ETHICS IN RESEARCH

 Ethics generally is considered to deal with beliefs about what is right or wrong, proper or improper, good or bad.
 According to a dictionary definition (Webster‘s, 1968), to be ethical is to conform to accepted professional
practice.

Ethical Principles in Research

1. Informed Consent (Voluntary Participation)
The participants must be fully informed about the nature of research, its purposes and potential risks and
benefits.
2. Beneficence and Non-maleficence
This is a fundamental ethical principle in research, which means “to do good” and “to do no harm”.
3. Privacy, Anonymity and Confidentiality
4. Integrity
5. Justice and Fairness
6. Intellectual Honesty and Respect
7. Autonomy – making own decisions
8. Responsibility

Areas of Academic Misconduct

1. Plagiarism
2. Fabrication and falsification
3. Non-publication of data
4. Faulty data-gathering procedures
5. Poor data storage and retention
6. Misleading authorship
7. Sneaky publication practices

Unethical Practices in conducting Research

 Deceiving a respondent about the true purpose of a study
 Asking a respondent questions that cause him or her extreme embarrassment; guilt emotional turmoil by
remaining him or her of an unpleasant experience
 Invading the privacy of a respondent
 Studying the respondents or research subjects without their knowledge
 When analyzing the data—revealing only part of the facts, presenting facts out of context, falsifying findings or
offering misleading presentation such as lying with statistics

Why is Research Ethics Important?