CONDUCTING ETHICAL RESEARCH

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CONDUCTING ETHICAL RESEARCH

• BUSN 364 Week 9
• Özge Can

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Ethics in Research

• Ethics
• What is or is not legitimate (right or wrong) to
  do
• What moral the research procedure involves
• No absolutes, but agreed-on principles
• Many ethical issues require to balance two
  values
• 1. Pursuit of scientific knowledge
• 2. Rights of those being studied or others in
  society

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Ethics in Research

• Ethics begins and ends with the researcher
• Values and integrity of the researcher
• Intense pressures on the researcher to
• Build a career, publish, advance knowledge, gain
  prestige, impress other people, hold on to a job
  and etc.
• No one awards you for being ethical and doing the
  right thing

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Scientific Misconduct

• Engaging in research fraud, plagiarism, or other
  unethical conduct that deviated from the accepted
  practices for doing and reporting research
• Research Fraud gt Fakeing or inventing data that
  were not really collected or falsely reporting
  how research was conducted
• Plagiarism gt fraud that involves stealing the
  ideas or writings of another or using them
  without citing the source

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Avoiding Plagiarism

• defined in The Concise Oxford Dictionary as
• To take and use another persons (thoughts,
  writings, inventions...) as ones own.
• A serious and punishable academic offense
• Taking material in a wholesale way from other
  written materials or from websites is plagiarism!
• You need to give appropriate reference to the
  resources you use

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Unethical Research Practices in US
Cases of violations of research ethics
investigated by the U.S. Office of Research
Integrity (2001-2006)
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Learning Activities

• Read Avoiding Plagarism
• http//owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
  
• Watch Do Scientists Cheat?
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vVooaLRqTSPI
• Read Online Ethics Center Many case examples
  for scientific misconduct
• http//onlineethics.org/

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Code of Ethics

• Principles and guidelines developed by
  professional organizations to guide research
  practice and clarify the line between ethical and
  unethical research
• Nuremberg Code (1947) Human subject research
• Universal Declaration uf Human Rights, UN (1948)
• Declaration of Helsinki (1964) Human
  experimentation in medicine

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Some Code of Ethics Examples

• British Sociological Association (BSA), Statement
  of Ethical Practice
• http//www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/
• Social Research Association (SRA), Ethical
  Guidelines
• http//www.the-sra.org.uk/guidelines.htm
• American Psychological Association (APA), Ethical
  Principles
• http//www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx
• American Sociological Associaition (ASA), Code of
  Ethics
• http//www.asanet.org/about/ethics.cfm

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Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

• Origins of research participant protection gt
  violations of basic human rights in the name of
  science
• Medical experiments by Nazi researchers
  conducted on Jews and other people at WWII
• The Tuskegee Syphillis Study in the US
  (1929-1972) http//www.youtube.com/watch?vx-YMda
  Edbcgfeaturerelated
• Many other examples

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Cases of Ethical Controversy

• Milgrams Obedience Experiment (1963)
• Teacher was to test the learners memory of
  word lists and gives electric shock if the
  learner gives incorrect asnwers and the level of
  the shocks rises
• The shocks are not real but the teacher
  (volunteer) was not aware of it
• The researcher was present and make comments such
  as you must continue to the teacher in spite of
  increasing cries of pain
• The of subjects who would shock to dangerous
  levels was dramatically higher than expected

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Cases of Ethical Controversy

• Zimbardos Prison Experiment (1972)
• Male students divided into two role-playing
  groups guards and prisoners for two weeks
• A simulated prison in the basement of a Stanford
  University building. Guards are told to maintain
  a reasonable degree of order prisoners are
  locked up
• The volunteers became too caught up in their
  roles Prisoners became passive and inorganized
  while guards became aggressive and dehumanizing
• By the 6th date, Zimbardo called off the
  experiement The risk of permanent psychological
  harm or even physical harm.

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Cases of Ethical Controversy

• Milgrams experiment
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vW147ybOdgpE
• Zimbardos experiment
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vsZwfNs1pqG0feature
  related
• Discovering Psychology series The power of the
  situation
• http//www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/19/e1
  9expand.html?popyespid1516

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Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

• Four main areas in the discussion of ethical
  research
• 1. Whether there is any harm to participants
• 2. Whether there is a lack of informed
  consent
• 3. Whether deception is involved
• 4. Whether there is invasion of privacy

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1. Possible Harm to Participants

• Physical harm
• Phsychological abuse, stress or loss of
  self-esteem
• Legal harm
• Other (e.g. economical harm)

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2. Informed Consent

• Never force anyone into participating a research
  all research participation must be voluntary
• It is not enough to obtain permission People
  need to know what they are being asked to
  participate in
• There is often a written document
• explains aspects of the research to participants
  and ask their voluntary agreement to participate

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3. Deception

• Use of deception
• Researchers sometimes deceive or lie to
  participants, especially in field and
  experimental research
• Why gt if participants knew the true purpose of a
  study, they will modify their behavior
• But there should be legitimate methodological
  reasons to misrepresent our actions or true
  intentions

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3. Deception

• Never preferable if we can accomplish the same
  thing without deception
• We should always make debriefing
• Informing participants of the purpose of the
  research, disclosing deception and answering
  questions about the research after the research
  ends

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4. Privacy

• Privacy Researchers invade a persons privacy
  when they share with the public the personal
  intimate details about the participant
• Takes two forms
• Anonymity
• Confidentiality

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4. Privacy

• Anonymity gt The ethical protection that
  participants remain nameless.
• It protects the identity of specific individuals
  from being known
• Confidentiality gt We hold daha collected and
  other specific information on participants in
  confidence or keep it secret from the public
• Results presented only in an aggreagte form (e.g.
  percentages, means)

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Basic Principles of Ethical Research

• Anticipate repercussions
• Transparency in sponsorship
• Cooperation with host nation
• Transparency of results
• Consistency between data and results
• High methodological standards

• Responsible individual
• No personal gain
• Informed consent
• Honor confidentiality/anonymity
• No coercion/humiliation
• Avoid deception if able
• Detect and remove negative consequences

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Class Activity A Research Case

• Mary Tudor at the University of Iowa (1939) gt
  study on children in an orphanage
• Hypothesis stuttering results from childrens
  somehow reinforced for it.
• Two groups 1) stutters 2) normal speaking
• Under the guise of providing speech theraphy she
  created subgroups in which children were either
  told
• they have speech difficulties or
• their speech is progressing very well

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• What ethical principles violated in this
  research?
• Pysical and pyschological harm
• Little responsibility for peoples rights, or
  concern for their welfare
• Invasion of privacy
• No informed consent, no debriefing
• No follow-up to fix any problems developed
• Great deal of deception

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Ethics and Sponsored Research

• You may conduct research for a sponsor
• An employer, a government agency, or a private
  firm
• Special problems arise when someone else is
  paying for a study especially in applied
  research
• Misuse in sponsored research
• Arriving at particular findings
• Limits on the research designs/techniques used
• Hiding the true sponsor

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Common types of misuse in applied research