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INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods

Explore ethical issues in qualitative research, from informed consent failures to translating principles into practice. Delve into cases of covert observation, online ethics, and managing allegiances and funding. Learn to navigate complex ethical dilemmas in the research process.

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INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods

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  1. INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods Research Ethics

  2. CPHS @ Berkeley and the e-Protocol System

  3. Tuskegee Syphilis Study [Source: University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health, Minority Health Archive]

  4. Failures of Informed Consent • Benefits of the research certainly did not outweigh risks to the participants • Not informed • That they were participating in a study • About their health status • Deceived into believing they were receiving treatment • Not given the option to quit participation

  5. Basic Ethical Principles • Respect for persons • Beneficence – maximize benefits and minimize possible harms • Justice [source: USHMM]

  6. Translating principles into ethical research practice • Informed consent • describe the aims of the research project in understandable language • give the option not to participate or to quit at any time • give the option to decline to answer questions • Assessment of Risks and Benefits • publication practices – using pseudonyms • Selection of Subjects

  7. The Tearoom Trade • The question of covert observation • Does the intentions the researcher has for the knowledge generated matter? (i.e. social justice goals)

  8. Ethnography and Informed Consent • Field settings: • Impossibility of informing everyone in a natural setting • Intrusiveness of introducing a legalistic step into a field setting, unwelcome by researcher and participants alike • How voluntary could it be? • Long-term and participatory research: • Developing relationships/friendship with those you are studying • Participants let down their guard, forget your role over time

  9. Some other cases • observing and taking notes on behavior in a coffee shop • take a job at a corporation in order to study it, various forms of ‘undercover’ or exposé journalism • ‘lurking’ in an online discussion group, copying and analyzing posts made to the group without the writers consent • being paid by the CIA to collect information for them while doing anthropological research [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4603271.stm]

  10. Online Ethics • Is there a site policy? • Who is the author of this online material? • Can this site/chatroom be considered a public space? • Unique capacity for lurking See Bruckman article + AoIR online ethics guidelines http://aoir.org/?page_id=54

  11. Allegiances and Funding • Managing overlapping roles and relationships • Colleagues and Professional Community • Funding bodies • Gatekeepers to the site • Research participants • The public • Ethical dilemmas - No “right” decision, only a decision that is more right. Subject to debate and very possible to legitimately disagree.

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