ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCHBY: FAROUQ AYIWOROH

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

EDRD6000 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

MARCH 15TH 2013

LEARNING OUTCOME• Brief Overview of Qualitative Research

• Know key Unethical Qualitative Researches Conducted

• Understand key Ethical Issues & Principles in Qualitative Research

HANCOCK (1998) ARGUES THAT QUALITATIVE RESEARCH INVOLVES

THE FOLLOWING• Understanding opinions, experiences, feelings of individuals or

communities to produce subjective data to make generalizations• Exploring social phenomenon or issues by examining people or

communities in their natural settings• Describing cultures, social stratifications and social groups in their

natural settings• Exploring relationships between individuals or communities, cultural

norms, and economic and political ideas

MAJOR TYPES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

• Phenomenology - literally, the study of phenomena; describing situations or something that exists as part of our world

• Ethnography - the scientific study of human social phenomena and communities, involves the descriptive study of culture and people, traditions and norms as they are in specific geographical locations• Grounded theory - using empirical data without preconceived theories, involves the development of new theories by collecting and

analysis of data about a phenomenon• Case study - in-depth study of a particular situation or an intensive

analysis of an individual unit(Hancock, 1998)

CORE RESEARCH ETHICAL PRINCIPLES & ISSUES

Core ethical principles and issues of qualitative research include respect to persons, concern for welfare, informed consent process, confidentiality and anonymity, and privacy (Orb,

Eisenhauer & Wynaden, 2001; Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, 2010)

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ETHICAL PRINCIPLES & ISSUES

• Anonymity• Privacy

• Confidentiality• Informed Consent Process

Respectfor Persons

Beneficence

Concern for WelfareJustice

ACCORDING TO ORB, EISENHAUER & WYNADEN (2001)

Ethics in qualitative research involves avoiding harm in research. Qualitative researchers are responsible

for ensuring that they adhere to the guidelines of ethical principles and issues of their research

SOME KEY UNETHICAL ISSUES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH HISTORY

• Tuskegee Syphilis Study of 1932 to 1972 (Orb, Eisenhauer & Wynaden, 2001)

• Nuremberg Code of 1946 to 1949 (Fouka & Mantzorou, 2011)

• Milgram’s Obedience Experiment; 1963

RESPECT FOR PEOPLE OR PARTICIPANTS

• Recognition and ensuring participants right to informed consent, consent may be given in written format, verbally and audio-taped, or

videotaped• Informed Consent is a procedure by which participants choose whether or not to participate in a research, consent is ongoing, can

be revoked at any time during the research or study• Consent is direct when the agreement is obtained directly from the

participants. It is indirect or third party when it is given by someone other than the person to be involved in the research study

(Orb, Eisenhauer & Wynaden, 2001)

ELEMENTS OF CONSENT; CAPACITY, INFORMATION, AND VOLUNTARINESS

(FOUKA & MANTZOROU, 2011)• Capacity: participants ability to acquire, retain, and evaluate

information; participants are deemed competent or incompetent based on their capacity

• Information: effectively communicated to participants, both substance and manner. Consent must be written in the

language that participants can understand• Voluntariness: participants ability to exercise the free power

of choice without the intervention of force, fraud, deceit, duress, or other forms of constraint or coercion; any undue

influence would violate the principle of voluntariness

BENEFICENCE & CONCERN FOR WELFARE OF PARTICIPANTS

• Beneficence as an ethical principle in qualitative research means preventing harm and doing good for others in

research (Orb, Eisenhauer & Wynaden (2001)• Beneficence and Welfare of participants include issues

such as the impact of the research on participants physically, psychological, spiritually, economic, and socially

(Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, 2010)

PRIVACY, CONFIDENTIALITY, & ANONYMITY

• Privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity issues are closely connected with concern for welfare

of participants• Privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity have

become an increasingly valued right in qualitative research (Richards & Schwartz,

2002)

DEALING WITH PRIVACY, CONFIDENTIALITY, & ANONYMITY

• Maintaining the principle of beneficence and concern for welfare of participants means that researchers must be

aware of the potential consequences of revealing participants’ identities

• The use of pseudonyms is recommended when dealing with confidentiality and anonymity

• Total privacy is virtually nonexistent so participants are required on occasion to yield a certain amount of privacy

for one reason or another

FAIRNESS & EQUITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

• Researchers shall not exclude participants in a qualitative research on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, race,

culture, age, or sexual orientation• Qualitative researchers are required to address the fair

inclusion or exclusion of individuals and equitable treatment of participants

(Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, 2010)

COMMENTS ON QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ETHICS

• Qualitative researchers need to handle capacity, a key component of informed consent carefully because the age of majority depends on where the research is being done. For example the age of majority in Canada is different from other countries. In Ontario the legal age of driving a motor

vehicle is lower in rural communities

• You are doing a study on teenage pregnancies in Congo, Africa. You find that many of the young women you interview bring up stories of sexual trauma

they have experienced, including rape. There are instances that the interview became upsetting to both you and the participant. Your research ethics board

has already approved your informed consent form to talks about the risk of feeling uncomfortable with some of the questions. But the responses are overwhelming than you expected. What do you do? Should you stop the interviews and revise your consent form or should you report this to the

research ethics board?

CONCLUSION• Power and relationship issues between researchers and

participants are primary to consider in qualitative research• Qualitative researchers are responsible for ethical principles

and issues of their research• Qualitative researchers need to know their participants, know

what risk are involved and how to minimize them• Key qualitative research principles and issues are intertwined; if

you are in doubt contact your research ethics board (REB)• Key qualitative ethical principles and issue include Respect for

Persons, Concern for Welfare, Beneficence, Justice, Informed consent, Privacy and Anonymity, and Confidentiality

REFERENCESCanadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. (December 2010)

Hancock, B. (1998). Trent Focus for Research and Development in Primary Health Care: An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Trent Focus

Georgia Fouka, G., Mantzorou, M. (2011).What are the Major Ethical Issues in Conducting Research? Is there a Conflict between the Research Ethics and the Nature of Nursing? Health Science Journal Volume 5, Issue 1. pp:3-14 E-ISSN:1791-809X

Orb, A., Eisenhauer, L., Wynaden, D. (2001). Ethics in Qualitative Research: Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 33:1, 93-96

Richards, H.M,. Schwartz, L.J. (2002). Ethics in qualitative research: are there special issues for health care services research? Family practice; Volume 19. No. 2. pp. 135 – 139

How important are ethics in our society image retrieved from: http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/programs/research/reu/ethics/index.html

Joy of tech image, code of ethics logo, ethical research logo from: https://www.google.ca: Google images