Nicanor Reyes St.

, Sampaloc, Manila
Accountancy, Business, and Management

Practical Research 1

Lesson 5:
ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Code of Ethics- principles and guidelines developed by professional organizations to guide research
practices and clarify the line between research practice and clarify the line between ethical and unethical
behavior

Ethics – defines what is or is not legitimate to do or what “moral” research procedure involves
- Requires consideration of (a) procedural rules and procedures, (b) specific ethics of the context the
researcher is studying, (c) ethics of working with research participants.
Origin of Research Participant Protection
- arose after revelations of gross violations of basic human rights in the name of science
- most notorious violations were medical experiments that Nazi researchers conducted on Jews and
others
-
Types of Research Ethics
A. Procedural Ethics
- Refer to the ethical actions that are prescribed by certain organizational or institutional review
boards (IRB) as being universal or necessary.
- It encompasses the importance of accuracy and of not misleading the reader through omission,
exaggeration, or inappropriate attribution
- Also refers to consent:
- It includes:
1. Do no harm
2. Avoid deception - some believes that small measures of deception are acceptable when their
potential social benefits are clear (Sales & Folkman, 2000).
3. Get informed consent- members must know that their participation is voluntary and understand
how to opt out.
4. Ensure privacy and confidentiality- In order to protect participant identity and privacy,
researchers should secure research data and strip them of identifiers before sharing them with
co-researchers, assistants, readers, or audience members

B. Situational Ethics

- Refers to ethical issues that arise in specific contexts or sample populations

- Focuses on reasoned consideration about the specific situation (Fletcher, 1966)
- Treats predetermined moral principles – such as those upheld by institutional review boards – as
flexible guidelines rather than unassailable edicts
- Motivates researchers to ask whether the potential benefits of the research outweigh its costs
C. Relational Ethics

- Ethics of care that recognizes and values mutual respect, dignity, and connectedness between
researcher and participants
- Being aware of one’s own role and impact on relationships and treating participants as whole people
rather than as just subjects from which to wrench a good story

Ethical Violations
The causes of most unethical behavior result from a lack of awareness and pressures to take ethical
shortcuts. An unethical researcher, if caught, faces public humiliation, a ruined career, and a possible legal
action. An ethical researcher wins no praise
1. Scientific Misconduct- includes research fraud and plagiarism
- Occurs when a researcher falsifies or distorts the data od the methods of data collection or
plagiarizes the work of others
- Also includes significant departures from the generally accepted practices of the scientific
community for doing or reporting on research
2. Research Fraud- occurs when a researcher fakes or invents data that were not really collected of
falsely reports how research was conducted
3. Plagiarism- fraud that involves someone stealing the ideas or writings of another or using them
without citing the source
4. Stealing the work of another researcher, an assistant, or a student, and misrepresenting it as one’s
own.

Types of Harm to Participants

The word harm may seem immediately obvious in meaning, referring to outcomes whose character
Is easily identifiable, but this is not the case. According to Feinberg (1984), in its bare formulation, without
further explanation, the term harm is a mere convenient abbreviation for a complicated statement that
includes, among other things, moral judgments and value weightings of variety of kinds.

1. Physical Harm- a core ethical principle that researcher should never cause physical harm to
participants
2. Psychological Abuse, Stress, or Loss of Self-Esteem- researchers should never create unnecessary
stress in participants
- unnecessary means beyond the minimal amount required to create the desired effect, or stress
without a direct, legitimate research purpose
3. Deception- acceptable only if it has a specific methodological purpose, and even then, a researcher
can use it only to the minimal degree necessary
- Ethical rule: do not lie to research participants unless it is required for legitimate research reasons

Other categories of harm according to Hammersley and Traianou (2012):

1. Material damage of some kind (for example, loss of one’s freedom through imprisonment,
dismissal from one’s job, reduction in income or wealth, damage to property, and so on)
2. Damage to reputation or status, or to relations with significant others (for example, through the
disclosure of information that was previously unknown to some relevant audience)
3. Damage to a project in which people are engaged, to some group or organization to which they
belong, perhaps even to some institution or occupation in which they participate.
Ethical Principles
1. Informed Consent- a written agreement to participate given by people after they have learned some
basic details about the research procedure
- Fundamental ethical principle: never coerce anyone into participating; all research participation
must be voluntary
o Informed Consent Form must include the following:
§ Identification of the researcher/s
§ Information about the participants’ rights on the study
§ Purpose and procedure of the study including the duration of the study
§ Statement of any risk or discomfort associate with participation
§ Guarantee of anonymity and confidentiality of records
§ An offer to provide a summary of findings
2. Anonymity- the ethical protection that participants remain nameless; their identity is protected from
disclosure and remains unknown
3. Privacy and Confidentiality- ethical protection for those who are studied by holding data in
confidence or keeping them secret from the public
- Not releasing information in a way that permits linking specific individuals to specific responses