Case Study: IRB Process

As part of his graduate applied research project, Barry is studying truancy rates among middle school students in an inner-city neighborhood with a history of gang violence. A fellow graduate student from the same neighborhood tells him that many of the students from this school hang out at a local YMCA in the afternoons. Barry goes to the YMCA and begins asking teens if they would be willing to participate in an interview about crime in the neighborhood. What role should the Institutional Review Board (IRB) play in this process? What issues might arise if Barry proceeds with the interviews without prior approval from the IRB?