Week 1 Flashcards
What is Research?
has multiple, systemic strategies to generate knowledge about human behaviour, experience and environments
Naturalistic inquiry (qualitative)
interpreting human experience within the context in which the experience occurs
Experimental type (quantitative)
prediction and hypothesis testing
Mixed Method
naturalistic inquiry and experimental type to account for the limitations in each approach
Four basic characteristics of research
• Logical • Understandable • Useful • Confirmable (Acronym is LUUC)
What research is not
- Does not prove a theory or a point of view
- Does not come to a single truth
- Does not create static knowledge
Ten essentials of research
- philosophical
- Frame
- supporting
- theory base
- specific
- design
- boundaries
- Obtain
- conclusions
- Share
5 Thinking Processes
- identify a philosophical foundation
- frame a research problem
- Determine supporting knowledge
- Identify a theory base
- develop a specific question or query
Design Approach
- select a design strategy
Action processes
- set study boundaries
- obtain information
- analyse information and draw conclusions
- share and use research knowledge
What is Ethics?
▪ values and customs of a culture
▪ system of moral principles that guide human action
▪ Ethics in research is about balancing these principles with planning and conducting research
Ethical conduct?
“All human interaction, including the interaction involved in human research, has ethical dimensions. However, ‘ethical conduct’ is more than simply doing the right thing. It involves acting in the right spirit, out of an abiding respect and concern for one’s fellow creatures”.
Human research
conducted with or about people, or their data or tissue.
Involvement of humans through:
- surveys, interviews or focus groups
- psychological, physiological or medical testing or treatment;
- being observed by researchers;
- personal documents or other materials;
- body organs, tissues or fluids or their exhaled breath;
Values and principles of ethical conduct
- Research merit
- Respect
- Justice
- Beneficence
Themes in research ethics
- Risk and benefit
- Consent
Risk and benefit involves:
- Identify the risk
- Gauge probability and severity
- Minimize and justify
- Manage
Risk and benefit
Harm • Includes physical, psychological, devaluation of personal worth, social, economic and legal, pain, anxiety, side effects
Discomfort • Less serious that harm and can involve body and mind, feeling uncomfortable, anxious, balance test
Inconvenience • Less serious again, time
consent
▪ value of respect and involves people’s capacity to make their own decisions
▪ Participants choose to be involved in research, that is they are required to give consent
▪ Consent should be voluntary choice and based on sufficient information and adequate understanding of the research and the implications of participation
Ethics committees
- Ethical review of research is conducted by Human Research Ethics Committees
- National Health and Medical Research council
- Can be university or organization based
- Have strict requirements of constitution and operation to ensure reviews are high quality and conducted without conflict of interest
- Follow ethical values and principles of human research
Ethics approval
- Application for HREC Approval (Expediated) for low risk research
- Application for HREC Approval (Standard) for research that is considered not low risk
What does an ethics application involve?
▪ Telling the committee about the project
- Research Protocol or Proposal (detailed information about the research methodology and plan)
- Ethics application form (detailing the project and showing where ethical issues may arise and how you will manage them)
- Participant Information Sheet (PIS) and Participant Informed Consent Form (PICF)
Information Sheet (PIS) and Informed Consent (PICF)
Potential participants must be informed of:
▪ Purpose of project
▪ What is expected of them
▪ What data will be collected
▪ What will be done with information collected
▪ Key contact details of the researcher
The PIS and PICF are
▪ Signed by participant or person responsible
▪ Give enough information in plain language to enable informed consent
▪ People have a choice about whether to participate or not
