Ethical Considerations Of Research Flashcards
What are ethics and what does the term ethical mean?
- practices that are seen as morally right and wrong when conducting research such as confidentiality and anonymity
What is the BSA?
- The British sociological association, regulatory body that puts down ethical guidelines that sociologists should follow when conducting research
What are the ethical guidelines?
- confidentiality
- privacy
- right to withdraw
- Avoiding harm to participants
- protecting vulnerable groups
- informed consent
- ensuring legality
- safeguarding
What is the meaning of confidentiality?
- information is kept between researcher and respondent
What is the impact of keeping confidentiality in a research?
- more truthful, increases validity
What is the meaning of privacy?
- where respondents are not invaded with private life, respecting boundaries
What is the impact of keeping privacy in a research?
- more comfortable and truthful, builds rapport and increases validity, generalise
What is the meaning of anonymity?
- keeping participant’s identity hidden
What is the impact of keeping anonymity in a research?
- more truthful, increases validity and generalisability, decreases socially desirable answers
What is the meaning of right to withdraw?
- participants have the right to back out when needed, information collected must be destroyed
What is the impact of keeping right to withdraw in a research?
- increases interpretation bias
What does avoiding harm to participants mean?
- avoiding mental, physical distress to participants, pilot study
What is the impact of keeping avoiding harm to participants in a research?
- increases ethics, and truthful answers, increases validity and generalisability
What does informed consent mean?
- permission of research granted by participant
What is the impact of keeping informed consent in a research?
- may trigger participants, researcher and participant at harm, less truthful, decreases validity, decreases rapport, decreases reliability and generalisability
What does ensuring legality mean?
- ensuring all aspects of the research is legal
What is the impact of keeping legality in a research?
- if legal, no negative impacts, if illegal, researcher can face lawsuits or jail time
What does safeguarding mean?
- guarding safety of participants
What is the impact of keeping safeguarding in a research?
- increases rapport, truth, validity and generalisability
What does protecting vulnerable groups mean?
- looking after groups that are at a higher risk
What is the impact of keeping protecting vulnerable groups in a research?
- increases ethics, truth, validity and generalisability
