Summary - Designing ethical research

Brief overview 

This is an introductory level session on ethical principles and practical approaches to ethics in research.

Presenter information 

Dr Deborah Harrison, Methodologist for the Specialist Centre for Public Health. Deb has a background in public sector research and policy and has worked with organisations including local authorities, voluntary and community sector and the NHS.  Deb’s research spans a wide range of issues including child poverty, homelessness, work quality and mental health.    

Key takeaways and top tips (time stamped) 

• (03.30) What are research ethics? Research ethics are a set of moral principles that guide research from project design to delivery and dissemination.  They emphasise the researcher’s duty of care to participants and ensuring research is carried out with dignity and respect.  They are important for many reasons, including being the right thing to do, protecting reputations, providing assurances to funders, meeting legal obligations and building trust. 

• (05.50) There are a wide variety of different ethics frameworks available, almost all of them will look at: avoidance of harm; voluntary participation and the right to withdraw; informed consent; anonymity and confidentiality; respect, rights and dignity; researcher independence, integrity and transparency; data management, analysis and reporting and researcher safety. 

• (07:00) Avoidance of harm research should aim to maximise benefits for individuals and society whilst seeking to minimise potential risks or harm.  This means thinking about the physical, emotional, financial and other harms – to participants, researcher and wider groups, and the focus is on how to avoid or mitigate. 

• (08:28) Deb presents a framework for looking at levels of ethical risk, from lower risk (publicly available data, some secondary data and literature reviews) through medium (research involving human participants, research requiring gatekeeper permissions to access participants) to high risk (involving children or vulnerable adults, sensitive topics, potential for psychological harm, any deception or where informed consent not taken, research where participants could be identified or accessing personal or sensitive confidential records). 

• (11:00) Voluntary participation and informed consent participation must be voluntary and appropriately informed, this means the decision to take part is freely given, free from coercion or undue influence and that clear, comprehensive and accessible information is provided ahead of time to enable participants to make a meaningful decision.  Participants must actively ‘opt-in’ to take part and be able to withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without any negative impact. 

• 13:00 Informed consent Deb shares an example of the informed consent process that we might expect to see in any kind of in-person research method.  Before the research an invitation and participant information sheet is sent in advance.   

Top tip: a week to two weeks in advance is advised for sending participant information materials, you don’t want to do this too far ahead as the participant may forget what they have read.  

At the start of the research activity a verbal explanation is given with time for questions and if the participant is still happy to take part, a written consent form is signed.  After the research activity a verbal debrief is given with time for questions (written debrief if required) and the researcher ensures the participant has their contact details for any follow up. 

• (20:30) Anonymity and confidentiality - Researchers should ensure confidentiality and anonymity as far as possible and at all stages of the research, in recruitment and sampling, data collection and analysis and storage, reporting and dissemination stages.  Be clear about what you are promising and careful not to over-promise.  When working with gatekeepers, even when a gatekeeper is sharing information about the research, the researcher can ask potential participants to contact them directly so that the gatekeeper does not know who has potentially participated in the research.   You are responsible for third parties (transcription services, people booking rooms for you) also upholding these principles. 

• (24:45) Respect, rights and dignity - This principle asks that researchers pay attention to the accessibility, inclusion and cultural sensitivity of research, this extends to dealing with sensitive topics and thinking carefully about how research findings which may have a bearing on a particular group or community are presented. 

• (29:00) Researcher independence, integrity and transparency

Research should be conducted in an honest, open and accurate way, avoiding deception, dishonesty and misrepresentation.  Conflicts of interest should be avoided or made explicit and due attention given to misconduct and questionable research practices which can include plagiarism, data fabrication, exaggerating or omitting findings, unacknowledged limitations. These can be addressed through managing and reporting conflicts of interest, clearly defined lines of accountability, and reflexivity and acknowledgement of limitations. 

• (32:28) Responsible data management, analysis and reporting

Be mindful of the safe and secure collection, storage and disposal of data, paying particular attention to the storage of personal and sensitive data.  If using devices for recording data it’s particularly important to upload this into secure storage as soon as possible deleting the original, especially important when increasingly people use mobile devices for recording.   

• (35:40) Researcher safety 

Consider researcher safety in the design and conduct of the research, being mindful of physical threat or abuse, psychological trauma, compromising situations and exposure to risks.   

• (37:44) Additional considerations 

Deb encourages spending some time thinking about situational ethics, ‘planning for the unplanned’ including protocols for dealing with distress, safeguarding disclosures.  It’s also important to consider relational ethics, thinking about how you will navigate close relationships, power imbalances and dynamics, and how to exit the research.  Deb provides a resource list you may wish to explore further.