Module 5 Assignment 1

Ethics in Research

There are two areas within research where a researcher needs to pay close ethical attention. First, a researcher must ensure that he or she is following all ethical guidelines when designing and conducting research. Second, when the researcher reports the outcome of research, he or she must do so in an ethical manner.

Ethics in Conducting Research

Keith-Spiegel and Koocher (1985) stated that the goal of an ethical researcher is to develop a fair, clear, and explicit agreement with participants so that their decision to participate in an experiment is made voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently. Even though Keith-Spiegel and Koocher were psychologists, this principle applies to other disciplines as well, including business and education.

Historically, the welfare and dignity of the participants were not of foremost concern. There are several notorious examples of abuse. One such example is the experiments conducted during World War II in Nazi prison camps where prisoners died from lethal doses of chemicals and various levels of physical abuse. Another example is a program conducted by a hospital in Brooklyn in the 1960s in which twenty-two chronically ill patients were injected with cancer cells as part of a study to examine the body's capacity to reject foreign cells. The patients were not informed of their participation (Heppner, Kivlighan, & Wampold, 1999).

All research projects with human participants nowadays are subject to federal regulations governing research, and most institutions have an institutional review board (IRB) committee of peers to review all research proposals. The review committee ensures that no ethical guidelines are crossed during the study and that the participants are protected.

For additional insights into ethical considerations while conducting research, read the following primer from the University online library resources:

• Ethics in Research and Publication

Law & Ethics: Alerting You to the Most Frequent Problems for Mental Health Professionals

written by Steven P. Frankel, fl. 1980; presented by Steven P. Frankel, fl. 1980, in Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy (Phoenix, AZ: Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 2011), 5 hours 19 mins

http://search.alexanderstreet.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/view/work/1858396

References:

Heppner, P. P., Kivlighan, D. M., Jr., & Wampold, B. E. (1999). Research
           design in counseling (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Brooks/Cole.

Keith-Spiegel, P. C., & Koocher, O. (1985). Ethics in psychology:
           Professional standards and cases. New York, NY: Random House.