ethical principles considered when undertaking a research project
Introduction
Several ethical principles considered when undertaking a research project include beneficence, non-malfeasance, respect to persons, and justice. The principle of beneficence champions for the need to do good, non-malfeasance pointing to creating no harm. Others, including compliance and fairness, ensure that the participants’ dignity and right upheld throughout the research process. These four principles ensure that the researcher must get the consent of the potential research participants, reduce the risk of harm, protect their confidentiality and anonymity, avoid the use of defective practices, and provide the participants with the opportunity to withdraw from research (David and Resnik, 2015)
A look at the five principles of ethical research points to a requirement any academic research should have the potent of meeting. However, sometimes it may not be desirable to obtain informed consent from specific research participants. Also, there are instances when seeking permission from participants does interfere with the protection of their anonymity. In achieving the highlighted principles, the research must undertake the following actions, including minimization of the risk of harm on the part of respondents. They must obtain informed consent, must uphold the protection of anonymity and confidentiality, avoid deceptive practices, and must provide the research participants with the right to withdraw from the research exercise (Bulmer,1982; Guillemin and Gillam, 2004).
Actions to ensure “Ethical” Approach Research
The first action that must be undertaken by the researcher involves the minimization of the risk of harm. The research process should not harm the participants, where the participants could be harmed or exposed to discomfort; there should be strong justification. Such scenarios must have additional planning illustrating the extent of discomfort and how it will reduce, have informed consent, and detailed briefing. The general risk of harms the participants might exposure to includes physical harm, psychological discomfort and distress, social disadvantage, exposing the financial status, and infringement of participants’ privacy. In minimizing the risk of harm, the research must obtain informed consent from the research participants, protect confidentiality and anonymity of respondents, cease from deceptive practices when undertaking research design, and provide the participants with the rights to withdraw regardless of stage in a project execution exercise(Burgess, 2005; Harris,1988).).
The second action by a researcher seeking information consent forms the fundamental basis for any research ethics. It ensures that the participants understand their role in the research and what required of them. Information consent often provides the participant with vital information regarding the project, including the purpose of the project, methodology applied, possible research outcomes, and as well as the participants’ demands, inconveniences, discomforts, and potential risks they might face. Although it is not possible to know a particular question a specific respondent would want or would want to know, the researcher must strive to choose a respondent material that would influence the grant of consent. Another aspect of informed consent must allow the participants to take place as volunteers void of coercion or deception. In instances where the informed consent cannot obtain from participants, a valid explanation must indicate. However, there are instances when the consent is not mandatory, or the requirement is generally relaxed. These include researches in settings such as organizational, naturalistic, and naturalistic (Sanjari et al.,2014).
The third action by researcher involves the protection of confidentiality and anonymity of research participants as a practice in research ethics ensures that the information volunteered by the research respondents, especially on sensitive and private, are protected. The researcher must agree to hold such information with the utmost confidence. However, sometimes the respondents may be hurt by the way data collection process undertaken, which may seem insensitive to the confidential information sought. The loss of confidentiality may give the possibility of causing harm once the information is collected. The risk of damage can arise when there is a failure in treating data with utmost privacy concerning its analysis, storage, or publication. However, it is not always mandatory that data collected through a research process must keep anonymous and confidential, as it may be necessary to disclose the views and identity of the respondents at various stages of the research process.
Nonetheless, the researcher must seek permission before disclosing any form of confidential information. Alternative, anonymity, and confidentiality can enhance through the removal of unique identifiers such as names, vernacular terms, and geographical pointers. The stripping of identifiers must be applied for both cases of qualitative and quantitative research design, for example, in quantitative research design with a survey as a data collection method. During the phase of data analysis involving the testing of the relationship between the variable, it’s prudent to refer to the person’s responses and identity. For example, quantitative research exploring responses from employees of a particular organization based on their age group will have the possibility of breaching anonymity. Their way is a small group constituting the age group above 70 years. A situation like this could enable researchers and consumers of data analysis to match the respondent identities of these individuals. The researchers must deduce ways of overcoming problems of easy identification through the use of aggregation of data in tables or settings of rules, ensuring a minimal number of units presented before the information or data (Shamoo and Resnik, 2015.
Several legal contexts also offer protection and determine the type of research one can or cannot undertake, how the data must treat and so forth. It implies that the researcher does not merely have a duty of protecting the data but has a backing of legal legislation. The extent of legal obligation varies from country to country, as determined by the Ethics Committee as the sole legal professional to guide the process. For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guided by seven principles, including lawfulness, fairness, and transparency, data minimization, accuracy, limitation of purpose, limitation of storage, accountability, and integrity, and confidentiality. These regulations prohibit the unlawful processing of personal data. Processing includes the collection, structuring, organization, alteration, storage, consultation, communication, use, combination, erasure, restriction, and destruction (UHI,2020).
The fourth action must ensure the integrity and confidentiality of research data; the researcher must be devoid of deceptive practices as they do not support the principle of informed consent. It must be open to ensure that the participants are aware of their participation in the project and what is required of them to eliminate the doubt of deception. However, deception is sometimes necessary for converting research and is justifiable in some instances where the identity of the observer is unknown. The purpose of the study remains unknown to the research participants.
Such cases may include cases when it is impractical to let each and everyone in a research process to be aware of what the research is about and when the knowledge of the research purpose may alter the particular phenomena under study. By feasibility, it not relating to research cost, but rather the context of not being practically possible to let everyone in given research settings know in detailed what the research is about. For example, when the investigation involves observation or direct contact with research respondents in an online or public observation setting. For example, consideration of users in an internet chatroom or observation individual their businesses such as going to work, shopping, etc. In these instances, the individuals are coming and going in continuous motion, and it is impractical to let everyone know the kind of research on is undertaking. The researcher is not intentionally engaging in deceptive practices, but the nature of participants will not give their informed consent (British Psychological Society, 2010).
On the other hand, overt or knowledge of the study may alter the specific phenomena under study. When the respondent’s knowledge of research has the potential of developing the particular research phenomena, the research will have a delicate trade-off on the quality of research outcome. It may have to make a hard choice between deceptive or overt research process (The British Psychological Society, 2010).
Last but not least, the researcher must ensure justice on the part of the respondents by granting them the right to withdraw at any particular stage in a research process. The exception respondents justice occurs when the situation in which the likelihood of covert observations and its not feasible to tell everyone observed the purpose of the research. Research participants must have the right to withdraw from a given research process. Moreover, the respondents must have the right to withdraw at any stage in the research process. When they choose to remove, they must not be pressurized or coerced in whichever form in trying to intimidate them not to withdraw. When a research supervisor or the ethics committee require of one to fill-in ethics consent form, it implies that the researcher must let her respondents have the rights to withdraw at any stage of the project (UHI,2020)
Conclusion
In conclusion, this summative essay identified five actions that must be undertaken by the researcher in ensuring confidentiality and integrity in a research exercise. These actions include minimization of the risk of harm, obtaining informed consent, protection of anonymity and privacy, avoidance of defective practices, and provision of rights to withdrawal at any stage in the project. It also illustrates the exiting dilemma in accomplishing both quantitative and qualitative research projects. There exists a compromise between the extent of informality in the interaction between the researcher and the participant and the quality of qualitative research data obtain. As indicated in this summative essay, the principles of ethical research must offer guidance at all time to ensure a balance exists in providing the research always remain ethical.