraduate students as participants, they may have less knowledge in psychology than you do. Thus, a debriefing session can also be beneficial for them to gain a better understanding of the field. In the case of participants below the age of 12, it is necessary to provide a debriefing to their parents as well, which can be done through a letter or any other appropriate means.​​
Compensation Policy
In certain special cases, students may compensate participants for their involvement in research if these participants are not sourced from the Department's online participant pool. This is especially applicable when participant recruitment proves challenging due to the specific demographic or nature of the participants required for the study.
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Compensation is also considered acceptable if the research procedures are complex and require a significant time commitment from participants—typically more than an hour. The compensation amount should be reasonable and, if possible, grounded in a reference rate. For example, the payment rate for undergraduate participants could be based on the University's established pay rate for student assistants.​
Downloads
You can access the ethics review application form and various related documents on Moodle. In additional, you can consult your research manual for a comprehensive understanding of the required documents for each submission. Below, you can also find all downloadable forms and documents.
Samples
You can also access some of the best research works conducted by our graduates in the library electronic collection section. The procedure is simple.
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1. Go to library webpage (https://www.hksyu.edu.hk/lib/)
2. Click 'Collections', choose 'Dissertations' and choose 'Counselling and Psychology'
3. Enjoy
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