Week 6

Ethics

Ethics can be very complicated in terms of research.
If a researcher is not careful he/she might get in trouble.

In order to maintain credibility a researcher must gain the trust of his her peer,
audiende and participants if that is the case. As we me mentioned in class, there are some
difficult decisions to be made when gathering data and publishing it.

All of this is so new to me, since in my previous research experience I had only needed
to be faithful to the sources I had used and faithful to my beliefs.
Now, as I delve deeper into educational research I see that working with participants is a more
complicated situation.

Obtaining consent forms and explaining to your participants what your goals are is not always the
only thing you must contemplate. Sometimes your data can be affected and not genuine if the participants
know exactly what you are looking for or observing.

Sometimes it is hard to find willingparticipants.
And what's even more complicated is that once you gain their trust in having
them consent...once you have the data...the question of whether it can harm the
participants complicates things more.
Once you'vegained their trust you do not want to shatter it by publishing things that might
make them feel uncomfortable or like you have betrayed their trust.
I guess this can become an even harde problem if you work with people who are close to you and
whom you already know.

Anonimity is also something that must be preserved at all times. It is hard to keep track of pseudomyns.
As we mentioned in class, once a researcher slipped the real name of a participant as a mistake.
It is crucial to have several reviwers to keep track of these things, since they are easy to forego.

Ethics means being true and honest with yourself, yoru research and your participants.
It also means getting the job done correctly in a strict and correct manner without hurting anyone
and acknowledging everyone.