Research Ethics

This is a continuation of your lesson in determining the basic elements of academic information seeking.

Last week, you were able to:

• Determine a source’s level of credibility
  
  

In this lesson, you will

• Explain how ethical principles are observed in research writing

Ethics in Research is important as it provides researchers with guidelines for the successful conduct of research. But first, what is ethics?

Resnik (2020) listed several reasons as to why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research

1. Norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error.

For example:

prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and minimize error.

2. Ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness.

For example:

• many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual property interests while encouraging collaboration

• most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed prematurely 

3. Many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public.

For example:

• federal policies on research misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are funded by public money can be held accountable to the public

4. Ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. 

• People are more likely to fund a research project if they can trust the quality and integrity of research.

5. Many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal welfare, compliance with the law, and public health and safety.

For example:

• Ethical lapses in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students, and the public. 

• A researcher who fabricates data in a clinical trial may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety of staff and students.

Principles of Research Ethics

Source: AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention. (2021)

Research ethics are based on three fundamental principles:

1. Respect for Persons

This principle incorporates two elements that deal with respecting people in regard to research:

People should be treated as autonomous.

         The term autonomous means that a person can make his or her own decisions about what to do and what to agree to.

         Researchers must respect that individuals should make their own informed decisions about whether to participate in research. In order to treat people as autonomous, individuals must be provided with complete information about a study and decide on their own whether to participate or not.

People with diminished autonomy should be protected.

         Some people in society may not have the capacity to make fully informed decisions about what they do or what happens to them. This could include young children, people who are very ill, or those with mental disabilities. In such cases, these people should be protected and only be included in research under specific circumstances, since they cannot make a true informed decision on their own.

APA's Ethics Code (Smith, 2003) mandates that persons who conduct research should inform participants about:

• The purpose of the research, expected duration and procedures.

• Participants' rights to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research once it has started, as well as the anticipated consequences of doing so.

• Reasonably foreseeable factors that may influence their willingness to participate, such as potential risks, discomfort or adverse effects.

• Any prospective research benefits.

• Limits of confidentiality, such as data coding, disposal, sharing and archiving, and when confidentiality must be broken.

• Incentives for participation.

• Who participants can contact with questions.

2. Beneficence

         The definition of beneficence is action that is done for the benefit of others. This principle states that research should:

Do no harm.

         The purpose of research is to discover new information that would be helpful to society. The purpose of research should never be to hurt anyone or find out information at the expense of other people.

Maximize benefits for participants and minimize risks for participants.

         The purpose of much research involving humans is to show whether a drug is safe and effective. This means participants may be exposed to some harms or risks. Researchers are obligated to do their best to minimize those possible risks and to maximize the benefits for participants.

3. Justice

         This principle deals with the concept of fairness. Researchers designing trials should consider what is fair in terms of recruitment of participants and choice of location to conduct a trial. This encompasses issues related to who benefits from research and who bears the risks of research. It provides the framework for thinking about these decisions in ways that are fair and equitable.

         People who are included in research should not be included merely because they are a population that is easy to access, available, or perhaps vulnerable and less able to decline participating. 

                     An experimental strategy that is likely to be used by many types of people should be tested in the very populations of people who are likely to use it, to ensure that it is safe, effective, and acceptable for all of the potential users. For example, experimental treatments that are intended for use in the general population must be studied not only on men, but on enough women to ensure that they are also safe and effective for women.

         The principle of justice also indicates that questions being asked in trials should be of relevance to the communities participating in the study.

The following is a general summary of some ethical principles in research writing: