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Ethical Considerations in Qualitative Research

Explore the failures and benefits of informed consent in research, ethical principles, informed consent in ethnography, online ethics, and ethical dilemmas. Learn about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and modern-day ethical challenges.

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Ethical Considerations in Qualitative Research

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  1. INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods April 13, 2009 Research Ethics

  2. Tuskegee Syphilis Study • A little bit of history [Source: University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health, Minority Health Archive]

  3. Failures of Informed Consent • Benefits of the research certainly did not outweigh risks to the participants • Not informed • That they were participating in a study • About their health status • Deceived into believing they were receiving treatment • Not given the option to quit participation

  4. Basic Principles • Respect for persons • Beneficence – maximize benefits and minimize possible harms • Justice [source: USHMM]

  5. Translating principles into ethical research practice • Informed consent • describe the aims of the research project in understandable language • Give the option not to participate or to quit at any time • Give the option to decline to answer questions • Assessment of Risks and Benefits • Publication Practices – using pseudonyms • Selection of Subjects

  6. The Tearoom Trade • The question of covert observation • Does the intentions the researcher has for the knowledge generated matter? (i.e. for liberatory purposes)

  7. Ethnography and Informed Consent • Field settings: • Impossibility of informing everyone in a natural setting • Intrusiveness of introducing this legalistic step into a field setting • How voluntary? • Long-term and participatory: • Developing relationships/friendship with those you are studying • Participants let down their guard, forget your role over time

  8. Ethics and Allegiances • Managing overlapping roles and relationships • Colleagues and Professional Community • Funding bodies • Research participants • Ethical dilemmas - No “right” decision, only a decision that is more right.

  9. Online Ethics • Association of Internet Researchers - http://aoir.org/?q=taxonomy/term/73 • Is there a site policy? • Who is the author of this online material? • Can this site/chatroom be considered a public space? • Unique capacity for lurking

  10. Some other cases • observing and taking notes on behavior in a coffee shop • take a job at a corporation in order to study it, various forms of ‘undercover’ or exposé journalism • ‘lurking’ in an online discussion group, copying and analyzing posts made to the group without the writers consent • being paid by the CIA to collect information for them while doing anthropological research [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4603271.stm]

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