Transcript Research Ethics Ethical issues and guidelines In Selecting a Topic • Selecting sensitive topics that could impede into a person’s privacy must be.

Research Ethics
Ethical issues and guidelines
In Selecting a Topic
• Selecting sensitive topics that could impede
into a person’s privacy must be considered
carefully
– EX: Studying students with ADHD, autism, learning
disabilities, dyslexia, broken homes, family
tragedies, criminal backgrounds, etc.
Three Basic Approaches
• Deontological – Posits a universal code.
– EX: Using deception is wrong. It involves lying and
avoiding fully informed consent
• Ethical Skepticism – Refutes deontological
– Feels right and wrong are important, but relative
to culture and time. It is a researcher’s personal
struggle and ultimate decision
• Utilitarianism – The good of the many
outweigh the good of the few
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
• US Public Health Service conducted a 40-year
study (1932 – 1972) on the effects of
untreated syphilis on black men in Macon
County, Alabama.
• 399 men in late stages. Doctors performed
tests and autopsies, but never administered
any treatments or cures.
• Participants were never informed. They got
free rides, hot meals, and a $50 burial stipend
Other questionable studies
• LSD experiments
• Exposure to radiation on cancer victims, not to
cure, but to study the effects of radiation
(Pasternak & Cary, 1995)
•
http://www.whale.to/a/cantwell9.html
• Radiation exposure to troops
• Treatment of humans with experimental drugs
• War of the Worlds (Wiki ref to Radio
Foundation)
Doing surveys with minors
• Conducting research with K-12
students is easy for us as we have
such easy access to them in groups
• Fraught with may problems,
primarily consent and rights to
privacy
Doing surveys with minors
• One study questioned students attitudes
toward HIV. Experimenter got a lot of
confessions of abuse that had to be reported
• Surveys about sexuality compel students to try
and peak or observe how peers respond to
certain questions. Kids who finish early are
teased as virgins. Kids who admit to bi-curious
tendencies are ridiculed
Five Rules to Protect Participants
1. You have to have informed consent of
participant or parent
2. Any deception must be justified
3. Participants must know they are free to
withdraw at any time
4. Participants are protected from physical and
mental discomfort, harm, danger
5. Participants have anonymity rights
Upon completion
• A debriefing or dehoaxing is required
• Desensitizing is required.
– Ex: Student loses self-esteem because of the
deception inherent in the test; perhaps it was a
test to determine to what degree a student would
cheat, lie, say cruel things about a friend