Ethics in Qualitative Research

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Ethics in Qualitative Research
IUG
Presented by Dr. Wael Aldaya
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Workshop aims
IUG

• To raise the awareness of the ethical issues that
  can arise in quantitative and qualitative
  research.
• To encourage researchers as well as the
  universities to consider the ethical issues.
• To enable researcher to deploy ethical theories,
  guidelines and principles to solving ethical
  dilemmas in business field.

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Road Map
IUG

• Research ethics.
• Ethical Philosophies.
• Potential for Ethical Issues in Qualitative
  Research.
• Ethical Philosophies concerns.

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Research ethics
IUG

• Research ethics relates to questions about how we
  formulate and clarify our research topic, design
  our research and gain access, collect data,
  process and store our data, analyse data and
  write up our research findings in a moral and
  responsible way.
• A code of ethics provide you with a statement of
  principles and procedures for the conduct of your
  research.

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Research ethics- In context
IUG

• In the context of ethics, the researcher has to
  ask the following questions
• What moral principles guide your research?
• How do ethical issues enter into your selection
  of a research problem?
• How do ethical issues affect how you conduct
  your researchthe design of your study, your
  sampling procedure, etc.?
• What responsibility do you have toward your
  research subjects

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II. Ethical Philosophies-Theories
IUG

• Four philosophical approaches are applied in
  research
• Deontological According to Skinner et al,.
  (1988), deontological philosophies focus on the
  factors or means used to arrive at an ethical
  decision. It also means that you should not harm
  participants in any way, no matter what the
  potential benefit.
• Teleological This approach emphasizes the
  consequences that result from an action. Thus,
  the potential harm from the research is
  outweighed by the potential benefit of the
  research.

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Ethical Theories, cont,,,
IUG

• Utilitarian ethics the theory that claims that
  the only legitimate principle upon which to judge
  an action as ethical is that it has beneficial
  consequences, namely, that it reduces harms and
  promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest
  number e.g John S Mill.
• Virtue ethics the theory that ethical conduct
  should be directed by ideals of the virtues
  higher than conformity to standards set by duty
  and law.

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III. Potential for Ethical Issuesin Qualitative
Research
IUG

• Related to the stage of research
• Research Design (RD)
• Research Problem Statement (RPS)
• Formulating the research questions (RQ)
• Preparing Literature Review (LR)
• Collecting data data collection processes
• Writing Up (W-up)
• Discuss the results and reporting

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Ethical issues- RD
IUG

• Can the research be done properly with the
  resources that are available?
• Is there sufficient time for the design of the
  research, collection of data and analysis of
  results?
• Will the available resources cover the costs of
  the research (e.g. travel, printing, etc.)?
• Will it be possible and practical to gain access
  to necessary data (people, events, documents)?

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Research Design-cont,,,
IUG

• Researchers should be committed to discovering
  and reporting things as faithfully and as
  honestly as possible, without allowing their
  investigations to be influenced by considerations
  other than what is the truth of the matter.

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Ethical issues- RPS
IUG

• The researcher identifies a significant problem
  or issue to study and presents a rational for its
  importance.
• It is important to identify a problem that will
  benefit individuals being studied or
  institutions.
• Deception occurs when participants understand one
  purpose for a study but the researcher has a
  different purpose in mid.
• It is also important for researchers to specify
  the sponsorship of their study.

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Ethical issues- -RQ
IUG

• Ethical issues may intervene in forming up your
  RQ
• The ideological position of the researcher
• The political economic context in which the
  research is taken up
• The various stakeholders agenda including the
  funding agencies, the researchers, the government
  as a player, the global situation.

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Ethical issues- LR
IUG

• Ignoring the key authors
• Ignoring the key articles or journals
• Ignoring the key theories
• Obtaining a secondary citation for ones own
  publication
• The text is not cited by the mentioned reference
• Change the meaning of the text that you cited
• Excessively using one single reference

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Ethical issues- Data collection
IUG

• Collecting data without appropriate controls.
• No permission from the gatekeeper.
• Omitting controls that others have pointed out.
• Using inappropriate sample sizes.
• Using inappropriate research community.
• Selecting what to observe and ignores other
  factors.
• Failing to see events or seeing non-existing
  ones.
• Failing to preserve data for a sufficiently long
  time.
• Using out dated data. You are in 2014 not 2004.

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Ethical issues- Processing Data
IUG

• Manipulate and making up data.
• Using inappropriate statistical tests.
• Violating the statistical assumptions.
• Reporting only positive or significant results.
• Ignoring the opposite results.

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Ethical issues- W-up
IUG

• Using other peoples words (plagiarism).
• Cut and paste others work to form new ideas.
• Ignoring the contradictory findings.
• Not explaining why your findings differ from
  others.
• Failing to submit oneself to review or obtaining
  permission from authors.
• Changing the hypothesis.
• Reporting the significant correlation.

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Ethical issues- W-up, cont,,,
IUG

• Academic Fraud
• Academic fraud involves the intentional
  misrepresentation of what has been done which is
  worse than plagiarism.
• Making up data and or result as he/she may have
  difficulty accessing the correct people to
  survey.
• Purposefully putting forward conclusions that are
  not accurate. You already have the conclusion.

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Ethical issues- W-up, cont,,,
IUG

• Misrepresenting the Results
• Misrepresenting (fabricate) the results, is
  especially important for students undertaking
  their project for a client.
• On occasion, some students (not you, of course)
  may purposefully misrepresent their work to
  impress their business client.
• Academic supervisors, on the other hand, will
  frequently identify these exaggerations and mark
  the work down accordingly.

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IV. Ethical Philosophies concerns
IUG

• There are six broad ethical areas that need to be
  considered in your research
• voluntary participation
• Informed consent
• confidentiality and anonymity
• the potential for harm
• Communicating the results
• more specific ethical issues

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Voluntary Participation
IUG

• The principle of voluntary participation requires
  that people not be coerced into participating in
  research.
• Closely related to the notion of voluntary
  participation is the requirement of informed
  consent.

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Informed Consent
IUG

• Informed consent means that the participants
  have
• Adequate understandable Information about the
  research.
• fully informed about the procedures and risks
  involved in research.
• Are free to participate or not without any
  coercion power.
• Ethical standards also require that researchers
  not put participants in a situation where they
  might be at risk of harm .

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Informed Consent, cont,,,
IUG

• Must give their consent to participate.
• Have a free power to take their decision at any
  time of the involvement (Frankfort and Naichimas,
  1996).
• Discussion of confidentiality and Anonymity are
  part of the informed consent process.

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Potential for Harm
IUG

• Potential harm includes Psychological harm,
  Financial harm and Social harm.
• Ideally, your research should have minimal, if
  any, potential for any harm to occur.
• The question is not whether you believe harm
  could occur, but whether participants or
  potential participants believe that harm could
  occur.

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Anonymity
IUG

• Anonymity requires that you do not know who the
  participants are. (Oliver, 2003)
• Advantages of applying anonymity
• Encourages objectivity throughout the research
  process
• Anonymity makes it easier to explore issues which
  might be slightly unpopular (sensitive).
• Using fictional names which protects
  participants.
• Random phone surveying.

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Confidentiality
IUG

• Researchers are assured that identifying
  information will not be made available to anyone
  who is not directly involved in the study.
• Therefore, participant identity will not be
  revealed in any way in the resulting report which
  aims to protect the privacy of respondent.
• It should be an explicit statement about the
  people who will have access to the data provided
  by a particular respondent.
• The respondent should be informed about the plans
  for retaining the data

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Confidentiality public company
IUG

• Organizations, just as much as individuals, may
  be participants in research projects.
• For public company, there should generally be an
  expectation that researchers should receive as
  much help and assistance as possible,
  commensurate with the protection of named
  individuals.
• In the case of private companies they may have
  both moral and legal rights to keep details
  inaccessible.

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Differences in the research context
IUG

• Cultural differences
• The differences, both between participants
  themselves, and between participants and the
  researcher, may involve dimensions such as values
  and attitudes, social customs, religious beliefs,
  ethnicity, gender, language, employment patterns
  and education.

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Differences in the research context
IUG

• Gender
• Females in some roles in education may prefer
  certain types of inquiry methods to others.
• Males, on the other hand, may be satisfied to
  provide data in a more focused, less reflective
  form.

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The social ecology
IUG

• The social ecology of a setting refers to the
  sense of equilibrium which evolves between the
  different social actors in that setting.
• It is desirable that the researcher disturbs the
  social ecology as little as possible.
• The less the research field is disturbed by the
  research process the better.

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Thanks for listening
IUG

• For further details you may contact the
  researcher on the following e-mail
• wdaya_at_iugaza.edu.ps
• dayawael_at_gmail.com

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Workshop References
IUG

• Paul Oliver, (2003) The Students Guide to
  Research Ethics, Open University Press
• Also useful are
• Michael Davis, (1999) Ethics for the University,
  Routledge
• Hillary Coombes, (2001) Research Using IT,
  Palgrave
• Resnik, D. (1986) The Ethics of Science, Routledge

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Additional Texts
IUG

• Elliot, D. (ed.) ( 1997) Research Ethics A
  Reader, University Press of New England
• Penslar, R. (ed.) (1997) Research Ethics Cases
  and Materials, Open University Press
• Punch, M. (1986) The Politics and Ethics of
  Fieldwork, Sage, London
• Homan, R (1991) The Ethics of Social Research,
  Longmans
• May, T (1997) Social Research Issues, Methods
  and Process, Open U P (Ch 3 Values and Ethics in
  the Research Process)
• House, E and K R (1999) Values in Evaluation and
  Social Research, Sage
• Bebau, M J (1995) Moral Reasoning in Scientific
  Research. Cases for Teaching and Assessment,
  Indiana University