Ethical and Quality Standards in Research

Ethical Standards

Before I move to the specific questions and their answer, let me present a brief note of ethical standards and considerations. Paul & Elder (2006) in the Foundation for Critical Thinking define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures."  Ethic is commonly used as a morality and the principles which is based up on one’s own culture, society and the value system. ‘Most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs and the law (ibid)’, and don't treat ethics as a stand-alone concept. So, ethics have to do with the moral value, it is the principle that guides us to act according to the research norms and values, which, in turn, helps to get what the researchers want from the study field.

In my point of view, ethics have something to do with the moral principle in the social setting while conducting the research. Do we get consent to the respondents before we begin to take their interview, or observe their behavior? Or do we harm them with or without intention? Or do we maintain privacy of the data taken from the field or being based on the subjective interpretation of the respondents? Or do we solely take the ownership of what is produced? And so on. These moral principles, we have gained being based on the social knowledge and/or from the academia we are engaged in, are the ethical issues we need to take into consideration of while conduction any sorts of academic work or to be more specific, a research as a whole. As the ethical behavior of individual researchers is under unprecedented scrutiny (Best & Kahn, 2006; Field & Behrman, 2004; Trimble & Fisher, 2006) as cited in Drew (2007)  it is always a valuable aspect in the academic arena where plagiarism is highly increasing. In my point of view, it has to be seen as an authentic aspect for the authentication of the work we do as well.

As a researcher, we have to be in the environment and the cultural setting where our participants grow or live in. With the attachment to the socio economic environment, we need to establish a relation between our respondents, in particular, and to the environment they live is general. Are the respondents taking in our favor to participate in our research activities? As Orb, Eisenhauer & Wynaden (2000) mention, ‘the desire to participate in a research study depends upon a participant’s willingness to share his or her experience (p.93).’ So, it is a crucial aspect to assure our respondents about the ethical consideration to bring into the practice we do in the research area.
Opie (2004) claims that ethics have to do with the application of moral  principles to prevent harming or worrying others to promote the good to be respectful and to be fair, researchers need to be concerned with ethics, which apply throughout the research process. In the same way, Cohen, Mannion & Morrison (2007) say, ‘Ethical issues may stem from the kinds of problems investigated by social scientists and the methods they use to obtain valid and reliable data.’ That is to say, the concern of ethics arises when we develop our problem to be researched and methods we try to adopt in it. Similarly, in an elaborative form they say,  

‘They may arise from the nature of the research project itself (ethnic differences in intelligence, for example); the context for the research (a remand home); the procedures to be adopted (producing high levels of anxiety); methods of data collection (covert observation); the nature of the participants (emotionally disturbed adolescents); the type of data collected (highly personal and sensitive information); and what is to be done with the  data (publishing in a manner that may cause participants embarrassment) (p.51).’

The concept of ethical consideration is important to carry out our research with the orientation to our goal, without which we may not be able to do so. To be continued with what we have purpose for the research, Cohen, Mannion & Morrison(2007) propose that we need to consider about the ethics while planning for the research. They have proposed the following initial consideration beforehand the research: Cohen, Mannion & Morrison(2007)

·         informed consent

·         gaining access to and acceptance in the research setting

·         the nature of ethics in social research generally  

·         sources of tension in the ethical debate, including non-maleficence, beneficence and human dignity,   absolutist and relativist ethics

·         problems and dilemmas confronting the researcher, including matters of privacy, anonymity,  confidentiality, betrayal and deception

·         ethical problems endemic in particular research methods

·         ethics and evaluative research

·         regulatory ethical frameworks, guidelines and

·         codes of practice for research

·         personal codes of practice

·         sponsored research, (p.51)

·         responsibilities to the research community.

The ethical considerations, which I am going to employ in my research, according to Richard (2006) are as:

Consent: I will take consent from the institution where I have intended to work at. Similarly, consensus from my participants will be equally invaluable for me.

Honesty: Honesty or decency is the other major part to pursue my research work. At first my decency will be accountable for my own subjective interpretation of the tasks and it is equally important for me to be honest to my respondents for ensuring them to speak and help me throughout my work.

Privacy: Can a researcher maintain privacy to the information provided by the respondents or observed during the non-/participatory observation? Maintaining privacy to the thought and information of the participants/respondents will be my key role. I may not highly insist my participants/respondents to reveal the privacy if they feel that is to be maintained.

Ownership: Who takes the major role of ownership? In my point of view, with the consent I receive from my participants, I will hold the ownership to some extent. However, my decision will be based on the consent of the respondents/participants.

Harm: As far as practicable, with the view of ethical consideration, there will be less chance of harming the physical, emotional, psychological, cultural, ethical and knowledge based harm to my research respondents/participants.

While keeping all the issues in my mind I will be highly considering the following ethical consideration to design my destined research work:

-          I will take the prior consent to interview, observe, take note, record to the concerned respondents, teaches, administrators and the related stakeholders.

-          I will, keeping the practicality in consideration, inform and explain my goal of research.

-          I will make them assure about the maintenance of their privacy and confidentiality to what they say.

-          Recoding will be done after the consent is granted.

-          They will be given full authority not to share their ideas if they feel vulnerable and difficulties.

-          Up to level, my concern will be not to misrepresent the social, cultural, religious, academic value concerned with the respondents, social and religious group and any academia.

-          My interpretation will be based on the subjective realities without concerning any prejudices.

Quality Standard

Qualitative research as opposed to quantitative research seems to be ‘fluid’ and ‘soft’ (Richard, 2006), because of its plasticity, as it doesn’t have the concrete form like that of quantitative research. The matter of validity and reliability seem to be mathematically calculated in quantitative research, however, in my point of these set of criteria in qualitative research gain less concern.  Whatever is the dichotomous form of research paradigm, the quality standard of the qualitative research is the feeling of the heart as we read through it. As Richard (2006) mentions, ‘at its worst qualitative research does little more than state the obvious; at its best, it takes us close to the heart of things.’

According to Lincoln and Guba (1985), as cited in Richard (2006) following are the quality standard we may employ in qualitative research:

-          Credibility      The adequacy of data from the field, which should involve drawing on different data types, gathered in different ways from different participants.

-          Dependability            The documentation of the research, including records of reflection and decision making according to which the steps of the research process can be reconstructed.

-          Transferability          The richness of description and interpretation offered.

My dream to create and make a thick descriptive texts, storytelling, sensing the credible aspects of the research and authenticating it with interpretive research paradigm came to the reality when I chose narrative inquiry as my research methodology which doesn’t necessarily validates the data collected using positivistic statistical tools. If I were a positivist researcher, I may confirm the concept of validity, reliability and objectivity, with Luitel (2013) as he mentions, ‘The quality standard varies along with the shift in the paradigm. If we consider the quality standard of the Positivistic research paradigm, we may go for the validity, reliability and objectivity.’ However,  aligning with the concept of Luitel validity, reliability and objectivity as such cannot recognize the need of the qualitative research which need the subjective interpretation of the research work. To some extent, in my point of view, the quantitative measurement tools as validity, reliability and objectivity fails to determine the story and the experiences of the researchers in making story as needed to analyze the text. So, I believe, validity, reliability and objectivity seem to be inadequate for the research I employ with.

Since the interpretive research paradigm which I believe to follow to carry out my research work, the paradigm seeks to interest in practical meaning making. It seeks to answer the question of ‘how?’ rather than ‘what’ so, my research may employ the interest to serve the continuum of ‘how’ in the research which rejects the concept of validity and reliability and prefer the alignment to Credibility, transferability, dependability, conformability and authenticity. 

Credibility

As mentioned by Lincoln and Guba (1985), as cited in Richard (2006) credibility is the richness of data derived from the field, which helps inculcate the different ways of gathering data from the different participants. This process of data gathering may consist of prolonged engagement of the researchers in the field with the participants, gathering information with the persistent observation. Peer debriefing, negative case analysis, progressive subjectivity and member checking are some of the other way to make a research work credible. Similarly, thick description, researcher reflexivity, and co analysis (Geertz, 1973) are some other criteria to make a research work worth credible.

Transferability

In its very restrict sense; transferability is ability of something to be transferred. Here, using transferability as a research quality standard, being a researcher, I mean to say that, to what extent my research findings are transferable to the reader’s context.  As Gasson (2004) maintains, the core issues of transferability is of ‘how far a researcher may make claims for a general application of their [sic] theory.’ My ability to judge my research in the measurement of quality standard is to see how can I instrumental-ize myself, the justice I make to the description of the context, the participants and the process of carrying out the research work, which to what extent, meets the expectations of the readers and transfer in his/her context. So, the rich detail of the time and context, background of the researcher and the participants along with the thick description, I believe, the research meets the criteria of transferability.

Dependability

The concept of dependability is best explained with the concept of process audit trail and emergence (Luitel, 2013). I mean to say, the process consistency and emergence of the knowledge from the field with consistency of time makes the research having worth quality standard.  In the words of Gasson (2014), ‘the way in which a study is conducted should be consistent across time, researchers, and analysis techniques.’ So, aligning the concept, the quality of any interpretive researches is based on the consistency of the research work with the time, the dedication of the researchers and the techniques that the researchers employ while analyzing the data.

Authenticity

 The quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original is known as authenticity. Morrow (2005) says, ‘Authenticity criteria include fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, and tactical authenticity, some of which overlap with critical paradigms.’

 In establishing authenticity, researchers seek reassurance that both the conduct and evaluation of research are genuine and credible not only in terms of participants' lived experiences but also with respect to the wider political and social implications of research.  The ethics of care of others and self, as well as fairness and empowerment beneficial will be taken as measures of authenticity. In my research, I would employ the authentic criteria of fairness which demands that different constructions be solicited and honored (ibid). 

            To sum up, any research work to be valued with the view of its ethical lenses and the quality criteria, in my point of view, I will employ the ethical considerations according to Richard (2006) as consent, honesty, privacy, ownership and harm. Similarly, the quality standard of interpretive paradigm as: Credibility, transferability, dependability, and authenticity will be given due consideration to make the work worthy of qulity.

References

Cohen, L.,Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education (6^th ed.). London: Routledge Falmer.

Drew, C.J. (2007). Ethical issues in conducting research. Lomdon: Sage.

Gasson, S. (2004). Rigor in grounded theory research: An interpretive perspective on generating

theory from qualitative field studies. In M. E. Whitman & A. B. Woszczynski (Eds.), The handbook of information systems research (pp. 79–102). Hershey, PA: Idea Group.

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.

Luitel, B.C. (2013). Issues of quality in educational research. [PowerPoint Slides].

Morrow, L.S.(2005).Quality and trustworthiness in  qualitative research. Journal of counseling     psychology .52, 2, Pp. 250–260

Opie, C. (2004). Doing education research. In C. Opie, A guide to first time research (pp. 45-56).

         London: Sage.

Orb, A., Eisenhaure, L. & Wynaden, D. (2000). Ethics in Qualitative Research. Journal of

            Nursing.33,(1). 93-96

Paul, R & Elder, L. (2006). The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical

Reasoning. Retrieved on January 20, 2014 from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#cite_note-ReferenceA-2

Richards, K. (2006). Quality in qualitative research. IATEFL Research Sig Newsletter. Issue 18