Tools illustrating the use of ethics in research

How to use ethics in research: sample ethics protocol

Below is a research ethics protocol designed by Melinda Dooly, Emilee Moore and Claudia Vallejo (2017). The scholars propose the following steps/guidelines that are to ensure ethics in research:

Steps of ethics in research

1. Prior to any study, as a researcher you have to consider all potential ways in which your research can potentially harm the participants. Pritha Bhandari (Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples (scribbr.com)) clarifies that several areas of harm have to be examined: psychological, social, physical and legal. The psychological aspect involves thinking about whether the questions you want to ask will cause anxiety or other negative emotions. The social aspect refers to considering whether participation in the study will lead to for example stigmatisation or embarrassment. Physical harm can involve exposing the participants to pain or injury. Legal harm means for instance that a leak of sensitive data collected in your research could lead to a breach of privacy.

The principle of “doing no harm” is essential. It is important to emphasise that it has to be considered before the research begins and used to devise strategies of avoiding harm or disclosing the potential risk to participants in order to make them aware and enable informed consent.
2. All crucial information about the research aim, approach, methodology, and data collection has to be presented and explained to both research participants, research supervisor and/or ethical board members/reviewers. This information has to be included in the research project application submitted to the research supervisor before the start of the project. The participants have to be informed orally during an organisational meeting before the study begins, or in a written form (it can be both online and printed format). Ethical board members have to be informed when such a board operates at the university, and its opinion about research ethics is required.
3. Informed consent has to be obtained. It is a process by which a potential adult or child participant voluntarily expresses their willingness to take part in a research study. Informed consent means that the participants will receive all crucial information prior to the research (see above), including potential risks and how the results will be used, so that the decision to participate is based on complete information about the study. An informed consent form has to be signed. In the case of participants under the age of 18, parental consent has to be obtained (where possible, the consent of the child involved in the research should also be obtained). You will find a sample informed consent further in the text.
4. The participants have to be informed that they have the right to refuse to participate at any stage of the research.

5. Confidentiality of the participants and their data has to be ensured. This includes sensitive data referring to race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, politics or health. The assurance of confidentiality consists of the following:

  • the identity of the participant is known only to you, as researchers conducting the research (which also means that you have to protect sensitive information you have about the participants, and in your research report/paper you'll have to remove all information that could otherwise lead to a participant being identified)
  • access to the collected data will be provided only to persons authorised to analyse them as part of research.
6. If personal data is collected, as a researcher you have to guarantee that they are used only for the purpose of conducting the study. You are responsible for making sure that personal data will not be used for unauthorised purposes or by unauthorised persons.
7. Research participants have the right to review the data before research results are published. You have to acknowledge their justifiable objections to using any of the data and remove this data or information.
8. Only you as the researcher, or your immediate research team, can have access to raw data.
9. Prior to results analysis/compilation, participants have to be informed about the methods used for processing data (e.g. anonymisation, blurring faces/other personal details in videos and photographs, removing data that can lead to a participant being identified)
10. It is allowed to use anonymised, codified (and so processed) data for academic purposes (e.g. publications, teaching materials) only if the participants gave consent to use it before the study. Anonymity means that the research participant does not have to reveal their identity, and it remains unknown even to the researcher. However, anonymity rarely occurs in qualitative research when the researcher has direct contact with the research participant (e.g. during an interview, participant observation). In the analysis of data collected in both quantitative and qualitative research, methods of anonymisation are used involving the elimination of all information that can unintentionally lead to the identification of the respondent or research participant. To achieve anonymity, you can encode the participant’s name or assign a pseudonym.

Here is an example of informed consent:

PDF icon Worksheet 1

Let us summarise key rights of participants involved in a social science qualitative research (these apply for quantitative research as well) that ensure their ethical treatment:

  • the right to reflect before deciding to participate in the study,
  • the right to refuse to participate in the study without suffering any consequences,
  • the right to refuse to answer certain questions (e.g. in an interview),
  • the right to withdraw from the study at any time,
  • the right to receive a guarantee of the security of data obtained in the research (recordings, notes),
  • the right to be anonymous (respondents’ names will not be collected and if, in some case they are required, they will be coded, so that they cannot be identified. The general rule is not to collect names).

Another aspect of research ethics is connected with communicating your research results, e.g. in the form of a report or an academic paper. Remember to:

  • be honest in reporting your data,
  • be transparent in reporting your data,
  • do not plagiarise other authors,
  • do not self-plagiarise,
  • do not falsify, fabricate data/results,
  • do not present unreliable or misrepresented data.

(Based on Pritha Bandhari, Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples (scribbr.com)).

Here is an example of Application for a research review by the academic research ethics committee:

PDF icon Worksheet 2

Important!

Research involving children requires particular care and attention for the safety of the child and the protection of their rights.

In case children are involved in research: until they reach adulthood, consent should be given by a parent or legal guardian (in writing if possible). Such consent should include information about the purposes and methods of the research, as well as on the protection of personal data and the use of collected data. It is advisable to obtain consent from the child as well (this is not always possible, for example due to the age of the child or lack of awareness of adults about the importance of the child's consent). It is always necessary to inform both adults and children about the possibility of refusing to participate in research.

For example, in interviews, questions addressed to children and adolescents should be asked in a way that is understandable for the child (it is also recommended to consult specialists, such as a psychologist or a school pedagogue in case of research conducted at school).

Remember!

In case of research with vulnerable groups (e.g. Indigenous Peoples, First Nations, ethnic minorities), many research ethics guidelines are reviewed and updated by universities and communities themselves to ensure they are current and appropriate (relevant to time, place, context) for ethical research conduct.

Ensuring research ethics also involves using images/videos showing research participants in an ethical way. Photographs are increasingly used in netnography. Below you will find several important tips about what the ethics of images of both adult and child participants and their families entails in research:

  • Researchers must not photograph the participants and publish their images without the consent of the participant, or in the case of children, without the consent of their parent or legal guardian, as well as the consent of the child (children have the right to express their opinion). Even with adult consent, every time we are going to take a photograph of a child, we must ask the child for permission.
  • Do not publish uncoded images of participants that show them in a negative light, exposing their emotional state (sadness, crying, anger, fear) or when they are unclothed (any undertones of sexuality).
  • Consider what might happen to any photographs you take and use in research (e.g. in materials presenting results). Remember that you are responsible for creating what is seen through the images taken because the participants, both adults and children, trust you.

Read the articles linked below presenting several cases of research misconduct:

Discuss them in pairs focusing on the different ways scientists violated the ethical rules of conducting research.

Follow the link below and you will find a short lecture (18 minutes) presenting examples of violating ethical standards in research (referred to as research misconduct), including explanations of what self-plagiarism, data falsification and other forms of misconduct mean.

 

 

Scientific Misconduct, “Indian Journal of Rheumatology”, 3.08.2020 (accessed 10.04.2022).

The ethical principles/protocol presented above refer to qualitative social research in general, but ethical principles are important in any type of research. Additionally, when conducting research with vulnerable groups (children, people with disabilities, minorities, people with chronic illnesses, prisoners, homeless people, people affected by war and armed conflict, and others) you also must take into consideration other ethical aspects.

Ethics guidelines (examples)