Research ethics

Question 1

What are IRBs?

Answer 1

• Committees that review research to ensure high ethics and to minimise subject harm
• Canadian unis required to have it to get public funding
• devel. in response to controversial studies

Question 2

What are the 3 core principles of IRBs?

Answer 2

• Respect for persons
• concern for welfare
• justice

Question 3

What does respect for persons mean?

Answer 3

• obligation to respect autonomy and protect those with developing, impaired, diminished autonomy
• giving choice
• seek free, informed and ongoing consent

Question 4

What is informed consent?

Answer 4

• given to subjects before the study
• must explain all elements of study
• physical or verbal

Question 5

What is deception in research?

Answer 5

• when subjects are not informed and don’t give consent
• when people are misinformed/misled about purpose of study

Question 6

How can one avoid abuse of power in research?

Answer 6

• be aware of power dynamic
• include withdrawal without penalty

Question 7

What does concern for welfare mean?

Answer 7

• minimize physical, mental and economic harm to participants
• provide participants with enough info so they know risks/benefits of study
• welfare of groups affected be research must be considered

Question 8

What does the IRB say about minimizing harm?

Answer 8

Risk of harm should be no greater than the risks encountered in everyday life

Question 9

What does privacy and confidentiality mean?

Answer 9

• Privacy: what data is collected
• Confidentiality: how is data stored

Question 10

When is a study anonymous?

Answer 10

if researchers have no way of identifying a participant

Question 11

How should researchers ensure privacy and confidentiality?

Answer 11

• store data with as many protections as possible
• don’t share data with anyone not approved by IRB
• destroy data after certain amount of time

Question 12

What does justice mean?

Answer 12

• obligation to treat people fairly and equitably
• no segment of pop is unduly burdened by harms of research/ denied benefits
• participants must be based on inclusion criteria justified by research question

Question 13

What is data mining, p-hacking, harking?

Answer 13

ways of making the data fit a researchers objectives, agenda

Question 14

What is self-plagiarism?

Answer 14

taking verbatim from your own writing after it has been published

Question 15

What is Data Slicing?

Answer 15

Writing more than one paper from a single data set with only minor changes