Ethical Issues

WJEC PY3 revision on ethical issues in research

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  • Created by: Flo
  • Created on: 02-06-12 19:09

Lack of Informed Consent

- All aspects of what will happen to Participants during a study are disclosed

- Participants must understand this information

- The participants must be competent to make a rational and mature judgement

- The agreement should be voulentry, free from coercion and under influence

If any of the above statement are not followed then the study is said to lack informed consent and is said to be unethical.

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Use of deception

- Involves withholding information or masleading participants

- From a researchers point of view, it can be necessary to decieve participants in order to stop them changing their behaviour and making the results meaningless

- On the other hand, participants have the right to know what will happen to them as part of the study

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Lack of Right to Withdraw

- Particiapnts should be informed of their right to withdraw from the study if they begin to feel uncomftable or distressed

- This should be made clear before, during and after data collection

- If a participant wishes to withdraw after data colection, their data should be identified and distroyed

- From a researchers point of veiw, if participants do withdraw during the study this will bias the results, because the participants who have stayed are more likely to be more obedient or more resilient.

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Lack of Confidentiality

- All data should be confidential, and all participants should be anonymous and unidentifiable unless prior concent is given

- Participants have the right to privacy which must be represented especially since invasions of privacy may affect well being and raise confidentiality issues

- From a researchers point of veiw it may be difficult to protect confidentiality because the researchers wishes to publish the findings.

- A researcher might garantee anonymity but it might still be obvious who has been involved in a study.

- From a participants point of veiw, the data protection act makes confidentiality a legal right. It is only acceptable for personal data to be recorded if the data are not made available in a form that identifies the participants.

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Failure to Protect Ps from Physical or Psychologic

- Participants need to be protected from physica and psychological harm

- From a researchers point of veiw, studying important behaviour might involve causing stress to participants

- However, nothing should happen to participants that should cause them anymore psychological or physical harm than is experienced in everyday life

- Participants should be in the same state after the study as they were before, unless they have given their informed consent to be treated otherwise.

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