week 7

The Dissertation Journey: A Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Writing,

and Defending your Dissertation

What are the Ethical Considerations in Research?

Contributors: By: Carol M. Roberts

Book Title: The Dissertation Journey: A Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Writing, and

Defending your Dissertation

Chapter Title: "What are the Ethical Considerations in Research?"

Pub. Date: 2010

Access Date: April 1, 2021

Publishing Company: Corwin Press

City: Thousand Oaks

Print ISBN: 9781412977982

Online ISBN: 9781452219219

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452219219.n3

Print pages: 31-44

© 2010 Corwin Press All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online

version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

What are the Ethical Considerations in Research?

What are the ethical considerations in research?

Research ethics is a very challenging subject which the research candidate has to face, and which if not addressed correctly may cause the result of the research work to be considered tainted or even invalid.

—Remenyi et al., 1998, p. 115

Ethical issues arise in all aspects of conducting research. Such areas include attention to human rights, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, respect for the research site, writing, and disseminating the research. This section will describe some of these central issues that you should anticipate in designing your dissertation study.

What is considered ethical varies from person to person and from institution to institution. However, most professional organizations and the various disciplines within the social sciences have established their own standards or codes of ethics to guide their research activities. These guidelines, according to Rossman and Rallis (1998), “serve as standards for the ethical practice of research and are based on moral principles such as utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number), theories of individual rights (the rights of the individual may supersede the interests of the greatest number), and theories of justice (fairness and equity)” (pp. 48–49). Following are some examples of professional ethical guidelines and the websites where they can be found:

• The American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct,http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html

• The American Educational Research Association Ethical Standards, http://www.aera.net/ AboutAERA/Default.aspx?menu_id=90&id=717

• The American Sociological Association Code of Ethics, http://www2.asanet.org/members/ ecoderev.html

• The American Anthropological Association's Code of Ethics, http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ ethics/ethcode.htm

The following website offers a full listing of guidelines and codes of ethics for those in the social sciences: http://www.bc.edu/research/meta-elements/htm/social_sciences.htm.

Institutional Review Boards

Colleges, universities, and other research institutions have institutional review boards (IRBs) whose members review proposals and approve all research conducted at their institutions. Their main purpose is the protection of those participating in a research study, particularly around ethical issues such as informed consent, protection from harm, and confidentiality. Specifically, the IRB committee's role is to protect participants from “stress, discomfort, embarrassment, invasion of privacy or potential threat to reputation” (Madsen, 1992, p. 80).

If you decide to use questionnaires or conduct interviews, experiments, or observations, you need to submit a proposal to use human subjects to the IRB before actually conducting your study. Each institution has its own procedures as to when and how proposals should be submitted to the committee. Because your dissertation committee members may request changes in your original proposal, it would behoove you to wait until after your proposal has been formally approved by your committee to approach the IRB committee. The IRB committee's signed permission is necessary before you can collect data. When submitting your proposal to the IRB, be sure to provide detailed and comprehensive information about your study, the consent process, how participants will be recruited, and how confidential information will be protected.

There are two basic types of requests made to the IRB committee: expedited review and full review. When

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there is minimal risk to the participants, psychologically, physically, or socially, then an expedited review is appropriate. According to Rudestam and Newton (2007), there is no clear standard to judge “minimal risk.” They state the following:

The criterion of minimal risk could pertain to research involving brief questionnaires that do not address questions likely to be disturbing to the participants. Questions regarding favored sports or preferred television programs are probably not disturbing; questions regarding childhood victimization, current mental status, and alcohol or drug abuse probably are. (p. 277)

Clear ethical standards and principles exist regarding the rights of human subjects. They deal primarily with impact on the subjects, confidentiality, coercion, and consent. It is critical that you carefully think through these issues when planning your research procedures and that you become familiar with your institution's policies and procedures in these matters. The ethical issues involved in using human subjects in research are described in the section that follows.

Rights of Human Subjects

The following rights must be granted to all participants in a research study.

Informed Consent

All prospective participants must be fully informed about the procedures and risks involved in the research project before they agree to take part. In addition, the principles of freedom and autonomy allow individuals to refuse to participate in the study or to withdraw at any time with no recriminations. In other words, their participation must be voluntary. Following are the basic elements of informed consent that must be provided to each participant:

Basic Elements of Informed Consent

In seeking informed consent, the following information shall be provided to each subject:

• 1. A statement that the study involves research, an explanation of the purposes of the research and the expected duration of the subject's participation, a description of the procedures to be followed, and identification of any procedures which are experimental;

• 2. A description of any reasonably foreseeable risks or discomforts to the subject;

• 3. A description of any benefits to the subject or to others which may reasonably be expected from the research;

• 4. A disclosure of appropriate alternative procedures or courses of treatment, if any, that might be advantageous to the subject;

• 5. A statement describing the extent, if any, to which confidentiality of records identifying the subject will be maintained;

• 6. For research involving more than minimal risk, an explanation as to whether any compensation and an explanation as to whether any medical treatments are available if injury occurs and, if so, what they consist of, or where further information may be obtained;

• 7. An explanation of whom to contact for answers to pertinent questions about the research and research subjects’ rights, and whom to contact in the event of a research-related injury to the subject; and

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• 8. A statement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which the subject is otherwise entitled, and the subject may discontinue participation at any time without penalty of loss of benefits to which the subject is otherwise entitled.

SOURCE: United States Department of Health and Human Services, Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR 46.116 (a), pages 14–15.

It is important to note that not all studies require informed consent. Rudestam and Newton (2007) pointed out that methodologies such as “secondary analysis of data, archival research, and the systematic observation of publicly observable data, such as shoppers in a suburban mall” may require only “expedited review” due to their classification of “minimal risk” (p. 276).

Confidentiality

Assuring confidentiality is a primary responsibility of all researchers. The term confidentiality, according to Sieber (1992), “refers to agreements with persons about what may be done with their data” (p. 52). It refers to the identity of individual participants and to the information from participants. All participants in a research study must be informed about what happens to the data collected from them or about them and be assured that all data will be held in confidence. Individual names should not be used in any publication about the research study. Once a study's data have been collected, no one other than the researcher should have access to it. Some statistical tests require pairing up participants’ pretest with posttest scores, which presents a potential problem for confidentiality. In this case, it is appropriate to assign each participant a number or code that enables you to link the pretest and posttest scores. In addition, electronic and paper files that contain the participants’ confidential data should be locked and stored in a place away from public access.

Oftentimes anonymity is requested, which means there are no identifiers that indicate which individuals or organizations supplied the data. One technique used by researchers, when questionnaires are used to gather data, is to combine the data so that individual responses are subsumed under the total aggregated data. Another technique is to use fictional names to ensure anonymity.

Specific strategies researchers can use to ensure anonymity in a consent letter to participants were offered by Joan Sieber (1992) in her book, Planning Ethically Responsible Research:

To protect your privacy, the following measures will ensure that others do not learn your identity or what you tell me.

• 1. No names will be used in transcribing from the audio tape or in writing up the case study. Each person will be assigned a letter name as follows: M for mother, F for father, MSI for male first sibling, and so on.

• 2. All identifying characteristics, such as occupation, city, and ethnic background will be changed.

• 3. The audio tapes will be reviewed only in my home (and in the office of my thesis adviser).

• 4. The tapes and notes will be destroyed after my report of this research has been accepted for publication (or in the case of an unpublished thesis—after my thesis has been accepted by the university) …

(Sieber, 1992, p. 52)

In addition to issues relating to informed consent and confidentiality, ethical considerations must also be taken into account around the methodological principles and procedures undergirding a research design. Ethical issues arise around all decision points in the research process—from the initial design planning, to collecting data, accessing a research site, writing it up, and to disseminating the results. Sensitivity to these issues and

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how you respond to them determines whether or not others question or trust the results from your study.

Ethical Issues in Data Collection

It is important to exercise responsibility in the processes you use to gather data for your study. In the social sciences, data are collected primarily through questionnaires, interviews, participant observations, or through an action research approach. Use of the Internet and other communication technologies to gather data also requires permission from participants. Following is a notice of implied consent used by a doctoral student to collect data using a web survey. When participants clicked on the link to his web survey, they were presented with the consent information and were advised that by continuing further, they were voluntarily agreeing to participate.

Welcome! Thank you for participating in this important research project.

All students adjust to college life in different ways. With this research, I hope to describe common thoughts, feelings, and experiences of UA students. This study involves completing a questionnaire that typically takes 10 minutes.

Completing the questionnaire automatically enters you into a random drawing to win one of ten iPods (valued between $80 and $150). Your participation is voluntary and your decision to complete or not complete the questionnaire will in no way affect your status or treatment at the University of Alaska. By clicking on the “next” button below, you consent to voluntarily participate in this study.

Thank you!

Student name

Title

University

Telephone

E-mail address

SOURCE: Schultz, B. (2008). Freshmen Adjustment to College at the University of Alaska: A Descriptive, Ex Post Facto Study. Doctoral Dissertation, University of La Verne.

Access to Research Sites

It is important that you respect the research site at all times. As Stake (1994) remarked, “Qualitative researchers are guests in the private spaces of the world. Their manners should be good and their code of ethics strict” (p. 244). The main ethical concern is the degree of sensitivity you display with the site and the interaction with the people in it. Most research sites have gatekeepers—people in authority who control access to the site. Examples might be a school principal, college president, a company's manager, or the IRB. From them, you must ask for and obtain permission to conduct your study at their site.

Gatekeepers have concerns about the impact of your study on their organization as well as the possible disclosure of confidential information outside the organization. It is, therefore, your ethical responsibility to fully inform them about ways your study may affect the work of the organization and its members. You should also disclose ways the results of your study would benefit the organization. Through collaboration with these gatekeepers, you select those from whom you will collect data and under what circumstances.

Respecting research sites involves disturbing the everyday life and flow of activities as little as possible. Creswell (2005) suggested that participants be reminded “a day or two before data collection of the exact time

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and day when you will observe or interview them. Stage the data collection so that they will feel comfortable responding, and schedule it at a time that is most convenient for their schedules” (p. 225).

It is important to remember that gatekeepers have a vested interest in protecting their sites. For example, findings could have political consequences; thus, Sieber (1992) advised us to be aware that

gatekeepers and those they serve are not always interested in objectivity. They would not want the researcher to discover something that would be damaging to them or to their organization. They may even pressure the researcher to produce results that make them look good; hence, the researcher must be careful not to enter into unethical agreements with gatekeepers. (p. 85)

Your awareness and sensitivity to gatekeepers concerns before conducting research on their sites will help you appropriately address them.

Recording Data

Audio and video recording raise significant ethical issues during data collection. To obtain greater accuracy, today's researchers almost always record unstructured or semistructured interviews. First and foremost, obtain permission from the participants and explain why you wish to audio or video record the interview or observation. In addition, explain how the recordings will be used and how they will be stored and ultimately destroyed following data transcription. Also, assure confidentiality by using fictitious names or codes.

Paul Oliver (2008), in his book The Student's Guide to Research Ethics, offered a strategy for relaxing participants during audio recording. He recommended that the researcher “place the tape or disc recorder within easy reach of the interviewee, and explain to them before the interview starts that they may use the pause button at any time …to consider their response to a particular question …or to reflect” (p. 46). He further stated that participants could stop the recording if they wished. Oliver (2008) also suggested that interviewees be given the opportunity to listen to the tape at the end of the session and alter their words to more accurately express their views.

Ethical Issues in Data Analysis and Interpretation

Data analysis is making sense of the data and interpreting them appropriately so as to not mislead readers. The ethical issue is not about a researcher's honest error or honest differences of data interpretation; rather, it is in regard to the intent to deceive others or misrepresent one's work. Examples of such misconduct include using inappropriate statistical techniques or other methods of measurement to enhance the significance of your research or interpreting your results in a way that supports your opinions and biases. These are ethical issues of fabrication and falsification of data.

Fabrication is making up data or results, and falsification is changing data or results to deliberately distort them and then including them in your research report. According to Remenyi et al. (1998), “Any attempt to window dress or manipulate and thus distort the evidence is of course unethical, as is any attempt to omit inconvenient evidence” (p. 111). Remenyi et al. (1998) also pointed out that such strategies are not useful or rational because “even when hypotheses or theoretical conjectures are rejected, the research is perfectly valid” (p. 111). It is unethical to fudge results to make your study seem more acceptable and useful; negative results still add to the body of knowledge.

In research, the accuracy of the data is paramount. Therefore, you are obliged to employ validation strategies such as triangulation, member checking, audit trail, peer debriefing, and external auditing to check the accuracy of data. For a detailed discussion of ethics and their implications for data analysis, see Chapter 11 of Miles and Huberman's (1988) book Qualitative Data Analysis. As an ethical researcher, it is your responsibility to be nonbiased, accurate, and honest throughout all phases of your dissertation.

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Ethical Issues in Reporting Research Findings

Ethical researchers report results honestly and objectively. They don't hide negative results, engage in selective reporting, or omit conflicting data for deceptive purposes. For example, it is considered unethical to trim outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons. Roig (2006) addressed this issue by stating that

researchers have an ethical responsibility to report the results of their studies according to their a priori plans. Any post hoc manipulations that may alter the results initially obtained, such as the elimination of outliers or the use of alternative statistical techniques, must be clearly described along with an acceptable rationale for using such techniques.” (p. 35)

Another example concerns the ethics of generalizability. It is imperative that you not try to generalize the findings from your population to other populations or settings. Instead, make reference to this situation in the limitations section of your dissertation, usually found in the methodology. As an ethical researcher, it is your responsibility to accurately and honestly record and report your data using verifiable methods.

Plagiarism

Warning! Writing a dissertation that includes plagiarism can be hazardous to your career, your degree, and your reputation. Severe penalties can be levied against those who ignore the copyright law or take it lightly. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are serious matters, one of the worst academic sins.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the theft of ideas. The definition of plagiarism stated by Booth, Colomb, and Williams (1995) is the most comprehensive and helpful one that I found in the literature:

You plagiarize when, intentionally or not, you use someone else's words or ideas but fail to credit that person. You plagiarize even when you do credit the author but use his [or her] exact words without so indicating with quotation marks or block indentation. You also plagiarize when you use words so close to those in your source, that if you placed your work next to the source, you would see that you could not have written what you did without the source at your elbow. (p. 167)

So basically, there are three ways in which you can be guilty of plagiarizing:

• 1. Using others’ words or ideas without giving them proper credit

• 2. Using others’ exact words without quotation marks or indentation

• 3. Closely paraphrasing others’ words (even if citing the source)

The third way is the most challenging for doctoral students writing their dissertations. The line between paraphrasing and plagiarizing is not always clear or straightforward, and it can cause inadvertent plagiarizing of another's work.

As a researcher, you must relate findings from the literature and from other researchers, requiring that you paraphrase or quote your sources. Paraphrasing is simply restating in your own words what others reported and then citing the source. How closely you parallel their words, even when correctly citing the source, determines the degree to which you may be plagiarizing.

Paraphrasing does not mean changing a word or two in another's sentence, changing the sentence structure, or changing some words to synonyms. If you rearrange sentences in these ways, you are writing too closely to the original—which is plagiarism, not paraphrasing. Booth et al. (1995) offered a simple test to ascertain whether or not you are inadvertently plagiarizing.

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Whenever you use a source extensively, compare your page with the original. If you think someone could run her [or his] finger along your sentences and find synonyms or synonymous phrases for words in the original in roughly the same order, try again. (p. 170)

It is important to realize that words as well as ideas can be plagiarized, so be very careful when paraphrasing the work of others. If you are ever suspected of plagiarizing, it's extremely difficult to regain the trust and respect of your advisor or others who read your dissertation.

Ethics of Writing up Research

In addition to planning and conducting ethical research, you must consider the ethics involved in writing it up. It is vital that you refrain from using biased or discriminatory language that infers inferior status to those with particular sexual orientations and lifestyles or who belong to a particular racial or ethnic group. The APA Manual, 6th Edition (2010) states, “Scientific writing must be free of implied or irrelevant evaluation of the group or groups being studied” (p. 70) and offers guidelines and in-depth discussion about these issues. Rudestam and Newton (2007) also refer to the issue of bias-free writing. They advise writers to “stay current with language that is sensitive to diverse groups because what was acceptable terminology yesterday may not be acceptable today” (p. 282). To help eliminate biased language in scholarly writing, Rudestam and Newton (2007) offered the following helpful guidelines.

Guidelines to Help Eliminate Bias in Scholarly Writing

• 1. Substitute gender-neutral words and phrases for gender-biased words. A common mistake is the inadvertent use of sexist terms that are deeply entrenched in our culture, such as chairman instead of chairperson, mothering instead of parenting, and mankind instead of humankind.

• 2. Use designations in parallel fashion to refer to men and women equally: “5 men and 14 women,” not “5 men and 14 females.”

• 3. Do not assume that certain professions are gender related (e.g. “the scientist … he”) and avoid sexual stereotyping (e.g., “a bright and beautiful female professor”).

• 4. Avoid gender-biased pronouns (e.g., “A consultant may not always be able to see his clients”). A few nonsexist alternatives to this pervasive problem are to:

◦ a. Add the other gender: “his or her clients.” This alternative should be used only occasionally because it can become very cumbersome. It is, however, preferable to awkward constructions such as s/he, him/her, or he(she).

◦ b. Use the plural form: “Consultants … their clients.”

◦ c. Delete the adjective: “to see clients.”

◦ d. Rephrase the sentence to eliminate the pronoun: “Clients may not always be seen by their consultants.”

◦ e. Replace the masculine or feminine pronouns with one or you.

• 5. Do not identify people by race or ethnic group unless it is relevant. If it is relevant, try to ascertain the currently most acceptable terms and use them.

• 6. Avoid language that suggests evaluation or reinforces stereotypes. For example, referring to a group as “culturally deprived” is evaluative, and remarking that the “Afro-American students, not surprisingly, won the athletic events” reinforces a stereotype.

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• 7. Don't make unsupported assumptions about various age groups (e.g., that the elderly are less intellectually able or are remarkable for continuing to work energetically). (pp. 284, 288)

Other Ethical Considerations

Copyright Law

Copyright protects original works of authorship, including both published and unpublished works. It gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to reproduce his or her work from the moment of creation up to 70 years after the author's death.

Copyright law is an extensive, complex body of law. This section is intended to provide initial information only. It is intended to help protect your dissertation from unauthorized use and to protect others’ works that may be used in your dissertation. More comprehensive information is provided at the following website: http://www.copyright.gov.

Protection of Your Dissertation

Copyright is secured automatically when your work is created. However, to offset unauthorized use of your original work, I strongly advise that you place the copyright notice on your dissertation. Placing the copyright notice on your dissertation notifies others of your intent to protect your rights. You do not have to register your dissertation with the Library of Congress unless you wish to do so. It is not a condition of copyright protection. However, there are advantages you should be aware of, which are addressed on page 11 of the copyright website.

The form of the copyright notice consists of three elements: (1) the symbol ©, which is the letter C in a circle, the word Copyright, or the abbreviation Copr.; (2) the year of first publication of the work; and (3) the name of the copyright's owner (U.S. Copyright Office, http://www.copyright.gov, retrieved 2009). The elements need not appear in any particular order; however, usually they are in this order, for example:

© 2010 Carol M. Roberts

Your dissertation can be considered published as soon as it appears on the library shelf or online or is otherwise made available to the public. If you think you may want to profit from your dissertation by writing articles or a book based on your dissertation, it is important to obtain formal registration of your work. To do this, submit to the Copyright Office a fee, a form, and required copies of your dissertation. The application form can be downloaded from the following website of the U.S. Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov. This site also provides additional information about copyright basics, current fees, how to register a work, and so on.

Protection of Others’ Work Used in Your Dissertation

You need not obtain permission for those works in the public domain, that is, works with no copyright protection or those with expired copyrights. Academic honesty, however, mandates that you acknowledge all sources used in your dissertation, even those in the public domain. If you use copyrighted material in your dissertation, you must secure permission from the owner to include it unless it falls under the doctrine of fair use, which allows limited reproduction of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes. This doctrine is rather complex and can have many interpretations. Miller and Taylor (1987) reported that most university style manuals permit “excerpts of up to 150 words, provided they do not constitute a major portion of the original work” (p. 46).

If you believe that what you are using falls under fair use, you need not obtain permission, but you must cite the source in footnotes or end-notes and in the references. Using copyrighted material in your dissertation

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without obtaining permission can be copyright infringement and is called piracy if you profit from it in any way. Both are serious infractions. Be sure to always obtain written permission from the author or publisher if you plan to use copyrighted material in your dissertation, such as tests, questionnaires, poems, figures or other artwork, or large excerpts of books. Madsen (1992) explained the process for obtaining permission:

Send the holder of the copyright—usually the publisher of the book or article—a simple form listing the work, the pages and lines you wish to copy or quote, and the title and publisher of the work in which the material will be published. The form also should include a place for the copyright holder's signature. (p. 89)

This procedure probably will be necessary if you later decide to publish an article or write a book based on your dissertation. Should you wish to pursue more in-depth information about copyright law, refer to William S. Strong's (1998) The Copyright Book: A Practical Guide.

Recommended Websites

• Office of Research Integrity

http://ori.dhhs.gov

• “Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing” by Miguel Roig.

http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/Index.html

Recommended Books

• Israel, M., & Hay, I. (2006). Research ethics for social scientists.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Kimmel, A. (1988). Ethics and values in applied social research.

Newbury Park, NJ: Sage.

Summary

Ethical issues arise in all aspects of conducting research. This chapter focused on enhancing your understanding about ethical issues such as the rights of human subjects, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, reporting research findings, plagiarism, writing up research, and other ethical considerations such as copyright law, protection of your dissertation, and protection of others’ work used in your dissertation. Now it is time to prepare for the climb. The first step is to select an interesting, researchable topic to investigate. The next chapter provides some approaches to choosing your topic, where to look for potential topics, and criteria for topic selection.

• copyright • dissertation • plagiarism • writing up • confidentiality • consent • gatekeepers

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452219219.n3

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