Ethical issues in research:

Definition of important terms:

Ethics are general declarations of what is right and of what ought to be done. They are usually presented as systems of value, behaviours and beliefs (correct rules of conduct).

Code of Ethics:

Is a written list of a profession’s values and standards of conduct.

Examples of code of ethics for researchers are;

• Honesty; do not fabricate, falsify or misrepresent data.
• Integrity (keep your promises and agreements).
• Objectivity (strictly avoid bias).
• Openness (share data, results, be open to criticism and new ideas).
• Carefulness (avoid careless errors).
• Never plagiarize (do not copy other person’s work).
• Respect for intellectual property (honour patents, copyright, and other forms of intellectual property, do not use unpublished data).
• Protect confidentiality (keep secrets and data).
• Avoid discrimination.
• Strive to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harm through research.
• Show proper respect and care to animal or humans in study.
• Maintain and improve your own professional competence and experience through life long education and learning.
• Do not give money or other materialistic things to attract respondents into a study.
• Ensure privacy of respondents.

Ethical: Something ethical is the one which is professionally right or accepted.

Unethical: refers to something not professionally accepted or not right. For example, plagiarism, mis-presentation, fabrication or falsification of data is unethical in research cycles.

Rights: refers to something owed to an individual according to just claims, legal guarantees or moral and ethical principles. 

Ethical rights (also called moral rights) are based on a moral or ethical principle. Ethical rights do not usually need to have the power of law in order to be enforced.

Ethical principles:

The four ethical principles that govern human research are;

• Autonomy– Is the right of self-determination, independence and freedom. It refers to the respondent’s right to make decisions for himself. For example a person has a right to refuse participating in a research study or even withdrawing at any given time.

One way to respect the right of self-determination is by use of informed consent. Informed consent requires that the subjects interacting with the researcher during the study be informed of all features of the research which may affect their willingness to participate.

• Non-Maleficence — is the requirement that one should not do harm to a respondent, either intentionally or unintentionally. We ought not to inflict evil or harm to our research subjects.

The investigator should use no research procedure that may harm person either physically or psychologically.

• Beneficence — doing good and not harm.

We ought to do a study that is going to benefit the research subjects/ target population.

• Justice — Is the obligation to be fair to all people.

We ought to ensure fair entitlement to resources (All people should receive their due.)

Ethical rules of research: are rules that are essential for the development of trust between researcher and study participants. Like the ethical principles on which the rules are based; there are four ethical rules;

Veracity: Truth telling, truthfulness. It requires the researcher to tell the truth, and not to deceive or mislead intentionally. All subjects in the study must be told the truth.

Privacy: Individuals should be treated as autonomous agents able to exercise their autonomy to the fullest extent possible, including the right to privacy.

What is privacy?

Privacy is the control over the extent, timing, and circumstances of sharing oneself (physically, behaviourally, or intellectually) with others. For example, persons may not want to be seen entering a place that might stigmatize them, such as a pregnancy counseling center.

Confidentiality: The right to have private information remains confidential.

What is confidentiality?

• Confidentiality pertains to the treatment of information that an individual has disclosed in relationship of trust and with the expectation that it will not be divulged to others without permission in ways that are inconsistent with the understanding of the original disclosure. 
• During the informed consent, subjects must be informed of the precautions that will be taken to protect the confidentiality of the data and be-informed of parties who will or may have access (e.g., research assistants, research supervisor).
• Privacy and confidentiality helps to protect participants from potential harms including psychological harm such as embarrassment or distress; social harms such as loss of employment or damage to one’s financial standings.

NB: Privacy is about people. Confidentiality is about data

Fidelis — is the obligation to be faithful to commitments made to self and others.

Fidelity: means keeping our promises. If we agree for example, to send a summary of our research findings to participants in a study we should do it.

What is anonymity?

It is the quality or state of being unknown to most people. For, example she agreed to speak to the reporter only on condition of anonymity {= only if her name would not be revealed by the reporter}

Ethical Dilemma/Challenge definition:

Ethical dilemma is a situation that requires an individual to make a choice between two equally unfavorable alternatives.   One’s obligations and another person’s rights usually form the basis of the dilemma/ challenge. By the very nature of the ethical dilemma, there can be no simple correct solution and whatever decision is made, often must be defended by the decision maker, against those who disagree with it.

Examples of ethical dilemmas:

• If nobody is willing to volunteer information for free, a researcher will be in an ethical dilemma and he may decide to offer money to respondents in order to attract them to be recruited in the study.
• Sometimes a researcher may be in dilemma if he/she thinks that identifying self as a project researcher may hinder him/her from getting the data he needs.
• A researcher may be in a dilemma if he thinks that telling all the truth to subjects may discourage them from joining the study.
• A researcher may face an ethical dilemma if is faced with a situation in which he/she needs to disclose some secrete information to third party.

Statistics definition

Statistics is the science that deals with the collection, classification, analysis, and interpretation of numerical facts or data. Statistics can be used to mean numerical facts or data themselves.

Statistics can also be used to mean any numerical value that describes a characteristic of a sample. For, example sample mean.