Midterm 2 (4, 7, 12, 13) Flashcards
What are the 2 basic categories of ethical responsibility
- Responsibility towards the participants/subjects (ensure their welfare/dignity)
- Responsibility towards the discipline of science to be accurate and honest in the diffusion of results
What are research ethics?
Concerns the responsibility of researchers to be honest/respectful to all individuals who are affected by their research studies or reports
What are ethical principles?
Dictate how studies should be conducted from beginning to end in an ethical way
What are the 3 principles of the Belmont report? Also the 3 politics of the Tri-Council Policy Statement (prevalent in Canada)
- Principle of Respect for persons (autonomy): Individuals should be able to consent to participate in studies. Those who cant give consent should be protected
- Principle of Beneficence: Researchers have to minimize harm/risks, while maximizing possible benefits
- Principle of Justice: Fair and non exploitative procedures for the selection of participants (represent the pop who will benefit from this study)
What is the principle of no harm (APA guideline)?
The researcher has to protect participants from (psychological/physiological) harm, all possible harm has to be identified, minimized and justified. Participants must be made aware of risks and offered post-experiment assistance.
What is clinical equipoise?
Clinicians have to give best possible treatment to their patients. In studies sometimes there are treatments perceived to be better than others (ex: placebo vs actual treatment). The No Harm principle is violated
• Solution: compare only equally preferred treatments (or honest uncertainty about which is best)
What is the principle of informed consent (APA guideline)?
Human participants should be given complete info about the study/their role in it before participating (in broad terms, not to affect the participant’s behaviour)
What is one of the possible problems regarding blind studies and informed consent?
Sometimes we cannot say everything to the participants first hand. The solution is to explain what will be done but not explain why (reveal enough for the participant to be comfortable but not too much to influence their behaviour)
What is assent?
Consent obtained directly from the participants
What is consent?
Obtained from the official guardians of the people who cannot consent to the study
What is passive deception (omission)?
Concealing the true nature of the study
What is active deception (comission)?
Deliberately present false info (confederates)
Ex: not telling participants that their memory will be tested until we test their memory
What is the type of info we cannot conceal from the participants?
Possible harm
What is debriefing? Why is it required
Because the principle of informed consent is being violated with deception, researchers must debrief the participants by telling the participants what was the study about, counteracting or minimizing any negative effects of the study, explaining nature of study, allowing any questions (not always effective)
Can we inform the participants that there will be deception?
Yes, if we use a placebo group
What is the principle of confidentiality (APA guideline)?
All info collected about participants might be deemed personal (attitudes/opinions, measures of performance, demographics), and have to be protected by confidentiality guidelines (= protection of data)
What is anonymity?
Practice of ensuring that an individual’s name/identity is not directly associated with the info/measurements obtained (= protection of identity)
What are the 2 strategies that might be used for confidentiality?
- No names/identification appears on records of data (when participants do not have to be linked with their results)
- Coding system to link participants with data (when necessary) (pseudonyms, code names)
When does research that relies exclusively on publicly available info does not require consent?
- Info is legally accessible to the public and appropriately protected by law
- The info is publicly accessible and there is no expectation of privacy
When is consent not required for the observation of people in public spaces?
- There is no intervention staged by the researchers
- There is no reasonable expectation of privacy (people know that they are in a public space)
- The dissemination of research results would not allow the identification of specific individuals
What are the 2 major problems on collecting data on internet?
• Expectation of privacy
• Persistence and traceability of quotes/info
Internet users do not expect to be subjects; they are most likely to perceive information collection as invading privacy
How can we protect anonym,ity when we took quotes from Internet?
- Do not identify name/provide website address
- Anonymise and paraphrase quotations + use search engines to ensure that they are not traceable
- Use composite instead of direct quotes
What are 3 reasons to choose animal subjects in research?
- To understand animals for their own sake
- To understand humans
- To conduct research that is impossible to conduct using human participants
What are the 2 cases in which animal research is acceptable?
- Only acceptable if it contributes to the understanding of fundamental biological principles or
- To the development of knowledge that can reasonably expected to benefit animals or humans
What are the “3 R’s” when it comes to limiting harm in animal research?
- Replacing / avoiding animals in science
- Reducing the number of animals in science
- Refining care and procedures to minimize pain and distress
What are 3 important guidelines around animal research?
- Must receive proper nutrition / overall care during their lifetime even if they have to be euthanized after the experiment
- Only can be handled by trained professionals
- Research on animals must go through ethics committees also
What is a research error?
honest mistake that occurs in research process (ex while collecting data, entering it into computer, etc)
What is fraud in research?
Explicit effort to falsify/misrepresent data to make it support the hypothesis
What is plagiarism?
to present someone else’s ideas as your own
What are 3 safeguards against fraud?
- Finding cannot be replicated; possible indication of fraud
- Peer review: allows to detect suspicious aspects of study
- Sharing of original data for others to verify (watchdogs)
- Penalties that come with fraud often sufficient to keep researchers honest
What is the goal of descriptive research?
simply describe a phenomenon as it is right now.
○ NOT explain relationships, why, how, underlying causes
What is a behavioural observation (observational research)
• Researcher observes and systematically records the behaviour of individuals to describe the behaviour
What are the 2 problems of behavioural observation?
○ Essential that the behaviours are not disrupted or influenced by the presence of an observer
○ Requires at least some degree of subjective interpretation from the observer (questionable reliability)
How can we make sure that behaviours are not disrupted by the presence of an observer?
- Concealing the observer so that subjects do not know they are being observed (public spaces only)
- Habituate the participants to the observer’s presence
How can we make sure that the observations of behaviours are reliable across different researchers (eliminate subjectivity)?
- Use a list of well-defined categories of behaviour
- Use well-trained observers
- Use multiple observers to assess inner-rater reliability
What are the 3 techniques for quantifying behavioural observations?
• Frequency method: counting the instances of each specific behaviour that occur during a fixed-time observation period
○ Ex: child committed 3 aggressive acts during 30 min period
• Duration method: recording how much time an individual spends engaged in a specific behaviour during a fixed-time observation period.
○ Ex: child spent 18 minutes playing alone during 30 mins observation
• Interval method: dividing the observation period into a series of intervals and recording whether a specific behaviour occurs during each interval
○ Ex: 30 mins observation period divided into 30 x 1 min intervals, child observed in group play in 12 intervals
How can we sample behavioural observations?
- Time sampling: observing for 1 interval, pausing for 1 interval (to note/record observations)
- Event sampling: identifying one specific event/behaviour to be observed and recorded during 1st interval, and changing for a different event during the second interval
- Individual sampling: one different individual at each interval
What is a content analysis?
Using the technique of behavioural observation to measure specific events in literature, movies, television programs, etc