All things Ethics

Ethics, ethical considerations and ethical procedures in both my inquiry topic and in conducting research seem to be popping up all over the Module 2 handbook so I think it's time I dedicate some time to them.

I know that ethics was something that I only briefly touched on in Module 1 but the nature of the Module 2 inquiry means it is something I need to dig deeper into. 

Ethics is defined as a moral philosophy or code of morals practiced by a person or group of people.

Initially I struggled finding personal experiences that had a strong ethical implication. I had never suffered any bias or judgement as a result of my skin colour, age or sex and if I had i certainly wasn't aware of it. These are things that I will be looking out for within my inquiry topic as I narrow down my field of study.

Before looking at the ethical considerations surrounding my inquiry topic I wanted to look at the ethical considerations that are to be considered when conducting research (also because I haven't fully decided on my inquiry topic yet). A Module 3 student from the all module discussion group gave the following definition for ethical considerations:

Ethical Considerations - Things that will be affected/consequences of actions

Polonski (2004) states that there are six broad ethical areas that need to be considered in your research. 

1. Voluntary participation

2. Informed consent
3. Confidentiality and anonymity
4. The potential for harm
5. Communicating the results

6. More specific ethical issues

The one that struck me the most was 4. The potential for harm - my initial thought was that of course I wasn't going to hurt something, my research isn't physical or medical so why do I need to consider this?

What I hadn't considered were the three types of harm that Polonski (2004) goes on to outline below.

• Psychological harm—for example, researching the use of nudity in advertising may show participants images that offend them. 

• Financial harm—researching unethical behaviour within a given firm may provide management with information on individual employees that results in an individual getting fired, or undertaking industry based research may inadvertently share sensitive information with a firm’s competitors, resulting in financial harm to the organization. 

• Social harm—researching how lifestyle affects consumption may unintentionally disclose a person’s sexual orientation when that person wanted to keep this confidential.

Although I have no fully researched the qualitative methods of data collection just yet I am drawn towards using interviews as one of my methods. Here I was be asking questions and getting peoples opinions/stories and regardless of my chosen inquiry topic these are things I will definitely need to consider. 

The Module 3 student then described ethical procedures as things that are put into place to avoid a negative impact/or harm.

To me, this will be the steps I take, the things I actually do during my research and data collection to ensure the safety of my participants. The university also has ethical procedures in place in the form of the MORE application to pre approve our inquiries.

Having started to get my head around ethics a little more I now plan to spend some time fine tuning my inquiry topic, from here I will come back to ethics with a field of study that I can apply my considerations to.

Bibliography

Polonski M. (2004) 'Ethical Considerations' [Online]. Available from: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/4999_Polonski_Chapter_5.pdf [Accessed 21/02/21]