The Postgraduate's Guide to Research Ethics

Alice Temple

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350315341
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

Drawing together the philosophical principles of research and the application of ethical theories to real-life case studies, this text provides a complete start-to-finish guide to research ethics for postgraduate researchers of all subject areas. It begins with a brief survey of ethical theories, before showing readers how to construct an ethics proposal. It then goes on to examine ethical issues as they relate to various methodologies, including interviews, participant observation, focus groups and questionnaires. Key themes such as online research, privacy and confidentiality and the involvement of children and vulnerable populations in research are also covered. The book concludes with a chapter addressing ethical issues which may arise once the research has been completed. Chapters are enriched and enlivened with case studies, 'ethical perspectives' boxes and 'ask yourself' questions for readers to consider. This text will be an invaluable source of guidance on the ethics application process and ethical issues in research for all postgraduate researchers.

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

This book is aimed primarily at people who are engaged in research or preparation for research that will be subject to ethical approval. This may include researchers and students undertaking research-oriented degree programmes, but it may also be useful to members of staff and those on research ethics committees who want to use the materials in their courses or refresh their knowledge on particular topics.

It can be used as a core text for research ethics modules in courses. Much of the material is informed by the author’s experience in running short courses for researchers at different institutions and the issues that have arisen there. Individual chapters address different topics, and while the book can be used as a whole, these function independently to address particular issues. The book can also be used as a self-study guide for those who are interested in research ethics.

This chapter provides an overview of the book to introduce students to the philosophical principles of research ethics. These principles are reinforced by applying ethical theories to real-life case studies. They will enable students to think through the issues in more detail and help them to apply the principles to dilemmas arising from their own projects. It will also enable students to navigate more easily through ethical issues on the basis of a given time frame, methodology or theme.

Self-study aids

Each chapter contains reflective questions for the reader, together with a number of case studies which illustrate a range of research methods to highlight the relevant issues and prompt the reader to consider them in more detail. Difficult ethical dilemmas are presented in order to prompt the reader to think about how to weigh conflicting values. Readers will be challenged to identify what additional information they would need to reach a definitive conclusion in cases where the presented information does not allow them to do so and to identify what is ethically important about the additional information. This mirrors the task faced by a research ethics committee in determining what information they need from a researcher and by a researcher in deciding what information to include in a submission to a research ethics committee.

This text includes central topics in research ethics such as privacy, confidentiality and research with vulnerable groups, and features extended material on developing methods, such as the use of online research methods and the use of social media. It also considers the increase of interdisciplinary research and international collaborations, which include issues of the distribution of the benefits of research and the inclusion of third parties in the research.

Structure

The book is structured around the ethical issues arising first in the research design and then through different methods. Following this, we consider specific themes in research ethics and conclude with those ethical issues involved once the research has been completed.

Part one: the ethics proposal and research methods

The first part of the book introduces the ethical theories that underlie research ethics and then concentrates on ethical issues to consider when designing the research and preparing a proposal for an ethics committee. It also considers other relevant gatekeepers that might need to give you permission before you start your research, and common problems with applications. It gives practical advice on designing information sheets, consent forms and recruitment information for potential participants. It considers research misconduct, what it means and how it can be avoided. It relates the three ethical theories to different data collection methods and demonstrates the different ethical issues to be aware of with different methods. These are grouped as participant observation and ethnography; interviews and focus groups; and questionnaires.

Part two: ethical issues by theme

The second part of the book navigates central issues in research ethics arising during the research. These include issues around the use of online research methods, including how consent, privacy and confidentiality can be navigated online and the differences between and similarities with face-to-face methods. This is followed by other central topics, including privacy and confidentiality, the rise of big data sets and negotiating a balance between participants’ privacy and open access research results. It then considers working with vulnerable participants; what the consent process would look like with vulnerable participants; and working with gatekeepers to gain access. After that, it offers incentives for research participation and covers issues arising in international research projects, including issues of cultural sensitivity and security aspects of managing research data. This section also sketches out different ethical approaches to these issues and shows how different approaches would respond to them.

Part three: ethical issues once the research has been completed

The final section discusses ethical issues once the research has been completed, including archiving and dissemination and engaging the participants in these tasks; considering the boundaries around your involvement with the participants; and how these issues would be considered from the different ethical perspectives. It considers engaging with different audiences once the research has been completed – audiences such as academics, the public and participants.

Roles, responsibilities and boundaries of a researcher

Having outlined the structure of this book, we can now begin a discussion of the central ethical issue of the roles, responsibilities and boundaries of a researcher. In this section, we will also consider the United Kingdom’s Concordat to Support Research Integrity, 2012. A researcher who is working with human participants or their data clearly has responsibilities to them, but they also have responsibilities to the academic community and to wider society.

Responsibilities to participants

The obvious place to start is with the responsibilities to those affected directly or indirectly by the research project. The research participants have a stake in the research, so it will usually be relevant to them or a subject of interest to them; otherwise, they would not have agreed to participate. For many participants, taking part in the research might involve discussing emotional or sensitive topics or dedicating a significant amount of time or resources to assisting you with your research. An important aspect of managing your research project is managing the expectations of your participants from the outset of the project. The initial and obvious way to do this is to be clear and explicit about what the expectation is in terms of their involvement, their time, what they will be asked to do and what will happen to their data and the results of the research. However, there will be less clearly defined aspects that you will have to manage. Data for some research projects may be obtained without building a relationship with participants by using methods such as questionnaires or gathering data from an external source. Other projects may involve sustained relationships with participants over time, and here the expectations of the participants can be harder to manage. A relationship of trust must be established between you and the participants, and often the relationship can turn from being strictly professional to friendly, and you need to consider the boundaries of those relationships. Will you maintain contact with your participants beyond the end of the project? What if the participants gain access to some support that is useful to them during the project? Depending on the project, this could include working with welfare advisers or receiving other professional help. In medical fields, it could include access to medical professionals and support. What will happen at the end of the project? Will this relationship be immediately severed, or will it be continued? What can you afford to sustain? Bear in mind that evidence suggests that participants who have been involved in a research project (particularly if they are in circumstances where they may be otherwise lonely and isolated) may feel bereft once the project comes to an end. This can be particularly noticeable in longitudinal research where involvement in a project has taken place over a sustained period.

Ask yourself

Are your participants likely to experience problems once the support you’re providing ends with the project? How can you help your participants with the transition from their receiving this support during your project to the termination of that support? Take a few minutes to consider your answers to these questions.

Responsibilities to the academic community

In addition to responsibilities to participants, you have a responsibility to other researchers. While your work is important to you, it is not just about your project but also about the future of research and the willingness of participants to engage with researchers in the future. One way this could be damaged is simply by over researching a particular group or area. Researchers find willing participants that fit a particular criteria – for example, particular schools for school-based research, particular groups of patients or the elderly – and then rely on them for various research projects. Over time, the group grows weary of being approached by researchers and asked to participate in research projects. An example of this is the ‘Born in Bradford’ research that has been done with the Asian community in Bradford, where a number of research projects have been done with a similar demographic and group of participants.

The following is a more serious example of how harmful this can be:

Case study: the human terrain project

In 2006, the U.S. Army started a programme called the Human Terrain System, which placed social scientists with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan to interview local Iraqis and Afghans and report back to the U.S. Army. The programme’s official website states that ‘by developing an understanding of the societies and cultures in which we are engaged … the U.S. military can reduce the need for and negative repercussions of lethal force’. However, many anthropologists questioned the ethical grounds for social scientists working with the military. A group of anthropologists started a petition against working with the military, which received a thousand signatures. Their grounds against it were that the project could not guarantee that it would concur with basic tenets of their professional body’s guidelines – that is, do no harm, informed consent and freedom from coercion.

Informed consent could be breached because the anthropologists may not know exactly what the military will use the information for and thus cannot fully explain to people the risks involved in the research. Freedom from coercion also needs to be considered here. In this context, the research is organised amid a war and backed by an occupying military power. Under such circumstances, can research participants give truly uncoerced consent to participate? The American Anthropological Association issued a statement condemning the Human Terrain System (HTS) for apparent violations of the AAA code of ethics:

The U.S. military’s HTS project places anthropologists, as contractors with the U.S. military, in settings of war, for the purpose of collecting cultural and social data for the U.S. military. The ethical concerns raised by these activities include the following:

1.As military contractors working in settings of war, HTS anthropologists work in situations where it will not always be possible for them to distinguish themselves from military personnel and identify themselves as anthropologists. This places a significant constraint on their ability to fulfil their ethical responsibility as anthropologists to disclose who they are and what they are doing.

2.HTS anthropologists are charged with responsibility for negotiating relations among a number of groups, including both local populations and the U.S. military units that employ them and in which they are embedded. Consequently, HTS anthropologists may have responsibilities to their U.S. military units in war zones that conflict with their obligations to the persons they study or consult, specifically the obligation, stipulated in the AAA Code of Ethics, to do no harm to those they study (Section III, A, 1)

3.HTS anthropologists work in a war zone under conditions that make it difficult for those they communicate with to give ‘informed consent’ without coercion, or for this consent to be taken at face value or freely refused. As a result, ‘voluntary informed consent’ (as stipulated by the AAA Code of Ethics, Section III, A, 4) is compromised.

4.As members of HTS teams, anthropologists provide information and counsel to U.S. military field commanders. This poses a risk that information provided by HTS anthropologists could be used to make decisions about identifying and selecting specific populations as a target of U.S. military operations either in the short or long term. Any such use of fieldwork-derived information would violate the stipulations in the AAA Code of Ethics that those studied are not to be harmed (Section III, A, 1).

An additional important concern for our purposes here was that it would have repercussions for other anthropologists not connected to the project, which became problematic because anthropologists were reported as being mistaken as CIA agents and because general mistrust of them would worsen as news about this project spread. They argued that this contravened the AAA Code of Ethics, which states that ‘Anthropological researchers should do all they can to preserve opportunities for future fieldworkers to follow them in the field’. While this example might seem extreme, it highlights the point that one misguided or mishandled project can have implications for all future researchers in the discipline and that a key responsibility as a researcher is to preserve relationships for researchers who will come after you.

Responsibilities to wider society

In addition, as a researcher, you have responsibilities to wider society. You are in the privileged position of gathering an in-depth knowledge of your topic through in-depth research into the issue. Morally, this knowledge needs to be disseminated so that it can be of use to society, so you should think of the best methods to disseminate your results once you have finished. This can be done through the traditional academic channels, such as by publishing the results in peer-reviewed journals and presenting at academic seminars and conferences. Although this is a great way to reach the academic community, these events are seldom attended by and these publications seldom read by a wider community. You should consider ways to reach a wider audience for your research results. Does your institution have existing public engagement events into which that you could incorporate your results? For example, many organisations have a public engagement office that will organise public events or events for schools or themed public displays that could be relevant. Perhaps you could use your existing network or the knowledge of your participants to find avenues to disseminate your research more widely. Always ensure when you do this that you disseminate only anonymised results and in a way that is consistent with agreements that you have made with participants about what data may be shared.

Part One

The Ethics Proposal and Research Methods

CHAPTER 2 Ethical Theories

Introduction

This chapter will introduce three main ethical theories that will be used throughout the text as approaches to ethical decision-making in research: utilitarianism, Kantianism (also referred to as deontology) and Aristotelian ethics.

In this text, I will introduce some key ethical theories that can be used to think through the implications of different ethical dilemmas and to thereby apply them, as me...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
• Part One: The Ethics Proposal and Research Methods
• Part Two: Ethical Issues by Theme
• Part Three: Ethical Issues once the Research Has Been Completed
• Bibliography
• Index