Plan for Today’s Class Session

1. The Place of Commitment, Bias & Reflexivity in Methodologies; Secret and Sacred Knowledge; Research Ethics in the 21st Century

2. Plan for Today’s Class Session 1- Review of Last Week”s Topics and Discussion of Examples of Debates about Methodological Approaches 2-Short Introduction to Foundations of Research Ethics in the Social Sciences 3- Discussion of Readings 4-Exercise 1 -Research Design 5-Planning Presentations on Methodological Debates in Specific Fields 6- Exercise 2- Designing a “Data Collection” or “information gathering tool” 7-Plan for Next Class

3. Part 1: Review of Last Week & Discussion of Second Case Study

4. Part 2: New Ethical Guidelines • History: idea of human subject protection (Christians) • Medical & Psychological Experiments • Examples Questionable Ethics in research • experiment • Milgrim obedience study • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment • Zimbardo –Stanford prison experiment • www.prisonexp.org • Another Zimbardo link • Tuskegee syphilis study • www.hsc.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/apology/report.html

5. Web Sites • Tri-council guidelines for ethical treatment of human subjects (Canada) • SSHRCC homepage • Office of Research Ethics at SFU • Reading List for aboriginal research ethics • http://www.ecdip.org/ethics/readings.htm

6. Why Be Ethical? (Motivations) • Personal • Researcher’s scholarly values • Guides to Best Practices, • codes of ethics --professional associations • Legislation • Requirements of Funding Agencies Stanford Prison Experiment “debriefing”: One of the most abused prisoners, #416, and the guard known as "John Wayne", who was one of the most abusive guards, confront each other in an "encounter session" two months later.

7. Motivations for unethical research • Career pressure • Ego (“knowing the right answer”) • Political agendas (ex. P. Rushton on race) • cheaper, faster, career advancement, prestige, etc. • Ignorance etc… Case Study: Fraud controversies as topic for communications research Link to press release quoting Communications researcher.

8. Ethical Issues: stakeholders scientific community “the subject” individual researcher society/the public sponsors/funding sources legal authorities/government

9. Scientific Misconduct research fraud falsification or distortion of data or methods fabrication Plagiarism such as presenting the ideas or words of another as one's own Failure to give credit (citation plagiarism) Violation of ethical standards ex. Failure to give informed consent Suppression of findings (non-publication of important findings)

10. Ethics & LegalityTypology of Legal and Moral Actions in Research Both Moral and Legal Ethical Illegal Only Immoral Only Illegal Legal Both Immoral and Illegal Unethical Source: figure adapted from Neuman (2000:91)

11. Ethical Treatment of Research SubjectsTypes of Harm physical harm psychological abuse, stress, loss of self-esteem legal harm other possible forms of harm financial, “cultural capital” risks (G.P.A. , reputation, status, etc.) creation of inequities denial of treatment placebos in experimental research

12. Deception and covert observation formerly common practices e.g. Laud Humphrey Tearoom Trade http://web.missouri.edu/~philwb/Laud.html Defies Principle of voluntary INFORMED consent Potential for harm to subjects

13. Who can give consent? Participation must be voluntary; not coerced informed about planned procedures & commitments Not applicable to special populations e.g. military personnel, students, prison inmates, mentally challenged Why? not capable of giving true voluntary informed consent because: can’t make the decision (mental incapacity, immaturity) not truly “free” (could be directly or indirectly coerced)

14. Informed Consent Statements(some points to cover) purpose & procedure of study Potential risks and discomfort Provisions for anonymity and confidentiality researcher’s address and source of information statement of voluntary nature of participation and ability to withdraw at any time alternative procedures Provisions for compensation (or not) offer to provide summary of findings Sample form from SFU (Office of Research Ethics)

15. Privacy, Anonymity, Confidentiality privacy: a legal right (note : public vs. private domain)--even if subject is dead anonymity: subjects remain nameless & responses cannot be connected to them (problem in small samples) confidentiality: subjects’ identity may be known but not disclosed by researcher, identity can’t be linked to responses

16. Applications for ethical approval Office of Research Ethics (sample) Provide information about: Purpose, Methodology, Consent, Debriefing Risks, Safety issues Confidentiality/anonymity/privacy Compensation Deception

17. Ethics & the Scientific Community:Codes of Ethics guide, control & regulate members protect researchers from outside pressures protect others from irresponsible practitioners

18. Ethical Issues related to Research Sponsors balancing allegiances “cooking” results unintentionally biases from limits on conditions & resources suppressing findings concealing the sponsor

19. How Society & Government Shape Research legislation “politically correct” or “safe” topics control of access to data (gatekeepers) biases in government statistics issues: censorship, public opinion national security public good funding priorities of government granting agencies

20. Ethical Debates about Research Findings “models of relevance” no net effects, positive & negative effects, special constituencies control over use of findings control of raw data especially subject information academic freedom autonomy of research

21. Ethics and Basic Ideas about Science debates about whether science is: objective opposed to subjective, logical, rational not arbitrary value free amoral, neutral, not prejudiced unbiased nonrandom error eliminated, not influenced by personal or cultural values

22. Ethics & Research Relations: Colleagues & Bosses and the Research Process getting along with others as part of research main source of conflict: sharing recognition & workload& other “rewards”

23. Common types of relationships amongst researchers student-student (teamwork, study groups, classmates) student-professor (ordinary class relationships, research assistantships) research &/or authorship teams (junior & senior authors, questions of recognition and remuneration) employee/employer relationships (authorship/anonymity) sponsors/funding organizations

24. Ethics & Use of Findings suppression selective reporting social research findings can affect behavior

25. Video(if time or later) • Quiet Rage: the Stanford Prison Experiments

26. Part 3: Dicussion of Readings • Christians, C. “Ethics and Politics in Qualitative Research” in Denzin and Lincoln op cit. pp. 133-155. • Mattingly, C. (2005) “Toward a vulnerable ethics of research practice”, Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine. Vol 9(4): pp. 453-471. • Crisp, J. (1999) " 'Who has counted the refugees?' UNHCR and the politics of numbers " New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 12. UNHCR, Geneva • Michaels, Eric. (1994) “A Primer of Restrictions on Picture-Taking in tradition areas of aboriginal Australia”, Bad Aboriginal Art. Tradition, Media and Cultural Horizons. Minneapolis: U. Minnesota Press, pp. 1-18.

27. Part 4- Presentations of Research Design

28. 5-Planning Presentations on Methodological Debates in Specific Fields

29. 6- Planning Exercise 2- Designing a “Data Collection” or “information gathering tool”? Interview, Survey, Content Analysis

30. 7-Plan for Next Class