Discussion Question

Please provide at least 150-word response to each student response below. Be sure to research/cite/reference sources in each discussion.

1st Post:

When conducting research on mental health effects due to COVID-19, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of the study. Mental health is a sensitive topic, and individuals who suffer from mental health issues may be vulnerable and require additional protection. The first ethical consideration is informed consent. Researchers must obtain informed consent from all participants before conducting the study. This means that participants must be fully informed about the study's purpose, potential risks and benefits, and their right to withdraw at any time. Researchers must also ensure that participants understand that their participation is entirely voluntary and that they have the right to decline to participate without any consequences. 

The second ethical consideration is confidentiality. Researchers must ensure that all participant information is kept confidential, and that data is anonymized to protect participants' identities. Researchers must take all necessary precautions to protect participants' data and ensure that it is not shared or accessed by anyone who is not authorized to do so. 

The third ethical consideration is the potential harm that the study may have on participants. Researchers must ensure that the study does not cause any harm to participants, either physically or mentally. Researchers must be aware of the potential psychological impact of discussing mental health issues and ensure that participants are not further traumatized by the study. 

Finally, researchers must ensure that the study is conducted in an equitable and fair manner. They must ensure that all participants have equal access to the study and that there is no discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Researchers must also consider the power dynamic between themselves and the participants and ensure that they do not exploit their position of authority. 

In conclusion, conducting research on mental health effects due to COVID-19 requires careful consideration of ethical implications. Researchers must obtain informed consent, ensure confidentiality, prevent harm to participants, and conduct the study equitably and fairly. By adhering to these ethical considerations, researchers can ensure that their study is conducted with integrity and respect for the participants.

 

2nd Post:

Academia researchers earn respect through investigations based on high personal moral and ethical values. Researchers carry a huge burden to protect study subjects’ rights. The benefits of the study must outweigh the risks. The assessment of benefits and risks occur throughout an investigation. For every study, the researcher assesses individually. The practices of ethical consideration exist in the collect of information, the interpretation of the results, the interaction with study subjects, and the reporting of findings (Hyatt et al., 2019).

            Study subjects become apparent when formulating a research question develops. In the case of the questions concerning outcomes of collegiate students impacted by educators in a virtual platform, the investigating of human subjects presents as one of the variables. Luscinski, 2017 addresses ethical considerations during the research. In capturing the reader’s attention to professional consideration to ethical practices, the author writes the university’s policy concerning studying humans in an abbreviated explanation. The written statement provided includes the approval by the schools’ Institutional Review Board (IRB). With the use of the Belmont Report ethical principles, the author explains the mandate of the principles based on the institution’s standards. The written statement of the principle includes the federal regulation code. The investigator writes the purpose of the university’s IRB inclusive of terminology such as “university’s IRB office to ensure the dignity and wellbeing of all human subjects”.  The investigator explains the role of all persons involved in the study to the ethical standards. The dissertation includes an appendix of the IRB application and approval to recruit study subjects. This is done prior to any research (Luscinski, 2017).

3rd Post:

For the most part, the ethical guidelines and procedures were followed by McDaniel (2021); however, there are a few considerations for improvement in McDaniel's (2021) methodological design. 

Roberts & Hyatt (2019) stated that all participants should be fully informed about the procedures before participating in a study. There was one section within the data collection portion of the methodology where McDaniel (2021) discusses reaching out to resident directors and assistant directors. When the author received the contact list, she emailed the potential participants inviting them to participate in the study. However, McDaniel (2021) asked them to "first complete a questionnaire which shared basic demographic information (McDaniel, 2021, p. 60)". Nothing was mentioned about informed consent, or the study background given to potential participants. The author did receive permission from the directors/assistant directors to conduct the study with those in their department; however, all potential participants should have been given the informed consent form when they took the first questionnaire. It should have been made clear to the reader if they were given the informed consent. 

Additionally, the author extracted data from the ATLAS.ti database and used it to create spreadsheets on another application (McDaniel, 2021). McDaniel (2021) made the spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel, and the transcriptions from rev.com, a third-party transcription service, were sent on Microsoft word (McDaniel, 2021, p. 67). While both applications are on a password-protected computer, McDaniel (2021) only mentioned the information from the spreadsheets containing participant information extracted from ATLAS.ti and the word documents uploaded into ATLAS.ti. Microsoft platform has locking capabilities on both Word and excel for author access if there is sensitive information. Seeing that this is a study with human participants and the data collection is concurrently happening, McDaniel could have added an extra layer of protection by ensuring no one would have access to the excel or word document and protecting confidentiality. 

4th Post:

The investigator provides all study subjects with an informed consent outlining the research risks and what is being done prior to any studying. The consent includes at least eight fundamental components. The consent components include a statement explaining what the research is about, risks associated, alternative approaches that may be desirable, compensations, who to contact for questions, and voluntary participation. Luscinski, 2017 presents the consent form utilized in the appendix of the dissertation, The elements of the basic components exist (Hyatt et al., 2019; Luscinski, 2017).

            The consent form section on potential risks and discomforts read “no anticipated risks”. The investigator must be careful when addressing possible or associated risk. The tool/instrument in Luscinski, 2017 study requires the participation of faculty that work for collegiate systems. The risk associated with disclosing emotions concerning barriers to success pose a mental /emotional safety concern. With the IRIRB assessment from the higher education institution, the benefit outweighs the risk. Anytime you have a methodology design concerned with human emotions such as phenomenology or ethnography, the use of open-ended questions allows for interpretation. Therefore, how a question is stated or asked can be altered for improvement (Hyatt et al., 2019; Luscinski, 2017).