Development of sciences, broad distribution of scientific methods make academics mediate about research ethics. The ethic problematics gains a special acuteness and popularity with the rapid growth of the qualitative research methods. Researching various sensitive topics in the scientific world, the ethical divisiveness quite clearly manifests itself with multiple methodological decisions. Ethics (from Greek “etika”) is a philosophical discipline learning morale and virtues. In the sphere of modern scientific activity, ethics deals with peculiarities of moral relations inside the scientific community, determining codes of conduct, norms and rules.
Social sciences worldwide accumulated substantial experience in dealing with this problem. Thus, every academic freedom of research is limited at all levels by ethic principles and codes of conduct since these norms promote and maintain accepted level of integrity and responsibility. Codes of conduct endorse transparency and openness of any scientific activity. The institutional organizations supporting the research have to emphasize the necessity of commitment to ethical principles as being the core value of the academic environment. The set of rules within the research sphere apply to the standards, norms and guidelines of scholarly inquiry. Today’s world proved that knowledge is a power, which could be dangerous and destructive if not controlled by moral coordinates. The issue of ethical research provision is quite complicated especially when it comes to differentiation between research and universal ethics. What is the measure of ends and means comparability?
The goal of this paper is to discuss certain aspects of academic research in writing a doctoral manuscript with the reference to ethical standards, published ethical guidelines and their practical application to the academic project. The paper will outline the following issues of the ethics in research: plagiarism, risk assessment, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, data handing and reporting, mistakes and negligence, working with a mentor and NCU IRB approval. Finally, conclusion section will cover the personal assessment of the idea that ethic scientific researchers have to be committed to do their work well.
Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct
The basis of ethical problems and discussions lies in a fundamental dilemma between the necessity of free research provision, results' reporting and the necessity to consider rights and interests of the research participants . Any social research during the information collection stage use respondents, informants, experts and observed individuals for the research purposes breaking one of the fundamental ethnic demands – see in human the goal, not the means. Therefore, initially any research may contain unethical elements. Participants of the research can quite often feel embarrassment concerning the research methods inquiring about the true goal of the research. Risk of the moral damage exists not only for the participants but also for the researcher himself . Finalizing a series of biographical interview, the interviewer feels moral discomfort, while have to turn from a friendly person to an estranged science representative.
It is especially difficult to draw the line between ethical and unethical research methods if the scientist performs a disguised observation concerning the socially demeritorious activities (for example, corruption among the clerks, illegal police behavior, etc.). The same concerns the open research situation, which may be potentially dangerous for the life and health of the researcher . Cases described in literature underline a fragile nature of ethical dilemmas. There is a well-known case when the Dutch young student tried to find out negative information about the police behavior in Holland in 1981 . The student worked for three weeks in the police department maintaining friendly relations with police officers, claiming that the report is needed for the high mark in the university. However, the police supervisors used the report to identify the police officers’ deviant behavior patterns to penalize them. As a result, the student lost friends among her student colleagues and police officers. What was the ethic issue in that situation? Probably, the student should not have deceived police officers promising them not to use the report results against them. Yet, in that case, the student would fail to get access to closed and precious information served as the source for report research .
Data Handling and Reporting
The problem of data handling and reporting is one of the milestone reefs, crushing many benevolent intentions to properly regard the ethical norms in research. Probably, the student’s academic supervisor in the situation described above has also broke the ethical rules failing to protect the student while the report, though contained negative information about the police, did not cast aspersion on police officers and could serve as a source of valuable information useful for reorganization of the police department . That speculative situation never bring to a univocal conclusion concerning the practical application of ethical issues obtaining precious information in a disguised manner. That issue remains disputable both in literature and research practice.
Debates about ethics in data handling and reporting are tackled from two viewpoints: ethical absolutism and ethical relativism. The first one insists on the inviolability of ethic norms, the breaking of which should result in professional disqualification. Absolute ethical principles in research are based on codes of conduct, called deontological and declaring protection of the research participants (American Psychological Assosiation, 2016). Ethical relativism promotes the view that moral principles are not entirely true and the level of “truth” is relative to a particular situation. However, the standard of relations between the researcher and the research participants accepted as norm in the Western world is called an informed consent.
Informed Consent
The principle of the informed consent demands that the subject is to be informed about the essence of research, its goals and objectives . The informed consent implies an open communication with all participants, respect to their autonomy and lifestyle as well as significance and distribution of the research project. According to Sieber (1993), the core of the research project should be truly explained to all participant members; concealment and deceit are unacceptable. The best choice in this situation is planning of ethic and culturally sensitive research, prudent and tactful interpretation of data considering the interests of all participant members, mediators and society.
However, Homan (2002) points out on the difficulties of practical realization of such standards. Following this ethical principle may leave in the cold all disguised types and elements of the research. The scientist cannot foresee all the consequences of the research as well as cannot openly communicate the goals. Besides, practical work in the field always contains elements of open and disguised research, correlation of which may change depending on the circumstances; therefore, the degree of the informed consent may also change.
Privacy and Confidentiality
According to Fowler (2006), the informed consent principle is closely connected with privacy and confidentiality issues in research ethics. Protection of respondents’ confidentiality include the following commonly accepted points:
All individuals participating in the research sign a receipt concerning privacy and confidentiality;
Researchers minimize linkage of answers to the identifiers (surname and address). In case names and addresses are necessary, they should be kept separately from surveys with answers;
Survey papers should be unreachable for the individuals not participating in the project;
Individuals able to identify respondents by the answer profiles cannot see the surveys;
Analyzing data the researcher should be careful representing information about small groups of respondents to avoid their identification.
The researcher is responsible for safekeeping or destroying of all the survey personal information.
Yet, ethics rules concerning privacy and confidentiality do not guarantee ethical scrupulosity of research while the possibility of unpredictable situations can easily occur even in a toughly formalized scientific procedure. Thus, ethical problem solution faces the impossibility to predict the research situation. It means that estimation of researchers’ activity depends on certain circumstances. This idea is perfectly conveyed in the conflict methodological research strategy elaborated by Jack Douglas in 1985. This methodology is based on conflict (as opposed to cooperative) social paradigm, which claims that there is always untrue, distorted information, pretexts, evasive answers, lies; and that lead to mistakes and negligence in research results.
Mistakes and Negligence
Thus, any social cooperation, including even the friendliest one, always contains potential or actual conflicts and biasedness. The relations of the researcher and the research participant are not an exception from that rule; therefore, any activities should correspond the situation. Due to the fact that social actors often fall back upon lies, make mistakes and cheat, the researcher is often justified in usage of the same instruments when it comes to obtaining of the highly precious scientific truth. Douglas’s (1985) findings are extensively used in discussion of professional ethics and fraud estimation in research, considering them as a kind of extremum.
Opponents of Douglas’s conflict methodology claim that such ethical model is unacceptable for the science while research mistakes and negligence disavows the core of the ethical principles (Punch, 1996). Though, some scientists are inclined to commit uncontrollable fraudulent activities in the field studies, this is highly unacceptable from the ethical viewpoint. Generally, idea “the end justifies the means”, severely criticized from moral aspects seems to be quite natural when it comes to the idea of “costs payoff” justifying the economic efficiency.
Risk Assessment
Benefits and damages are the major categories discussed in connection with risk assessment. Bower & de Gasparis (1978) estimated risk assessment analyzing role-based relations of the interviewer and the respondent in a high quality interview. When the calculation of benefits vs damages has a positive balance, the project is given the “green light” and indulgences of sins remissions because the risks to be accused of poor ethics are lower than the benefits of a successful research. However, it does not mean that high significance of research removes from the agenda the issue of a possible damage. The way to solution is the recognition of the fact, that any social collaboration contains certain risk potential. The detailed exploration of research risk peculiarities include fraud, coercion, invasion to private life, confidentiality violation, stress and collective risk (Association Psychological Association, 2010).
Plagiarism
Another severe issue of ethical misconduct is plagiarizing of someone else’s results, ideas and texts without source crediting. According to New Oxford Dictionary (2016), plagiarism is identified as “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”. Despite of the great diversity of possible ethic breaches described in the scientific literature, plagiarism is considered the severest case of ethics violation and the most complex ethical issue. Plagiarism has multiple dimensions because a borderline between quoting, referencing, citing and copying can sometimes be very vague. The digital epoch of “copy/paste” options has made plagiarism a serious ethical problem in the researchers’ community. Plagiarism scanners elaborated to control the academics have surprisingly showed that lots of academic works and scientific results were plagiarized. Since this form of ethical violation represents a heavy breach of professional codes of conduct, it results in legal and professional consequences such as revoking of degrees/titles, academic suspension periods, restriction of publishing and clouded reputation in the researchers’ community .
Additionally, attempts are made to eliminate the malpractice of self-plagiarism, which represents a somewhat vague concept of self-copying. Debates on this issue of ethics misconduct are still going mainly because this violation affects publishers’ copyrights. The possible solution to this ethical dilemma is gradual and continuous increase of professional awareness among students and professors concerning the legal consequences of plagiarizing. The peer reviews of all academic research papers is the first line of defense against plagiarism misconduct while plagiarism scanners are excellent tools of protection against fraudulent use of someone else’s materials. The golden rule every researcher has to remember is that proper referencing, citing and quoting of ideas may save the researcher from penalizing and violation of copyrights (Association Psychological Association, 2010). Ethics being a concept involving moral issues examines the responsibility of a researcher in every given background. Any personal responsibility of research conducting involves teaching and role-playing from the mentors’ viewpoint.
Working with a Mentor
The mentor is a person who guides the mentee through the path of the research project. The task of the mentor is to bring it home to the researcher that ethical issues involve fair and honest relationship if the researcher is eager to become a successful professional. The National Academy of Sciences describes the role of a mentor as a combination of an advisor, advocate, teacher and friend. It is obvious that the mentor’s responsibility spread farther than just the role of a supervisor. The significance of mentor-mentee relationship can be described as a compilation of thought modes and work norms, which involve such concepts as knowledge, attitudes, values and behavior patterns allied to certain roles and statuses . Mentor practically inducts the mentee into a culture of academic research ensuring that ethical principles are properly considered. The major ethical principles communicated from mentor to mentee during the research conduction include:
Trust and respect
Confidentiality
Diligence, knowledge and support
Recognition of mentees’ feelings and rights
Careful advice and timely feedback.
The same approach of mentor guidance concerning the ethical principles is fully realized in the Northcentral University (NCU) during the institutional review board approval process.
The Northcentral University Requirements for the IRB Approval
The NCU sets forth the ethical principles according to norms of “Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research”. The university’s policy demand that all researches carried out by the students, academics and mentors should be peer viewed and approved by a specially elaborated committee or the so-called IRB (Institutional Review Board). This structure is responsible for proper evaluation of doctoral proposals and dissertation manuscripts. The IRB committee contains five members approved by the Provost of each academic school as well as participants of Alumni Affairs. The President of NCU appoints the committee staff and the research activities in the following cases:
NCU or another university sponsors the research dissertation;
The individual connected with NCU conducts the research project on the basis of this institute;
The individual conducting the research uses any of the NCU’s facilities;
The individual conducting the research uses any NCU’s nonpublic information.
The primary goal of the IRB control is to ensure welfare, rights and honesty to all involved research individuals protecting them from all possible risks. The research activities subject to IRB procedure include the following review options: exempt, expedited and full review . The type of review is determined by federal regulations applied to all NCU IRB procedures. It is obvious that determining all the peculiarities of ethical norms and codes of conduct during research activities is no easy matter. Scientific communities continue discussions on the subject trying to find optimal balanced solutions to all the pitfalls of ethics phenomenon.
Conclusion
There is an interesting statement, concerning the work of researchers, which runs as follows: “Ethical scientific researchers have a commitment to all who are touched by their research – participants who share their life and time, mentors and advisors, reviewers, future readers, and supporters and cheerleaders on the journey – to take care and do their work well” (Priede, p.11). Indeed, all the researchers have the duty to protect their research participants from any damage and possible mishandling. Obligation to maintain ethical principles and the code of conduct ensures that the research is reliable, trustworthy and valid.
It is in the interests of a scientist to guarantee to the academic community that the research results possess credibility and can be used to explain the explored scientific phenomena otherwise the reliability of data can be questioned. In fact, the future of any research depends on the existing forms of accepted codes of ethics being the fundament of its integrity and rectitude. It is important to underline that personal qualities of the researcher play not the last tune while it should be the internal determinants of an individual to do the work well, avoid cheating and fraud being honest with all the project participants. Any ethical codes of conduct cannot regulate internal inclinations to be honest. The researcher should take a special pride in being ethical with colleagues, participants, mentors and scientific community.
References
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American, Psychological Association. (2010). 2010 Amendments to the American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. American Psychologist, 57, pp. 1050-1057.
Bower, R., & de Gasparis, P. (1978). Ethics in Social Research: Protecting the Interests of Human Subjects. Praeger Special Studies, pp. 50-62.
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (U.S.), National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), National Academy of Engineering., & Institute of Medicine (U.S.). (2009). On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research (3rd ed.). National Academies Press.
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Fowler, F. J. (2006). Survey Research Methods. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 21-26.
Homan, R. (2002). The Ethics of Open Methods. The British Journal of Sociology. Vol. 43. № 5, pp. 321-332.
Priede, D. (2014). Scientific Research and Ethical Principles. Academia.edu Publications, pp. 1-12.
Punch, M. (1996). The Politics and Ethics of Fieldwork. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Sieber, J. E. (1993). The Ethics and Politics of Sensitive Research. Researching Sensitive Topics. Newbury Park: Sage, pp. 14-26.
