“Why are ethics increasingly important for research? Discuss your answer using examples from the literature”.
To most people ethics is the religious value like the Ten Commandments, a golden rule, a Hippocratic oath or like a wise aphorism like Confucius sayings. Nevertheless the ethics may be defined as the norms of conduct or the acceptable behaviour while doing a job. In a social setting the norms are supposed to be displayed although the same is supposed to be learned in the childhood. Few thinks ethics is common sense but if it was common sense the dispute regarding ethics would have ended long back. The world is changing fast and the people are taking about the ethics and ethical dilemma openly with students today more than before. The same people are interacting on different ethical aspects with students to make them aware of ethical needs of time as well as demands of ethics in job, may that be education or otherwise.
Ethics is to see that no code of law is broken while performing a job that is morally or legally incorrect. People accept some norms in various ways in light of their own experiences and values. The society has its own set of laws to manage and govern behaviour but ethics seems to be broader and informal than behaviour. Nonetheless, ethics and laws are not the same and are at times ethical but illegal. Thus the ethics may be classified as the discipline of study of standards of conduct (Ahc.umn.edu, 2013). Thus it is the method, procedure and perspective for deciding on how to act and why in a situation. For an example the days of Global warming may be looked by an economist in a view that economy needs to be boosted to give people better living by producing more while the environmentalist will have a different point of view and it would have an ethical judgement involved in the process. The perspectives are different in the two professional’s case. The reasons to adhere to the norms of ethics are many of which the first suggests the norms of the research as knowledge, truth and avoidance of error (Thehastingscenter.org, 2014). Misinterpretation, fabrication, misrepresentations are the cases of research that needs to be avoided. Further it promotes values that are needed for promotion of group or collaborative work or team focus. In team trust, accountability, mutual respect, fairness plays a big role to have ethical standards to promote values for collaborative work. Copy right and patents are made to protect the intellectual property right interest while increasing collaboration. The other part is that the research must ensure that the research must ensure ethical norms so that the researchers are accountable to the public ad that there research in no way deviate the laws and principals of legal framework. The research must not harm people or animals in the process of the experiment, federal policies, ensure use of public money should be accountable to public (Rawbone, 2009). Such moral and ethical guidelines of research are not just necessary for a good research but also ethical outcome of the processes undertaken. The ethical norms of research can also help in building public support for the research with funding if they find integrity and trust and quality in the research activity. Again, research promotes other morale and social values in the values in the society as responsibility towards each other, human rights, animal care, public welfare, compliance with law etc. Hence any lapse in the ethical perspective has the capacity to harm human and animal so failure may harm the flora and fauna and jeopardise the health and well being of the staffs and students involved in the process (Niehs.nih.gov, 2015).
The APA’s Science Directorate gives guidelines to the researchers to follow as follows:
The intellectual property is the basis for Academe’s competitive ‘publish or perish’ mindset when it comes to who gets the credit. The departmental chair dose not justify the ownership of the credit so minor contribution or writing for publication needs to be acknowledged too with footnotes or in introduction statement. The same rule is applicable to all in their own sphere of research.
The multiple role of a person in the research has to be carefully selected where the person have the understanding of the same. A student is a student in the class while may be the laboratory supervisor in the laboratory and have dual role and each needs to be understood and given individual attention. Thus a student cannot only be judged on his or her laboratory performance as the role being a student is also important where the student learns. Learning is a major part in execution. After earning execution can be measured and thus the measures has to be put that way and not measured as a expertslaboratory performance would be judged like.
Again the research is to be carried in a consent process which ensures that the researcher is aware and agrees with the process of the research with full knowledge of relevant risk and benefits. Thus the learner or the researcher should be aware of the norms and the rights and responsibilities should be clear. The excessive or less or inappropriate inducement of the process should not be projected to lure the researcher in and thus the process should have enough arsenal to be able to have all the aspects of mutual consent and knowledge based agreement in place.
The step is an interesting one considering the rights and responsibility of an individual in the research. Each participant has the right to choose to decide the level and the limit of information they choose to give. Thus the limit of confidentiality to disclose is in the hands of the percipients and that needs to be known by them. The knowledge of the laws both federal and state are to be known by the participants or needed to be told so that they are aware of the rights and responsibilities. When the participants in a research have the aforesaid they would have enough safeguard in place to protect themselves from data security and would also understand the limits of sharing of information in the data (Niehs.nih.gov, 2015).
The ethical dilemma in a situation can be avoided by knowing what is ethical and what resources are available to them. Protection of Human Subject of Biomedical and Behavioural research of 1979 lay down the guidelines for such research.
The various institutes involved with various aspects of human life have adopted ethics and its principles in their work and functioning understanding the importance and need. The government, health, education, aviation, industry etc are to name a few (Rath, et al, 2014). Food and drug administration, Environment Protection agency, National Science Foundation are to name a few and each of them have funded researchers and ethics rules. The need for such authority is to address various principles regarding honesty, objectivity, integrity carful execution, openness, respect for intellectual property, confidentiality, social responsibility and respect for others along with animal protection legal guideline following and human subject protection. The ethical backbone of any research needs to keep all aspects of the aforesaid clear in principal and in concept as the research is meant to do good to people and environment that they live in with a focus on protection of animal rights and value to natural resources as the damage or harm is not the desired outcome of the research and won’t be accepted by the society. Therefore the ethical dilemma for the research should not make the aforesaid aspects of the nature as well as research peripherals endangered to make the research successful and competent to be honoured (Niehs.nih.gov, 2015).
The decision making during a research work has to cover the policies and principals like any other guiding principles. The interpretation is important to access, apply and conduct the research in a suitable way and act in situation is guided by the ethics and ethical decision making comes into forefront here (Rath et al.2015) Falsifications, fabrication plagiarisms are the actions common in research misconduct and are considered to be unpardonable in research ethics. Nevertheless, the intent of the researcher has to be the intent to deceive which obviously can be proved with the produced papers with modern technology but poor record keeping or error in data entry is a different ball game all together which is constituted under negligence and not under misconduct. The process of conducting a research, procedures, interpretations can be put under research misconduct but not under deception or a case of unethical behaviour (Depts.washington.edu, 2015). However the behaviour such as publishing under different name, publishing twice in different journal, no information about the partner in the research process, discussion about the research with others where secret information are involved, stretching the facts are few to name.
The actions are unethical and some cases illegal so utmost care needs to be adopted so that such disclosure and nondisclosure is done with utmost ethical purview and codes in mind. The professional ethics code are meant to see that the professionals do not break any of the codes under the institutional policy or to people and stakeholders in general (Rawbone, 2009). It difficult to state other deviations under the guidelines of ethics but the deviation from it is very much clear and understandable. The other very important aspect of research ethics is that different people disagree with the justified or proper action or path to take and there is no broad consensus about what needs to be done. There may be ethical dilemma in such a case where the researcher is unable to give a proper decision in such a case. The dilemma can be rectified by taking the course by asking the subject involved n the course directly about the opinion about the feelings to get the right step or measure for the research to progress (Ahc.umn.edu, 2013).
The course that the research may take during the process of conducting the research should have the element of consent from all parties involved while the researcher should also ensure that the path taken have the element of goodwill integrated in it. Nevertheless, there are a huge list of activity which may fall in the list of activity which may fall under other serious deviation and remain unclear to the people not involved but the researcher is clear and for them the case may be obvious so precaution from the researcher’s side is expected and so the Government have limited there focus (McLaughlin and Shardlow, 2009). Again, for a researcher who have taken the funding from a financial source which have not disclosed the financials, is considered an offence as making unauthorized copies of the paper. Same way over estimation of the findings and declaration of the same to the public is considered unethical especially for medical drugs as they have an effect on the people using those drugs and the profits of the company producing them. Stealing data for research cause is also a fraud and an ethical misconduct that one should refrain from doing while doing research work. Thus the research work data has to be founded upon the work done with the team where the members name and role has to be disclosed and finds has to be true to findings while the results needs to comply with the ethical perspective like environment, human life animals etc (Asha.org, 2015).
Conclusions
The subject of ethics is not only a consideration but a subject of actual execution in a research situation. The deviation from it is considered to be anti social and unethical in cases of research. The cases of ethics are bound by regulatory norms and stated and in some cases it is not but the guiding principles are mandatory to follow and are taken for granted. The researcher as well as the research should follow as aspects of ethical values so that no animal, person, environment is harmed in the research process while no there should be mention of all people who were involved in the research in the paper. The data and the contents should be true to its contents and the findings should not be copied or stolen from other sources and that makes the research valid and matched up to the desired level.
Ahc.umn.edu,. (2013). A Guide to research Ethics. Retrieved 16 August 2015, from https://www.ahc.umn.edu/img/assets/26104/Research_Ethics.pdf
Asha.org,. (2015). Ethics in Research. Retrieved 16 August 2015, from https://www.asha.org/Research/Ethics-in-Research/
Depts.washington.edu, (2015). Research Ethics. Retrieved 16 August 2015, from https://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/resrch.html
McLaughlin, H., and Shardlow, S. (2009). Different Cultures, Different Ethics? Research Governance and Social Care. RESW, 3(1), 4-17.
Niehs.nih.gov, (2015). What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important?. Retrieved 16 August 2015, from https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/
Rath, J., Ischi, M., and Perkins, D. (2014). Evolution of Different Dual-use Concepts in International and National Law and Its Implications on Research Ethics and Governance. Sci Eng Ethics, 20(3), 769-790.
Rawbone, R. (2009). Social Research and Ethics Review. Research Ethics, 5(2), 43-44.
The Association of Research Ethics Committees — News. (2009). Research Ethics, 5(1), 42-42.
Thehastingscenter.org,. (2014). IRB: Ethics & Human Research – The Hastings Center. Retrieved 16 August 2015, from https://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/IRB/sd
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