Research Ethics: Ethical

Considerations in Research,
Plagiarism
Ethical Considerations in
Research
• Ethical considerations in research are a set of
principles that guide your research designs and
practices. Scientists and researchers must always
adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting
data from people.
• The goals of human research often include
understanding real-life phenomena, studying effective
treatments, investigating behaviors, and improving lives
in other ways. What you decide to research and how
you conduct that research involve key ethical
considerations.
These considerations work to:
• protect the rights of research participants
• enhance research validity
• maintain scientific or academic integrity
 Types of ethical issues
• 1. Voluntary participation
• Voluntary participation means that all research subjects
are free to choose to participate without any pressure or
coercion.
• All participants are able to withdraw from, or leave, the study
at any point without feeling an obligation to continue. Your
participants don’t need to provide a reason for leaving the
study.
• It’s important to make it clear to participants that there are
no negative consequences or repercussions to their refusal to
participate. After all, they’re taking the time to help you in
the research process, so you should respect their decisions
without trying to change their minds.
• Example of voluntary participation When recruiting
 Informed consent
• Informed
consent refers to a
situation in which all
potential participants
receive and understand
all the information they
need to decide whether
they want to participate.
This includes
information about the
study’s benefits, risks,
funding, and institutional
approval.
Anonymity
• Anonymity means that you don’t know who the
participants are and you can’t link any individual
participant to their data.
• You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any
personally identifying information—for example, names,
phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical
characteristics, photos, and videos.
Confidentiality
• Confidentiality means that you know who the
participants are, but you remove all identifying
information from your report.
• All participants have a right to privacy, so you should
protect their personal data for as long as you store or
use it. Even when you can’t collect data anonymously,
you should secure confidentiality whenever you can.
Potential for harm
• As a researcher, you have to consider all possible sources of harm to participants.
Harm can come in many different forms.
• Psychological harm: Sensitive questions or tasks may trigger negative emotions
such as shame or anxiety. For ex: clinical psychology study
• Social harm: Participation can involve social risks, public embarrassment, or
stigma. Ex: study on political opinions
• Physical harm: Pain or injury can result from the study procedures.Ex: medical
trial
• Legal harm: Reporting sensitive data could lead to legal risks or a breach of
privacy.Ex: criminology study or financial behavior survey
• It’s best to consider every possible source of harm in your study as well as
concrete ways to mitigate them. Involve your supervisor to discuss steps for harm
reduction.
• Make sure to disclose all possible risks of harm to participants before the study to
get informed consent. If there is a risk of harm, prepare to provide participants
with resources or counseling or medical services if needed.
Results communication
• The way you communicate your research results can
sometimes involve ethical issues. Good science
communication is honest, reliable, and credible. It’s best
to make your results as transparent as possible.
• Take steps to actively avoid plagiarism and research
misconduct wherever possible.
Plagiarism
• Plagiarism means submitting others’ works as your
own. Although it can be unintentional, copying someone
else’s work without proper credit amounts to stealing.
It’s an ethical problem in research communication
because you may benefit by harming other researchers.
Research misconduct
• Research misconduct means making up or falsifying
data, manipulating data analyses, or misrepresenting
results in research reports. It’s a form of academic
fraud.
• These actions are committed intentionally and can have
serious consequences; research misconduct is not a
simple mistake or a point of disagreement about data
analyses.
• Research misconduct is a serious ethical issue because
it can undermine academic integrity and institutional
credibility. It leads to a waste of funding and resources
that could have been used for alternative research.
Examples of ethical failures
• Research scandals with ethical failures are littered
throughout history, but some took place not that long
ago.
• Some scientists in positions of power have
historically mistreated or even abused research
participants to investigate research problems at any
cost. These participants were prisoners, under their
care, or otherwise trusted them to treat them with
dignity.
• To demonstrate the importance of research ethics,
we’ll briefly review two research studies that violated
human rights in modern history.
Tuskegee syphilis study was an American public health study that
violated research ethics throughout its 40-year run from 1932 to 1972.
In this study, 600 young black men were deceived into participating
with a promise of free healthcare that was never fulfilled.
In reality, the actual goal was to study the effects of the disease when
left untreated, and the researchers never informed participants about
their diagnoses or the research aims.

Although participants experienced severe health problems, including

blindness and other complications, the researchers only pretended to
provide medical care.

When treatment became possible in 1943, 11 years after the study

began, none of the participants were offered it, despite their health
conditions and high risk of death.

By the end of the study, 128 participants had died of syphilis or related
Ethics in Research
Being honest with the beneficiaries and respondents. Being
Honesty
honest about the findings and methodology of the research.
Being honest with other direct and indirect stakeholders.

Ensuring honesty and sincerity. Fulfilling agreements and

Integrity promises. Do not create false expectations or make false
promises.

Objectivity Avoiding bias in experimental design, data analysis, data

interpretation, peer review, and other aspects of research.

•Informed consent means that a person knowingly, voluntarily

and intelligently gives consent to participate in a research.
•Informed consent is related to the autonomous right of the
Informed consent
individual to participate in the research.
•Informing the participant about the research objective, their
role, benefits/harms (if any) etc.
Ethics in Research
It includes:
•autonomy, which requires that those who are capable of
deliberation about their personal goals should be treated with
Respect for
respect for their capacity for self-determination; and
person/respondent
•protection of persons with impaired or diminished autonomy,
which requires that those who are dependent or vulnerable be
afforded security against harm or abuse.
Maximize the benefits of the participants. Ethical obligation to
Beneficence maximize possible benefits and to minimize possible harms to
the respondents.
Non-maleficence/
Do no harm. Minimize harm/s or risks to the human. Ensure
Protecting the
privacy, autonomy and dignity.
subjects (human)
Responsible Responsibly publishing to promote and uptake research or
publication knowledge. No duplicate publication.
Avoid discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, ethnicity
Non-discrimination or other factors that are violation of human rights and are not
related to the study.
Ethics in Research
Be open to sharing results, data and other resources. Also
Openness
accept encouraging comments and constructive feedback.
Be careful about the possible error and biases.
Carefulness and
Give credit to the intellectual property of others. Always
respect for
paraphrase while referring to others article, writing. Never
intellectual property
plagiarize.
The obligation to distribute benefits and burdens fairly, to
treat equals equally, and to give reasons for differential
Justice
treatment based on widely accepted criteria for just ways to
distribute benefits and burdens.