Research Ethics -

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UGC NET Paper 1

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RESEARCH ETHICS

We have read in many books regarding the invention of the telescope by galileo galilee. But, it
is said that a Dutchman, Hans Lippershey created the first-ever telescope, who was denied a
patent. Galileo caught wind of this idea and made his own. The controversy regarding this still
exists. Here, the idea of the telescope was put forward and implemented by Hans, but it was
taken from him by Galileo. From pure theoretical research, it is an ethical issue.
Ethics can also be defined as the norms for Conduct. Ethics are the guidelines and principles
that help us to uphold the things we value. Almost all societies have legal rules to govern
certain behaviour in a country or society, but ethical norms end to be broader and more
informal than laws. An action may be illegal but ethical or legal but unethical. Ethics aim to
achieve two fundamental objectives, i.e., to tell us how we ought to act in a given situation and
to provide us with strong reasons for doing so.
Ethics always emerge from conflict between values, and research ethics are not an exception.
In research, these conflicts may take different forms, such as participant’s concern for privacy
versus some justification for manipulation, openness and replication versus confidentiality,
present loss versus future benefits and so on. Each decision made in research involves a
potential compromise of one value for another. However, still, researchers must try to
minimize the risk to participants, colleagues and society while trying to optimize the quality of
the outcome. Research ethics help us to reconcile value conflicts.
The benefits of observing ethics in research studies are as follows:

1. It helps in promoting the aims of the research, such as bringing out the truth and
avoidance of errors.

2. It promotes the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust,
accountability, mutual respect and fairness.

3. It holds the researcher accountable to the public and society.

4. It helps in building public support for research, which in return can help in getting
participants who take part in the research willingly.

Main Approaches to Research Ethics

The following are the three major approaches to ethics:

1. Deontological approach: Immanuel Kant developed this branch of ethics We should

identify and use a universal code in making ethical decisions. This is an absolutist
approach.

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Some Examples Of Deontology

Do Not Kill. We all see killing or murdering as the most wrong human deed because we
are taught since our childhood that killing anybody including an animal in a wrong act.

Do Not Steal.

Religious Belief.

Keeping Promises.

Cheating.

Do Not Lie.

Respect The Elders.

2. Ethical scepticism approach: It states that ethical standards are not universal but are
relative to one’s own particular culture and time. It claims that there simply are no moral
facts. This is based on relativism.

3. Utilitarianism approach: Decisions regarding ethics in research should be based on an

examination and comparison of the costs and benefits that may arise from a study. If
the expected benefits exceed the expected risks the study is presumed to be ethical. The
risk-benefit precaution is a modern version of the end justifying the means. It has its
most direct application when the hose exposed to the risks also receive the benefits. The
ratio is more difficult to justify when the participants are subjected to potential harm
and when the benefits are directed to other individuals or to society to be absolute in
their requirements.

Morals in Ethics:
Various Characteristics that a good researcher should hold:
Honesty:

The researcher should aspire for honesty in all scientific communication,

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Should present only honest report data, results, methods and procedures,

Fabrication, falsification or misrepresentation of data can lead to many severe issues,

Should not try to deceive colleagues, funding agencies, the public and even their hearts.

Frankness:

The researcher should avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis and data
interpretation,

No personal relationship should come into play while doing peer review, giving grants
and even writing testimonies,

Should make sure that financial or personal interest will never affect research,

Should have the mind to share data, results, ideas, tools and resources,

Should be open to new ideas and criticisms.

Integrity:

Should always keep his\her promises and agreements,

Should never give false promises and come up with silly excuses when all others trying
hard for his/her success,

Should be sincere and consistent of thought and action.

Carefulness:

Should always avoid careless error and negligence,

Should carefully and critically examine all the work by themselves before giving to peer
reviews.

Should keep research diary for almost all activities such as data collection, research
design and corresponding with guides, friends, agencies or journals.

Respect for Intellectual property:

Should honour patents, copyright and other forms of intellectual property,

Should not use unpublished data, methods or results without permission,

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Should give credit where it is due,

Should give proper acknowledgement or credit for all contributors to their research;
never plagiarize.

Confidentiality:

Sharing data is well acceptable. But when there are situations to handle sensitive data,
protect those confidential communications with much care.

Responsible:

The researcher should always have a commitment to society, should strive to promote
social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research and public education.
They should try to improve their self-competence along with the upliftment of society.

Non-Discrimination:

Discrimination against colleagues and students on the basis of sex, race and ethnicity
needs to be avoided. Any factors that are not related to their scientific competence and
integrity need not be questioned or challenged.

Subject protection:

When conducting research on humans subjects, we need to minimize the harms that may
cause. The risk factors need to be well studied and the work needs to be progressed in
such a way that it maximises the benefits. Proper care and respect need to be given to
the animals while using them in research.

Stakeholders in Research

There are three stakeholders in the research process, namely

1) participants or subjects,

2) researcher and

3) The funding organization.

Ethical Issues Relating to Participants

Ethical issues relating to participants of research activity. The most commonly cited ethical
principle is that we should not cause harm to our research participants. The issue of ethics in

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research mainly caught the attention of policymakers as a result of many gruesome instances,
a few of which have been mentioned below.

1. Medical experiments were conducted by Nazi doctors in German concentration camps in

the 1930s. Nazi doctors in German concentration camps killed twin gipsy teenagers in
order to determine why some of them had different coloured eyes while conducting
experiments.

2. A South African oncologist experimented with women suffering from cancer to excessive
dosages of chemotherapeutics without informing the patients and taking their due
consent.

3. Ethical issues during organ transplant, sterilization and so on.

4. Experiments on animals.

In research, specifically in medical sciences, the observance of ethics is very crucial. Even
now, when pharmaceutical companies want to conduct clinical trials in underdeveloped or
developing countries, this issue crops up again and again. It is a general understanding that
ethical research issues are more moral than legal.
Apart from physical injury, psychological distress or emotional harm, loss of self-esteem,
being persuaded to conduct morally reprehensible acts and hampering one’s physical,
intellectual or emotional development are other important concerns.
We must also be careful about the security of our research records, so that respondents may
not be identified or otherwise harmed through loss of confidentiality.
During the initial phase of medical research history, people participating in trials were referred
to as research subjects. Now, they are known as trial participants. Now, their role has
transformed from a passive subject to that of an active participant. Thus, we can see that
research ethics are basically about means of ensuring that vulnerable people are protected
from exploitation and other forms of harm. The ethical issues are to be observed at every
stage of the research process.

1. Collecting information: Before a researcher collects information actually, his request for
information may put pressure or create anxiety on a respondent and it may not be
ethical, but without research, there will be no intellectual progress or development in the
society. A researcher is required to improved the conditions by considering various
points in the ensuing discussion.

2. Seeking consent of participants: consent refers to an individual’s willingness to

participate in a study. Individuals who provide informed consent have been made aware

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of the design and procedures with enough detail to exercise a rational decision to
participate.

3. Providing incentives: Mostly people do not participate in a study because of incentives,

but they participate or are motivated because of the importance of the study. Giving a
gift to the respondent before data collection is not ethical on the part of a researcher.

4. Seeking sensitive information: Some information can be regarded as confidential or

sensitive by few people. This may be invading their privacy. Seeking such a king of
information may make them upset. Questions; on income, age, marital status, etc., may
be considered intrusive. It may not be unethical to enquire if the participants are
explained before the research and given sufficient time to decide if they want to
participate without any major inducement.

5. Possibility of causing harm to the participants: While collecting data from the
respondents or involve subjects in an experiment, you need to examine carefully whether
their involvement is likely to harm them in any way. Harm may include use of chemicals,
drugs, discomfort, anxiety, harassment, invasion of privacy or demeaning or
dehumanizing procedures. Even after the consent, the researcher must make sure that
the risk is minimal.

6. Maintaining confidentiality: sharing information about a respondent with others for

purposes other than research is not ethical and at least the information provided by the
respondent should be kept anonymous.

Ethical Issues Relating to the Researcher

1. Avoiding bias: Objectivity in research means avoiding bias in the research process as it is
considered unethical. Bias means a deliberate attempt to either hide facts or to
underrepresent or overrepresent them. It may undermine the truth.

2. Provision or deprivation of treatment: This is specifically true in the case of medical

research. Is it ethical to provide a study population with an intervention or treatment that
has not yet been conclusively proven effective? Thus, it imposes an ethical dilemma
before researchers. Informed consent, minimum risk and frank discussion can help to
resolve the ethical issues.

3. Using inappropriate research methodology: The deliberate use of a highly biased sample,
method or procedure is unethical.

4. Incorrect reporting: this can be done to advance the interests of the researcher.

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5. Inappropriate use of the information: Sometimes, it is possible to harm individuals in the

process of achieving benefits for the organization. An example would be a study to help
in the formulation of a policy by the organization. The new policy may not serve the
interests of certain individuals but may be good for the organization as such. Should you
ask respondents for information that is likely to be used against them?

Some of the key terms used in the context of ethical issues concerning researchers are as
follows:

1. Fabricating behaviour: Creation of spurious data by a researcher, their recording and

drawing inferences. Fabrication is the construction and/or addition of data, observations,
or characterizations that never occurred in the gathering of data or running of
experiments. Fabrication can occur when “filling out” the rest of the experiment runs, for
example. Claims about results need to be made on complete data sets (as is normally
assumed), where claims made based on incomplete or assumed results is a form of
fabrication.

2. Falsification: It manipulates the research material, equipment and processes or changes

or omits data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the
research records. Falsification is the changing or omission of research results (data) to
support claims, hypotheses, other data, etc. Falsification can include the manipulation of
research instrumentation, materials, or processes. Manipulation of images or
representations in a manner that distorts the data or “reads too much between the lines”
can also be considered falsification.

3. Plagiarism: It is the act of appropriating somebody else’s ideas, thoughts, pictures,

theories, words or stories as your own. If a researcher plagiarizes the work of others, the
integrity, ethics and trustworthiness of the sum total of his or her research become
questionable. Plagiarism is both an illegal and punishable act and is considered to be on
the same level as stealing from the author who originally created it. It can take the
following forms.

1. Intra-corpal: A case of plagiarism where one student has copied from another in the
same submission is known as intra-corpal plagiarism.

2. Extra-corpal: It is an instance of plagiarism, where a student has copied the material from
an external source (Example: Books, journal article, world wide web, etc.).

3. Autoplagiarism: It is citing one’s own work without acknowledgement. Auto-plagiarism,

also known as self-plagiarism or duplication, happens when an author reuses significant
portions of his or her previously published work without attribution. Thus, this type of

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plagiarism is most likely to involve published researchers, rather than university students.
The severity of this kind of infraction is under debate, depending on the copied content.
Many academic journals, however, have strict criteria on the percentage of author’s work
that is reusable. Many journals run manuscripts through plagiarism-detection software
before considering them for review.

4. Complete Plagiarism-Complete plagiarism is the most severe form of plagiarism where a

researcher takes a manuscript or study that someone else created, and submits it under
his or her name.

5. Source-based Plagiarism-Plagiarism may occur because of the different types of sources.

For example, when a researcher references a source that is incorrect or does not exist, it
is a misleading citation. Plagiarism also occurs when a researcher uses a secondary
source of data or information, but only cites the primary source of information. Both
these types lead to an increase in the number of references sources. This, in turn,
increases the citation number of the references.

6. Direct Plagiarism-Direct or verbatim plagiarism occurs when an author copies the text of
another author, word for word, without the use of quotation marks or attribution, thus
passing it as his or her own. In that way, it is like complete plagiarism, but it refers to
sections (rather than all) of another paper.

7. Paraphrasing plagiarism- It involves the use of someone else’s writing with some minor
changes in the sentences and using it as one’s own. Even if the words differ, the original
idea remains the same and plagiarism occurs. Because students often do not have a clear
understanding of what constitutes plagiarism, there are recommendations for research
and writing available to reduce the risk of paraphrasing plagiarism.

8. Inaccurate Authorship-Inaccurate authorship or misleading attribution can happen in

two ways:

In one form, when an individual contributes to a manuscript but does not get credit for
it.
The second form is the opposite: when an individual gets credit without contributing to
the work. This type of plagiarism, whichever way it occurs, is a violation of the code of
conduct in research. It is also possible to commit this form of plagiarism when someone
else edits a manuscript, leading to substantive changes.
In this case, the recommendation is to acknowledge the contributors at the time of
publication, even if they are not listed as authors.

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9. Mosaic Plagiarism-Mosaic plagiarism may be more difficult to detect because it interlays

someone else’s phrases or text within its own research. It is also known as patchwork
plagiarism and it is intentional and dishonest.

10. Accidental Plagiarism-Whether intended or unintended, there is no excuse for plagiarism

and the consequences are often the same. However, plagiarism may be accidental if it
occurred because of neglect, mistake, or unintentional paraphrasing. Students are likely
to commit accidental plagiarism, so universities should stress the importance of
education about this form of plagiarism.

SOME MORE ETHICAL ISSUES:

1. Multiple authorship: There can be many improprieties in authorship. Improper

assignment of credit, such as excluding other authors, the inclusion of others authors
who have not made a definite contribution towards the work published or submission of
multi-authored publication without the knowledge of all the authors.

2. Peer review: It is the process in which an author submits a written manuscript or an

article to a journal for publication. The journal editor distributes the article to experts or
reviewers. The peer-review process seldom proceeds in a straight line. The entire process
may involve several rounds of communication between the editor, the reviewers and the
original author before an article is ready for publication.

The two most important ethics in the process are maintaining the confidentiality and the
protection of intellectual property. Reviewers and authors should not know the names of
each other. Only then, the peer review process can be genuinely open and beneficial.
None in the process can publicly disclose the information in the article or use the
information in a submitted article for personal gain.

3. Duplicate and partial publication: It is publishing the same data and same results in more
than one publication or journal. This is unethical but may be acceptable in certain cases,
such as publishing results in a journal to provide research participants with a summary of
the results. Partial publication involves publishing parts of your results in different
journals. It is specifically unethical for small, focused studies. However, in the case of
large studies with many variables, this may be accepted as different publications involve
different research questions and different data and it actually advances the interest of
the study.

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