Ethical Considerations in Research |

Types & Examples

Published on October 18, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari.

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research
designs and practices. Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code
of conduct when collecting data from people.

The goals of human research often include understanding real-life phenomena, studying
effective treatments, investigating behaviors, and improving lives in other ways. What
you decide to research and how you conduct that research involve key ethical
considerations.

These considerations work to

 protect the rights of research participants

 enhance research validity
 maintain scientific integrity

This article mainly focuses on research ethics in human research, but ethical
considerations are also important in animal research.

Why do research ethics matter?

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and
collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that
participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe for research subjects.

You’ll balance pursuing important research aims with using ethical research methods
and procedures. It’s always necessary to prevent permanent or excessive harm to
participants, whether inadvertent or not.

Defying research ethics will also lower the credibility of your research because it’s hard
for others to trust your data if your methods are morally questionable.

Even if a research idea is valuable to society, it doesn’t justify violating the human rights
or dignity of your study participants.
Getting ethical approval for your study
Before you start any study involving data collection with people, you’ll submit
your research proposal to an institutional review board (IRB).

An IRB is a committee that checks whether your research aims and research design are
ethically acceptable and follow your institution’s code of conduct. They check that your
research materials and procedures are up to code.

If successful, you’ll receive IRB approval, and you can begin collecting data according
to the approved procedures. If you want to make any changes to your procedures or
materials, you’ll need to submit a modification application to the IRB for approval.

If unsuccessful, you may be asked to re-submit with modifications or your research

proposal may receive a rejection. To get IRB approval, it’s important to explicitly note
how you’ll tackle each of the ethical issues that may arise in your study.

Types of ethical issues

There are several ethical issues you should always pay attention to in your research
design, and these issues can overlap with each other.

You’ll usually outline ways you’ll deal with each issue in your research proposal if you
plan to collect data from participants.

Ethical issue Definition

Voluntary Your participants are free to opt in or out of the study at any point in time.
participation

Informed consent Participants know the purpose, benefits, risks, and funding behind the study before they
agree or decline to join.

Anonymity You don’t know the identities of the participants. Personally identifiable data is not
collected.

Confidentiality You know who the participants are but you keep that information hidden from everyone
else. You anonymize personally identifiable data so that it can’t be linked to other data by
anyone else.
Ethical issue Definition

Potential for harm Physical, social, psychological and all other types of harm are kept to an absolute
minimum.

Results You ensure your work is free of plagiarism or research misconduct, and you accurately
communication represent your results.

Voluntary participation
Voluntary participation means that all research subjects are free to choose to
participate without any pressure or coercion.

All participants are able to withdraw from, or leave, the study at any point without feeling
an obligation to continue. Your participants don’t need to provide a reason for leaving
the study.

It’s important to make it clear to participants that there are no negative consequences or
repercussions to their refusal to participate. After all, they’re taking the time to help you
in the research process, so you should respect their decisions without trying to change
their minds.

Example of voluntary participationWhen recruiting participants for an experiment, you

inform all potential participants that they are free to choose whether they want to
participate, and they can withdraw from the study anytime without any negative
repercussions.
Voluntary participation is an ethical principle protected by international law and many
scientific codes of conduct.

Take special care to ensure there’s no pressure on participants when you’re working
with vulnerable groups of people who may find it hard to stop the study even when they
want to.

Informed consent
Informed consent refers to a situation in which all potential participants receive and
understand all the information they need to decide whether they want to participate.
This includes information about the study’s benefits, risks, funding, and institutional
approval.

Example of informed consentYou recruit participants outside a train station for a quick
survey.
You make sure to provide all potential participants with all the relevant information about
  what the study is about
 the risks and benefits of taking part
 how long the study will take
 your supervisor’s contact information and the institution’s approval number

You also let them know that their data will be kept confidential, and they are free to stop
filling in the survey at any point for any reason. They can also withdraw their information
by contacting you or your supervisor.
Usually, you’ll provide participants with a text for them to read and ask them if they have
any questions. If they agree to participate, they can sign or initial the consent form. Note
that this may not be sufficient for informed consent when you work with particularly
vulnerable groups of people.

If you’re collecting data from people with low literacy, make sure to verbally explain the
consent form to them before they agree to participate.

For participants with very limited English proficiency, you should always translate the
study materials or work with an interpreter so they have all the information in their first
language.

In research with children, you’ll often need informed permission for their participation
from their parents or guardians. Although children cannot give informed consent, it’s
best to also ask for their assent (agreement) to participate, depending on their age and
maturity level.

Anonymity
Anonymity means that you don’t know who the participants are and you can’t link any
individual participant to their data.

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying
information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses,
physical characteristics, photos, and videos.

In many cases, it may be impossible to truly anonymize data collection. For example,
data collected in person or by phone cannot be considered fully anonymous because
some personal identifiers (demographic information or phone numbers) are impossible
to hide.

You’ll also need to collect some identifying information if you give your participants the
option to withdraw their data at a later stage.

Data pseudonymization is an alternative method where you replace identifying

information about participants with pseudonymous, or fake, identifiers. The data can still
be linked to participants but it’s harder to do so because you separate personal
information from the study data.
Example of data pseudonymizationYou’re conducting a survey with college students.
You ask participants to enter demographic information including their age, gender,
nationality, and ethnicity. With all this information, it may be possible for other people to
identify individual participants, so you pseudonymize the data.
Each participant is given a random three-digit number. You separate their personally
identifying information from their survey data and include the participant numbers in
both files. The survey data can only be linked to personally identifying data via the
participant numbers.

Confidentiality
Confidentiality means that you know who the participants are, but you remove all
identifying information from your report.

All participants have a right to privacy, so you should protect their personal data for as
long as you store or use it. Even when you can’t collect data anonymously, you should
secure confidentiality whenever you can.

Example of confidentialityTo keep your data confidential, you take steps to safeguard it
and prevent any threats to data privacy. You store all signed consent forms in a locked
file drawer, and you password-protect all files with survey data.
Only other researchers approved by the IRB are allowed to access the study data, and
you make sure that everyone knows and follows your institution’s data privacy
protocols.
Some research designs aren’t conducive to confidentiality, but it’s important to make all
attempts and inform participants of the risks involved.

Example of focus group confidentialityIn a focus group study, you invite five people to
give their opinions on a new student service in a group setting.
Before beginning the study, you ask everyone to agree to keep what’s discussed
confidential and to respect each other’s privacy. You also note that you cannot
completely guarantee confidentiality or anonymity so that participants are aware of the
risks involved.

Potential for harm

As a researcher, you have to consider all possible sources of harm to participants.
Harm can come in many different forms.

 Psychological harm: Sensitive questions or tasks may trigger negative emotions

such as shame or anxiety.
 Social harm: Participation can involve social risks, public embarrassment, or
stigma.
 Physical harm: Pain or injury can result from the study procedures.
 Legal harm: Reporting sensitive data could lead to legal risks or a breach of
privacy.
It’s best to consider every possible source of harm in your study as well as concrete
ways to mitigate them. Involve your supervisor to discuss steps for harm reduction.

Make sure to disclose all possible risks of harm to participants before the study to get
informed consent. If there is a risk of harm, prepare to provide participants with
resources or counseling or medical services if needed.

Example of potential for harmIn a study on stress, you survey college students on their
alcohol consumption habits.
Some of these questions may bring up negative emotions, so you inform participants
about the sensitive nature of the survey and assure them that their responses will be
confidential.

You also provide participants with information about student counseling services and
information about managing alcohol use after the survey is complete.

Results communication
The way you communicate your research results can sometimes involve ethical issues.
Good science communication is honest, reliable, and credible. It’s best to make your
results as transparent as possible.

Take steps to actively avoid plagiarism and research misconduct wherever possible.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism means submitting others’ works as your own. Although it can be
unintentional, copying someone else’s work without proper credit amounts to stealing.
It’s an ethical problem in research communication because you may benefit by harming
other researchers.

Self-plagiarism is when you republish or re-submit parts of your own papers or reports
without properly citing your original work.

This is problematic because you may benefit from presenting your ideas as new and
original even though they’ve already been published elsewhere in the past. You may
also be infringing on your previous publisher’s copyright, violating an ethical code, or
wasting time and resources by doing so.

In extreme cases of self-plagiarism, entire datasets or papers are sometimes

duplicated. These are major ethical violations because they can skew research findings
if taken as original data.

Example of duplicationYou’re conducting a meta-analysis on whether working from

home is related to better stress management. You gather all studies on this topic that
meet your search criteria.
You notice that two published studies have similar characteristics even though they are
from different years. Their sample sizes, locations, treatments, and results are highly
similar, and the studies share one author in common.

If you enter both data sets in your analyses, you get a different conclusion compared to
when you only use one data set. Including both data sets would distort your overall
findings.

Research misconduct
Research misconduct means making up or falsifying data, manipulating data
analyses, or misrepresenting results in research reports. It’s a form of academic fraud.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences;
research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement about data
analyses.

Research misconduct is a serious ethical issue because it can undermine scientific

integrity and institutional credibility. It leads to a waste of funding and resources that
could have been used for alternative research.

Example of misconduct (MMR vaccine misinformation)In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and

others published a now-debunked paper claiming that the measles, mumps, and rubella
(MMR) vaccine causes autism in children.
Later investigations revealed that they fabricated and manipulated their data to show a
nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield also neglected to disclose
important conflicts of interest, and his medical license was taken away.

This fraudulent work sparked vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers. The
rate of MMR vaccinations in children fell sharply, and measles outbreaks became more
common due to a lack of herd immunity.

In reality, there is no risk of children developing autism from the MMR or other vaccines,
as shown by many large studies. Although the paper was retracted, it has actually
received thousands of citations.

Examples of ethical failures

Content warningThis section contains discussion of violence, racism, and ableism.
Research scandals with ethical failures are littered throughout history, but some took
place not that long ago.

Some scientists in positions of power have historically mistreated or even abused

research participants to investigate research problems at any cost. These participants
were prisoners, under their care, or otherwise trusted them to treat them with dignity.
To demonstrate the importance of research ethics, we’ll briefly review two research
studies that violated human rights in modern history.

Nazi experimentsNazi doctors and researchers performed painful and horrific

experiments on thousands of imprisoned people in concentration camps from 1942 to
1945.
These experiments were inhumane and resulted in trauma, permanent disabilities, or
death in many cases.

The participation of prisoners was always forced, as consent was never sought.
Participants often belonged to marginalized communities, including Jewish people,
disabled people, and Roma people.
After some Nazi doctors were put on trial for their crimes, the Nuremberg Code of
research ethics for human experimentation was developed in 1947 to establish a new
standard for human experimentation in medical research.

Tuskegee syphilis studyThe Tuskegee syphilis study was an American public health
study that violated research ethics throughout its 40-year run from 1932 to 1972. In this
study, 600 young black men were deceived into participating with a promise of free
healthcare that was never fulfilled.
In reality, the actual goal was to study the effects of the disease when left untreated,
and the researchers never informed participants about their diagnoses or the research
aims.

Although participants experienced severe health problems, including blindness and

other complications, the researchers only pretended to provide medical care.

When treatment became possible in 1943, 11 years after the study began, none of the
participants were offered it, despite their health conditions and high risk of death.

By the end of the study, 128 participants had died of syphilis or related complications.
The study ended only once its existence was made public and it was judged to be
“medically unjustified.”
Ethical failures like these resulted in severe harm to participants, wasted resources, and
lower trust in science and scientists. This is why all research institutions have strict
ethical guidelines for performing research.

Frequently asked questions about research ethics

What are ethical considerations in research?
Why do research ethics matter?
What’s the difference between anonymity and confidentiality?
What is research misconduct?