Principles of research methods
Tative tation ch questions & ts, constructs & ples of research are a number of ethical principles that should be taken into account when performing undergraduate and master's level dissertation research. At the core, these ethical principles stress the need to (a) do good (known as beneficence) and (b) do no harm (known as non-malfeasance). In practice, these ethical principles mean that as a researcher, you need to: (a) obtain informed consent from potential research participants; (b) minimise the risk of harm to participants; (c) protect their anonymity and confidentiality; (d) avoid using deceptive practices; and (e) give participants the right to withdraw from your research. This article discusses these five ethical principles and their practical implications when carrying out dissertation you look at these five basic ethical principles, it may appear obvious that your dissertation should include these. However, there are many instances where it is not possible or desirable to obtain informed consent from research participants. More often than not, such choices should reflect the research strategy that you adopt to guide your y speaking, your dissertation research should not only aim to do good (i.
Whilst ethical requirements in research can vary across countries, these are the basic principles of research ethics. This is important not only for ethical reasons, but also practical ones, since a failure to meet such basic principles may lead to your research being (a) criticised, potentially leading to a lower mark, and/or (b) rejected by your supervisor or ethics committee, costing you valuable time. In the sections that follow, we discuss the five of the main practical ethical principles that stem from these basic principles. Each of these basic principles of research ethics is discussed in turn:Principle one: minimising the risk of ple two: obtaining informed ple three: protecting anonymity and ple four: avoiding deceptive ple five: providing the right to sing the risk of tation research should not harm participants. Privacy and lly, it is not harm that we need to think about since a researcher does not intentionally go out to cause harm. In order to minimising the risk of harm you should think about:Obtaining informed consent from ting the anonymity and confidentiality of ng deceptive practices when designing your ing participants with the right to withdraw from your research at any discuss each of these ethical principles in the sections that follow, explaining (a) what they mean and (b) instances where they should (and should not) be ing informed of the foundations of research ethics is the idea of informed consent.
Simply put, informed consent means that participants should understand that (a) they are taking part in research and (b) what the research requires of them. Such information may include the purpose of the research, the methods being used, the possible outcomes of the research, as well as associated demands, discomforts, inconveniences and risks that the participants may face. We discuss these in more detail under the section: avoiding deceptive ting anonymity and ting the anonymity and confidentiality of research participants is another practical component of research ethics. After all, participants will typically only be willing to volunteer information, especially information of a private or sensitive nature, if the researcher agrees to hold such information in confidence. Whilst it is possible that research participants may be hurt in some way if the data collection methods used are somehow insensitive, there is perhaps a greater danger that harm can be caused once data has been collected. However, this does not mean that all data collected from research participants needs to be kept confidential or anonymous.
It may be possible to disclose the identity and views of individuals at various stages of the research process (from data collection through to publication of your dissertation). However, such a stripping of identifiable information may not always be possible to anticipate at the outset of your dissertation when thinking about issues of research ethics. This is not only a consideration for dissertations following a qualitative research design, but also a quantitative research design [for more information, see the article: research strategy and research ethics]. That your dissertation used a quantitative research design and a survey as your main research method. If the work is later published, adjustments would then need to be made to protect the confidentiality of are also a wide range of potential legal protections that may affect what research you can and cannot perform, how you must treated the data of research participants, and so forth. After all, how can participants know (a) that they are taking part in research and (b) what the research requires of them if they are being deceived?
For this reason, in most circumstances, dissertation research should avoid any kinds of deceptive practices. However, this is not always the ion is sometimes a necessary component of covert research, which can be justified in some cases. Covert research reflects research where (a) the identity of the observer and/or (b) the purpose of the research is not known to participants. Cases where you may choose to engage in covert research may include instances where:It is not feasible to let everyone in a particular research setting know what you are observation or knowledge of the purpose of the research may alter the particular phenomenon that is being 's take each of these in turn:It is not feasible to let everyone in a particular research setting know what you are feasibility, we are not talking about the cost of doing research. Instead, we mean that it is not practically possible to let everyone in a particular research setting know what you are doing. This is most likely to be the case where research involves observation, rather than direct contact with participants, especially in a public or online setting.
You may not be intentionally trying to engage in deceptive practices, but clearly participants are not giving you their informed observation or knowledge of the purpose of the research may alter the particular phenomenon that is being observations or a participants? Knowledge of the true purpose of the research have the potential to alter the particular phenomenon that you are interested in, this is a major concern in terms of the quality of your ore, when you think about whether to engage in covert research and possibly deceptive practices, you should think about the extent to which this could be beneficial in your dissertation, not research in general; that is, everything from the research paradigm that guides your dissertation through to the data analysis techniques you choose affect issues of research ethics in your dissertation [see the article: research strategy and research ethics]. Some of the following scenarios where covert research may be considered justifiable:You are conducting a piece of research looking at prejudice. Furthermore, participants are not told that the research is about prejudice because it is felt that this could alter their responses. You feel that observation would be an appropriate research method in such a naturalistic setting. Therefore, you may have received permission to go undercover or provide a story to explain why you are there, which is not the such covert research and deceptive practices, especially where used intentionally, can be viewed as controversial, it can be argued that they have a place in ing the right to the exception of those instances of covert observation where is not feasible to let everyone that is being observed know what you are doing, research participants should always have the right to withdraw from the research process.
Furthermore, participants should have the right to withdraw at any stage in the research process. When a participant chooses to withdraw from the research process, they should not be pressured or coerced in any way to try and stop them from your supervisor and/or ethics committee expect you to complete an ethics consent form, it is likely that you will have to let participants know that they have the right to withdraw at any time [see the article: ethics consent form]. That you have read these basic principles of research ethics, you may want to understand how the research strategy you have chosen affects your approach to research ethics [see the article: research strategy and research ethics]. You will need to understand the impact of your research strategy on your approach to research ethics when writing up the research ethics section of your research strategy chapter (usually chapter three: research strategy). 2012 lund research tative tative tation ch questions & ts, constructs & ples of research are a number of ethical principles that should be taken into account when performing undergraduate and master's level dissertation research. 2012 lund research ncbi web site requires javascript to tionresourceshow toabout ncbi accesskeysmy ncbisign in to ncbisign l listsyst revv.
S13643-016-0343-0pmcid: pmc5059917reviewing the research methods literature: principles and strategies illustrated by a systematic overview of sampling in qualitative researchstephen j. Ann mckibbon11department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, mcmaster university, hamilton, ontario canada 2faculty of social work, university of calgary, alberta, canada 3school of nursing, mcmaster university, hamilton, ontario canada 4canchild centre for childhood disability research, mcmaster university, 1400 main street west, iahs 408, hamilton, on l8s 1c7 canada stephen j. 1literature identification and selection process used in the methods overview on sampling [18]in summary, the strategies of seeking maximum variation and sampling for influence were employed in the sampling overview to meet the specific review objectives described. Suri [10] has recently retooled patton’s well-known typology of purposeful sampling strategies (originally intended for primary research) for application to literature synthesis, providing a useful resource in this abstractionthe purpose of data abstraction in rigorous literature reviews is to locate and record all data relevant to the topic of interest from the full text of included publications, making them available for subsequent analysis. There are several challenges, however, to the processes of developing the abstraction form and abstracting the data itself when conducting methods overviews, which we address here. Indeed, in many cases, reviewers are unable to determine the complete set of methods-related concepts that will be the focus of the final review a priori without having systematically reviewed the publications to be included.
Thus, defining what information to abstract beforehand may not be ple #5: considering the potential impracticality of defining a complete set of relevant methods-related concepts from a body of literature one has not yet systematically read, selecting and defining fields for data abstraction must often be undertaken iteratively. Thus, concepts to be abstracted can be expected to grow and change as data abstraction gy #5: reviewers can develop an initial form or set of concepts for abstraction purposes according to standard methods (e. In these cases, we systematically documented the modification to the form and returned to previously abstracted publications to abstract any information that might be relevant to the new logic of this strategy is analogous to the logic used in a form of research synthesis called best fit framework synthesis (bffs) [23–25]. Both the strategy proposed and the bffs approach to research synthesis are notable for their rigorous and transparent means to adapt a final set of concepts to the content under ting for inconsistent terminologyan important complication affecting the abstraction process in methods overviews is that the language used by authors to describe methods-related concepts can easily vary across publications. For example, authors from different qualitative research traditions often use different terms for similar methods-related concepts. Furthermore, as we found in the sampling overview [18], there may be cases where no identifiable term, phrase, or label for a methods-related concept is used at all, and a description of it is given instead.
This can make searching the text for relevant concepts based on keywords ple #6: since accepted terms may not be used consistently to refer to methods concepts, it is necessary to rely on the definitions for concepts, rather than keywords, to identify relevant information in the publication to gy #6: an effective means to systematically identify relevant information is to develop and iteratively adjust written definitions for key concepts (corresponding to abstraction fields) that are consistent with and as inclusive of as much of the literature reviewed as possible. The approaches suggested in both strategies #6 and #7, with their emphasis on constant comparison, appear to fall within the line-by-line coding isgenerating credible and verifiable analytic interpretationsthe analysis in a systematic methods overview must support its more general objective, which we suggested above is often to offer clarity and enhance collective understanding regarding a chosen methods topic. For example, in the overview on sampling [18], we aimed to produce a comparative analysis of how multiple sampling-related topics were treated differently within and among different qualitative research traditions. To promote credibility of the review, however, not only should one seek a qualitative analytic approach that facilitates reaching varying levels of abstraction but that approach must also ensure that abstract interpretations are supported and justified by the source data and not solely the product of the analyst’s speculative ple #7: considering the qualitative nature of the analysis required in systematic methods overviews, it is important to select an analytic method whose interpretations can be verified as being consistent with the literature selected, regardless of the level of abstraction gy #7: we suggest employing the constant comparative method of analysis [29] because it supports developing and verifying analytic links to the source data throughout progressively interpretive or abstract levels. In applying this approach, we advise a rigorous approach, documenting how supportive quotes or references to the original texts are carried forward in the successive steps of analysis to allow for easy analytic approach used in the methods overview on sampling [18] comprised four explicit steps, progressing in level of abstraction—data abstraction, matrices, narrative summaries, and final analytic conclusions (fig. Guidance on choosing qualitative evidence synthesis methods for use in health technology assessments of complex interventions.
Inconsistent definitions for intention-to-treat in relation to missing outcome data: systematic review of the methods literature. 1–es from systematic reviews are provided here courtesy of biomed s:article | pubreader | epub (beta) | pdf (1022k) | > textbooks > research methods & logy (general) | quantitative/statistical research (general) | research methods & evaluation (general). 2016 | 576 pages | sage publications ad flyer recommend to ples of applied research methods is the only book you will need for the applied research methods module at birkbeck university. Compiled in consultation with the module leaders it contains all the content that is directly relevant to the course, saving you time and money on obtaining multiple tion principles of research tical perspectives and research ing and planning research proposals and ing, critically reviewing and using the ell, g. Photographs to research organizations: evidence, considerations and applications in field is my evil lecturer forcing me to learn hing that you never wanted to know about is of covariance, atory factor book is not available as an inspection copy. For more information contact your local sales select a format:Book > textbooks > research methods & logy (general) | quantitative/statistical research (general) | research methods & evaluation (general).
