cmst 4&5

Research ethics:

• The history of the development of the field of ethics in research has largely been built on egregious and disastrous breaches of humane ethical values

• All research you are engaging ethically; they ask all sorts of ethical questions 

• Ethics came about because there was a history of unethical behaviour; not only about your in person contact with the person, but how you come about it 

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Why is ethical practice important:

• Some researchers consider ethical discussions as afterthoughts 

• Yet, the moral integrity of the researcher is a critically important aspect of ensuring that the research process and a researcher’s findings are trustworthy and valid

• The term ethics derives from the Greek word ethos, meaning “character”; you need to be able to behave and conduct yourself in ethical ways; need to be mindful about the potential of harm to individuals; ethics is not an afterthought, it is extremely important; you need to be thinking about ethics from the beginning of your research 

• Engaging with the ethical dimension of your research requires asking yourself several important questions: What moral principles guide your research?, How do ethical issues influence your selection of a research problem?, How do ethical issues affect how you conduct your research—the design of your study, your sampling procedure, and so on?

• It can take a long time with the ethics board; a lot of backwards and forwards 

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Why Is Ethical Practice Important pt 2. 

• What responsibility do you have toward your research Participants? For example, do you have their informed consent to participate in your project?

• What ethical issues/dilemmas might come into play in deciding what research findings you publish?

• You are only taking snippets of the interview after their consent 

• Will your research directly benefit those who participated in the study?

• If they are not benefiting directly; you have to tell them that they are not going to be benefitted 

• A consideration of ethics needs to be a critical part of the substructure of the research process from the inception of your problem to the interpretation and publishing of the research findings

• The mcmaster ethics board will help to find unethical behaviour; participants have the right to report you to the ethics board at any given point 

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How Are Research Participants Protected Today?

• Informed consent covers a range of procedures that must be implemented when your study includes human participants

• Speaking in clear ways so the participant can understand if they want to participate or not 

• Human participants in your study must be informed about the nature of your research project

• You must obtain their consent prior to their participation in your study; upfront consent, verbal consent can be recorded; you need documentation of a participants consent, providing evidence of consent 

• This information is usually contained in an informed consent letter that each respondent in your study needs to sign; get the signature, and get it dated, keep the letter for the duration of the project 

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Informed consent:

• Informed consent is a question of basic human rights
• It is intended to safeguard participants from any mental or physical harm that might befall them as a result of their participation
• Guarding the participant and making sure there is minimum to no harm 
• Participants are made aware of any potential risks that come with participation and know that procedures are set in place to deal with any negative outcomes that might ensue; list of supports or organizations that can help participants if needed 

Informed consent part 2:

• It is crucial that you build into your study the specific steps you will take to minimize any potential risks that may arise in the study 
• For example, by providing counseling hotline numbers if you think your study may create painful memories or even psychological trauma
• Informed consent is also vital for the researcher in that it spells out the expectations on the part of researcher and participant, such as how long the study will take, whether or not the participant will receive compensation

The informed consent letter:

• The informed consent letter lets respondents know about your project and what role they will play in it

• The letter should be detailed enough so that a participant is informed about the specific nature of the project, including any potential risks, and the letter should outline how participation will make a contribution to your project’s goals

• Telling them that they are free to stop the interview any time without any consequences

• It is important for participants to weigh any potential risks with the benefits of their participating in your study

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The informed consent letter part 2:

• You should make sure that participants can follow up with any questions or concerns they may have about your project by providing them with information on whom to contact about the study

• Participants should know that their agreement to participate is completely voluntary and that they are free to opt out of your study before, during, or after their initial participation

• Participants should know exactly how you will use the data you collect from them

• Participants should know the degree of confidentiality afforded to them once they participate

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Informed Consent: The Principle and the Reality

• Researchers fail to fully disclose to research participants the full extent of the risks and benefits of participating in a given study

• This has led to some negative and even disastrous research outcomes for some of those who have participated in both social scientific and biomedical research

• ​​It may be particularly difficult for a researcher using a qualitative approach to approximate full disclosure in an informed consent letter because qualitative research

• By its very nature, is open to discovery; a change in research goals may be particularly difficult to anticipate

• There is then a principle and a reality to providing informed consent

• There exists a wide variation in how well researchers carry out the policy of informed consent in ongoing research projects

• Some letters give detailed information while others do not

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Beyond Informed Consent: What Are the Ethical Dilemmas in Social Research?

• The principles of informed consent may be relatively clear

• The actual practice of ethics in a given research setting can be complex and may pose a myriad of fundamental ethical questions that a researcher must navigate, often without clear guidance from a given set of ethical codes

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The Ethical Predicament of Deception in Research:

• Some researchers have gone undercover to study underground cultures such as drug cultures and used deception to find out about the inner workings of the social life of drug dealers and drug takers

• There would be no point in asking for the informed consent of the members of this closed society because they would most likely not want their organization studied

• Making sure that everyone feels safe; considering people's emotions and their ability to leave if necessary and scrap the whole interview 

• Being clear every step of the way with what my intentions will be and how that will go with what they need to be thinking about 

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Virtual lecture 

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• Plagiarism taking someone else's idea; it is thought of as theft by taking someone's ideas and making them become your own

• It can hold very serious penalties, ranging from mild to severe 

• Referencing in APA 7; acknowledging sources with in text citations; use paraphrasing more than direct quotations; retain some words but not all 

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What is plagiarism?

• Plagiarism means taking ideas or words from a source without giving credit (acknowledgement) to the author

• It is seen as theft and is considered to be an academic crime

• In academic work, ideas and words are seen as private property belonging to the person who first thought or wrote them

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Seriousness of plagiarism:

• Plagiarism can easily be detected by various computer software

• In this course, we use Turnitin

• If caught plagiarising, you can get a zero, appear for disciplinary hearings, ruin your university career

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Acknowledging sources:

• Quotation and citation e.g. According to Smith: ‘The point is not that the state is in retreat but that it is developing new forms of power . . .’ (Smith, 2009, p. 103)

• In-text citations are always linked to a list of references at the end of the main text

• The list of references will usually contain the following information: The author/s, the date of publication, the title, the place of publication and the publisher

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Degrees of plagiarism:

• See exercise on page 34 

• Bailey, S. (2011). Academic Writing. A Handbook for International Students (Third Edition). London: Routledge 

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Avoiding plagiarism by

• Quotations should not be overused, so you must learn to paraphrase and summarize other writers’ ideas in your work

•  This will demonstrate your understanding of a text

• Paraphrasing involves re-writing a text so that the language is substantially different while the content stays the same

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Paraphrasing:

• Paraphrasing means changing the wording of a text so that it is significantly different from the original source, without changing the meaning

• Effective paraphrasing is a key academic skill needed to avoid the risk of plagiarism

• Effective paraphrase usually:

• Has a different structure to the original

• Has mainly different vocabulary

• Retains the same meaning

• Keeps some phrases from the original that are in common use e.g. ‘industrial revolution’ or ‘eighteenth century’

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Techniques for paraphrasing:

• Changing vocabulary by using synonyms
• E.g. argues > claims/ eighteenth century > 1700s/ wages > labour costs/ economise > saving

Why use references in your writing?:

• To show that you have read some of the authorities on the subject, which will give added weight to your writing

• To allow the reader to find the source, if he/ she wishes to examine the topic in more detail

• To avoid plagiarism

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Citations and references:

• You may present these sources as either a paraphrase or as a quotation

• In each case a citation is included to provide a link to the list of references at the end of your paper

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Reference verbs:

• Summaries and quotations are usually introduced by a reference verb: 

• Smith (2009) argues that . . .

• Hall (1972) claimed that . . .

• These verbs can be either in the present or the past tense

• Normally the use of the present tense suggests that the source is recent and still valid

• The past indicates that the source is older and may be out-of-date. In some disciplines an old source may still have validity

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Using quotations:

• Using a quotation means bringing the original words of a writer into your work

• Quotations are effective in some situations, but must not be overused

• They can be valuable:

• When the original words express an idea in a distinctive way

• When the original is more concise than your summary could be

• When the original version is well-known

• All quotations should be introduced by a phrase that shows the source, and also explains how this quotation fits into your argument

• E.g. This view is widely shared; as Friedman (1974: 93) stated: ‘xyz’

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Abbreviations in citations:

• In-text citations use the following abbreviations, derived from Latin and printed in italics:
• et al.: normally used when there are three or more authors. The full list of names is given in the reference list
• ibid.: taken from the same source (i.e. the same page) as the previous citation

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