“Research is a step into the _______” -
______
unknown, (TCPS)
The university’s research policies (TMU), including __________ –
Policy on Research Involving Human Participants
– and research ethics procedures, adhere to the
federal guidelines of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2)
Senate Policy #51
TCPS 2 Core Principles
Respect for Persons
Concern for Welfare
Justice
includes:
- informed consent
- Fairness and equity
- Privacy and confedentiality
- conflict of interest prevention
- cultural diverse approaches / minority focuses
Ethical principles for research undertaken
on human participants (slides)
- Privacy and Confidentiality
- Informed Consent
- Harm
Tearoom Trade
Tuskegee Study
- Study conducted with the US Public Health, CFC 399 African American men were researched on for Syphilis
- Despite the guise of free examinations, free meals, and burial insurance, NO INFORMED CONSENT WAS GIVEN
- The men believed that they would possibly be treated. At the initial start of the study there was no hypothesised cure for syphilis, but 15 years into the study widely available penicillin was declared the best option of treatment for the disease,
- The study was in fact just to observe the effects of the disease left untreated, which they deceived the participants
- 40 Years later, most of the men were completely untreated and it caused a lot of harm to most of the participants, many partners were infected and babies born with syphilis, 100 of the participants in total died
Facebook Emotional Contagion Study 2012
- Facebook changed its News Feed for 700,000 users in order to manipulate their emotional state
- It is legal – in the company’s current terms of service, facebook users relinquish the use of their data for “data analysis, testing, and research”
-But is it ethical? “In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety” - Kramer, Adam
Scott Demuth
- Demuth, a 23 year old graduate student, plead guilty to charge of conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism.
- He was also jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury.
- Argued that information he had about th event and people violated confenditality rights of people involved with his research studies (who may have done the crime with him)
- Academic freedom vs potential legal implications of undertaking research
- What are the implications for researchers who promise confidentiality to their research participants and then reveal their sources either willingly, accidentally, or because they believe they have no choice?
Could these ethical issues limit what topics or areas researchers study?
Moving Beyond Ethical Guidelines: Critical Reflexivity
- Ethical rules and ethics committees are not
__________ - Rigid codes cannot always deal with the
______________ of social research
unproblematic
variability and unpredictability
Reflexivity as defined by (Kim England, 1994)
“a process of constant, self-conscious, scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process.”
(EVEN WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, Reserach boards approves, etc, KEEP THINKING about variables and how it could be better)
Research Diary
- Contents are different
than a fieldwork diary. - It is a place for recording
your reflexive
observations. - It contains your thoughts
and ideas about the
research process, its
social context, and your
role in it.
Types of Power Relations
- Reciprocal Relationships
- Asymmetrical Relationships
- Potentially Exploitative Relationships
Reciprocal Relationships
The researcher and the researched are in comparable social positions and have relatively equal benefits and costs from participating in the research
Asymmetrical Relationships
Those being studied are in positions of influence in comparison to the researcher
Potentially Exploitative Relationships
The researcher is in a position of greater power than the research participants
_____ cannot be eliminated from research since it exists in all social relations
Power
Two components of Objectivity in Research
- Personal involvement between the researcher and other
participants in the study. - Refers to the researcher’s independence from the object of
research.
(This implies that there can be no interactive relationship between
the researcher and the process of data collection and
interpretation)
Subjectivity in Research (Two components)
- Involves the insertion of personal opinions and
characteristics into research practice. - Qualitative research gives emphasis to
subjectivity because the methods involve social
interactions.
intersubjectivity
- Refers to the meanings and interpretations of the world
created, confirmed, and disconfirmed as a result of interactions with other people. - Collecting and interpreting
qualitative information relies
upon a dialogue between you
and your participants. - Critical reflexivity
How to be critically reflexive in
research before and after.
Before Data
- What are some of the power dynamics of the general social situation I am exploring and what sort of power dynamics do I expect between myself and my participants?
- In what ways am I an insider and/or outsider in respect to this research topic?
- What problems might my position cause? Will any of them be insurmountable? - What ethical issues might impinge upon my research (for example, privacy, consent, harm, deception)?
After Data collection
- Did my perspective and opinions change during the research?
- How, if at all, were my interactions with participants informed/constrained by gender, class, race, or any other social relations
- How was I perceived by my informants?
In whole, Someones own ____ informs their research
Identity
(due to positionality, beliefs, etc)
where one is located in relation to their various social identities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location etc)
Positionality
