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Ethics and Integrity in Research

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Ron Iphofen 2

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While it can be argued that the values, principles, and standards that underpin ethical research must apply to all disciplines and professions that conduct research, it remains the case that most, if not all, still seek to devise and apply distinctive ethical codes and/or guidelines that they perceive as specific to their own, specialized field. While highly generalized overarching principles can be accepted, their generality may be regarded as so vague they are impossible to disagree with. Moreover they fail to assist researchers within the specialist professional domain with practical solutions to the ethical issues they may have to confront in their everyday practice. Such an approach could be regarded as a restrictive practice and domain protectionism – but there are also clear practical advantages in a discipline being able to manage its own professional practices and rarely is it the case that generic codes provide some form of “off-the-shelf” solution to an ethical problem within the discipline’s domain. This chapter addresses issues that form the backcloth to the concerns raised by the authors in this section of the handbook.

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de Winter JCF, Dodou D (2017) Human subjects research for engineers: a practical guide. Springer, Cham

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Editorial (2012) Times Higher Education, 1 March 2012, p 12

Geoghegan P (2012) If trust is lost, future promises naught but troubles for research. Times Higher Education, 19 January, p 28

Holloway I, Wheeler S (2002) Qualitative research in nursing, 2nd edn. Blackwell, Oxford

Iphofen R (ed) (2017) Finding common ground: consensus in research ethics across the social sciences. Advances in research ethics and integrity, vol 1. Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley

Munro N, Dingwall R (2009) Ethical regulation: a challenge to artistic innovation? A-N Magazine, September, pp 5–6

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Iphofen, R. (2020). Ethics and Integrity in Research. In: Iphofen, R. (eds) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16759-2_56

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Dissertations 4: methodology: ethics.

Introduction & Philosophy
Methodology

Research Ethics

In the research context, ethics can be defined as "the standards of behaviour that guide your conduct in relation to the rights of those who become the subject of your work, or are affected by it" (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill 2015, p239).

The University itself is guided by the fundamental principle that research involving humans and /or animals and/or the environment should involve no more than minimal risk of harm to physical and psychological wellbeing.

Thus, ethics relates to many aspects of your research, including the conduct towards:

The participants of your primary research (experiments, interviews etc). You will need to explain that participation is voluntary, and they have the right to withdraw at any time. You will need the participants' informed consent. You will need to avoid harming the participants, physically as well as mentally. You will need to respect the participants’ privacy and offer the right to anonymity. You will need to manage their personal data confidentially, also according to legislation such as the Data Protection Act 2018. You will need to be truthful and accurate when using the information provided by the participants. 

The authors you have used as secondary sources. You will need to acknowledge their work and avoid plagiarism by doing the proper citing and referencing.

The readers of your research. You will need to exercise the utmost integrity, honesty, accuracy and objectivity in the writing of your work.  

The researcher . You will need to ensure that the research will be safe for you to undertake.

Your research may entail some risk, but risk has to be analysed and minimised through risk assessment. Depending on the type of your research, your research proposal may need to be approved by an Ethics Committee, which will assess your research proposal in light of the elements mentioned above. Again, you are advised to use a research methods book for further guidance. 

Research Ethics Online Course

Introduction to Research Ethics: Working with People

Find out how to conduct ethical research when working with people by studying this online course for university students. Course developed by the University of Leeds.

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Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and complexity of reasoning

2010, Journal of Medical Ethics

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ABSTRACT This module will introduce you to the ethical concepts underlying applied ethical decision-making in the area of research involving human participants. We will also learn what the issues are that people involved in research on research ethics are concerned with. Ethics without an understanding of historical and legal context makes arguably little sense. It is for this reason that this module will begin with a brief history of research ethics and ends with a brief overview of the relevant national and international guidelines pertaining to ethical issues in research involving human participants.

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Scientific research must be conducted in accordance with ethical principles. This paper discusses how to ensure that all aspects of a doctoral research, from literature review to conducting research, to writing the dissertation manuscript will be done with care and integrity and will meet the ethical standards of scientific research. This paper will also justify all the steps a researcher will take to ensure the ethical integrity of a dissertation project and not simply describe standard practices. Furthermore, the paper also shows that a researcher must have his / her own clear set of ethical principles, and know how to apply them to their work as they move through the process of writing a thesis.

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Introduction: The research ethics provides guidelines to apply moral regulations and professional codes of conduct in the various steps of research. The research ethics plays a very vital role in the collection, analysis, reporting, and publication of details about research subjects, in particular active acceptance of participant’s right to privacy, confidentiality and the informed consent of the participant. Aims: To assess the Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges and the requirement for a regular teaching about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges. Materials & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by assessing the responses to 39 selected basic questions regarding Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among a total of 415 faculty members and post graduate students of the medical and dental institutions in Karnataka. The questionnaire was made into 5 categories. Chi-square tests was used to determine, in bivariate analyses, the association of each of the independent variables like their speciality, their academic position, prior ethics training, and their prior involvement with research with each of the main outcome of interest. The students t-test was done to assess the respondents scores on the 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-not sure, 4-agree and 5-strongly agree). The average of their scores were compared among the various variable like their specialty and academic position by using the ANOVA test. Results: A total of 415 responses were obtained from the participants of the study. Out of this we had 273 respondents as female and 142 respondents as male. Among these 225 respondents were from the medical speciality and 190 from the dental speciality. The P value was kept at 0.05 for this study. Conclusion: The participants of the questionnaire survey showed that the institutional ethics committees would be very useful for promoting health research and are imperative for appraisal of the health research projects.The majority of the respondents agreed that they were well aware of the ethical guidelines governing the human research, but when we assess the respondent’s knowledge and attitudes towards research ethics there seems to be a lacuna in complete awareness and knowledge of research ethics. The results of the study also helped us to assess the requirement for a regular teaching about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges.

ABSTRACT The objective of this module is to cover ground that was not covered indepth in any of the other modules, including: scientific misconduct, issues concerning the publication and ownership of research results (authorship guidelines – who is eligible to be considered an author, or contributor to a scientific paper etc.), special problems occurring in social science and epidemiological research, and the problems pertaining to conflicts of interest the various players in biomedical research activities could encounter.

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S Kjellström 1 ,
S N Ross 2 , 3 ,
B Fridlund 4
1 Institute of Gerontology, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden
2 Antioch University Midwest, Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA
3 ARINA, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
4 Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden
Correspondence to Sofia Kjellström, Institute of Gerontology, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, PO Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden; sofia.kjellstrom{at}hhj.hj.se

Background Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations.

Purpose To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations.

Methods Analyses of ethical content and complexity of ethical reasoning were performed on 64 Swedish nurses' PhD dissertations dated 2007.

Results A total of seven ethical topics were identified: ethical approval (94% of the dissertations), information and informed consent (86%), confidentiality (67%), ethical aspects of methods (61%), use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection (14%). Four of those of topics were most frequently addressed: the majority of dissertations (72%) included 3–5 issues. While many ethical concerns, by their nature, involve systematic concepts or metasystematic principles, ethical reasoning scored predominantly at lesser levels of complexity: abstract (6% of the dissertations), formal (84%) and systematic (10%).

Conclusions Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and implications is insufficient. This is partly due to traditions and norms that discount ethical concerns but is probably also a reflection of the ability of PhD students and supervisors to handle complexity in general. It is suggested that the importance of ethical considerations should be emphasised in graduate and post-graduate studies and that individuals with capacity to deal with systematic and metasystematic concepts are recruited to senior research positions.

Research ethics
human development
dissertation
graduate education
applied and professional ethics
scientific research

https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2009.034561

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Research has a potential to encroach on people's lives, autonomy and integrity. To prevent or mitigate the potential for such effects, the research community has created ethics codes and regulations, institutionalised ethics review boards and formalised ethics requirements in scientific journals. 1–3 However, how do we know whether the formalisations of research ethics actually result in researchers' ability to operationalise ethics in the ways intended? One way is to analyse how they write about research ethics.

Including a well-written section about research ethics in a dissertation is important for several reasons. Compared to protocols written for research ethics committees, this section allows a comparison of the expected and actual research ethics as reflected in the entire research process. Scientific journals increasingly require that ethical considerations are elucidated, but most journals severely limit space for elaboration. 4 Since studies have questioned the ethical skills of doctoral students, dissertations provide a forum for students to expound on ethics and enable an assessment of acquired proficiencies. One purpose of graduate school is to train doctoral students in skills necessary for future research careers, including more critical thinking and more complex reasoning. The quality and depth of the research ethics section is essential to examine whether a researcher has acquired necessary skills to reflect and report on ethics.

Despite an increasing interest in research ethics, surprisingly little is known about the quality of research ethics in dissertations, particularly in nursing research. Research on written materials focuses primarily on research review boards 5–9 and journals—for example, ethics guidelines 10 and research ethics in articles. 4 Research on Turkish nursing dissertations showed deficiencies in informing participants and protecting privacy. 11 A study on Swedish nurses' dissertations from 1987 to 2007 showed that an increase in occurrence and proportions of reported ethical considerationsand that the texts were short, had few references and covered a narrow range of topics. 12 We found no other studies that address the design of the research ethics section and how different topics were combined.

The study's purpose was to examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations approved in 2007. The research questions were: Which research ethics issues are reported? How is the research ethics section organized around different ethical issues? How is the information coordinated in terms of the complexity of reasoning that structures the text? What is the relationship between ethical issues and complexity of reasoning in the text?

Design and methodological approaches

The study used a mixed-methods approach to address the four research questions. 13 We performed a qualitative content analysis and a quantitative analysis of the hierarchical complexity of ethics-related content. The quantification method was the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (HCSS) (Commons, et al , unpublished manual), which derives from the Model of Hierarchical Complexity, a mathematics-based, formal general theory applicable to all actions in which information is organised. 14 15 All reasoning involves organising information. The theory and validated scoring method enable reliable measures of discrete stages of reasoning complexity. 16–20 In accord with Swedish law, ethical approval was not obtained for this study, 21 but ethical principles were used and issues were addressed in ongoing reflective processes.

Data collection

The sample consisted of 64 dissertations from Swedish universities in 2007 (Appendix 1). The primary inclusion criteria were that the dissertation was written by a nurse and that it was a PhD dissertation (4 years of full-time studies). Suitable dissertations were identified from the Swedish Society of Nursing's list of self-reported dissertations (n=65) followed by a systematic comparative analysis with the Swedish National Library (n=1). One of the self-reported dissertations discussed no research ethics and one was by an unsuccessful doctoral candidate: they were not included in the sample. Dissertation languages were English (n=48), Swedish (n=15) and Norwegian (n=1). Dissertations were retrieved via full-text online access or as books from the university library.

Data analysis

The dissertations were examined to identify research ethics sections, often under the subheadings “Ethical considerations” or “Ethical approval”. The texts were analysed for the topics addressed and how they were reported. An unstructured matrix of research ethics issues was created and grounded in the data. The coded texts were further analysed for subcategories through an inductive process. Descriptions of meanings of quantitative and qualitative character, that is manifest and latent content analysis, were sought. The analysis was performed by SK with BF—with extensive experience in qualitative methods.

In hierarchical complexity scoring, such content is “seen through” to examine its underlying structure. The method measures the levels of abstraction and how information is coordinated. Each section and subsection of a research ethics discussion was assessed on stage of hierarchical complexity. The overall discussion was scored based on the highest stage of performance the text demonstrated. The correlation of content and its complexity indicated which topics were addressed at different stages of complexity. Scoring was performed independently by SK and SR, then discussed to reach consensus. Both authors scored the English texts, and SK scored the ones in Scandinavian languages and discussed with SR. SR is an expert HCSS stage-and-transition scorer while SK is a qualified HCSS scorer of stages 8 through 11. See table 1 for stage complexity information. 22

View inline

Common range of stages of performance in adult tasks' hierarchical complexity

Research ethics issues in dissertations

Dissertations contained one to seven research ethics topics: approval of research ethics board (94%); information process and informed consent (86%); confidentiality (67%); ethical aspects of methods (61%); use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection method (14%; table 2 ). All but three of the dissertations involved direct interaction with study participants; three were register-based studies.

Design of research ethics sections in Swedish nurses' dissertations

Ethics approval

The ethics approval category included descriptions of whether the dissertation has been vetted by an ethics review board. Almost all dissertations included a discussion of ethics approval (n=60), and a majority stated they had been approved by a research ethics review board (n=55). A quality and transparency concern was that several sections included no name of the ethics board and/or registration number (n=13). A minority related the issue of ethics approval to ethical codes, the Helsinki declaration or current national research ethics laws (n=14) by either stating that studies were performed in accordance with ethics regulations (n=8) or by arguing against the need for an ethics approval due to national laws (n=6).

Information and informed consent

We broadened the traditional informed consent category to accommodate information-giving processes discussed but not always expressed in terms of informed consent. Most dissertations discussed information-giving and informed consent (n=56). A third of these explicitly mentioned the concept of informed consent (n=19). A substantial amount of space was typically used to detail the informing phase of research, including the information's form (written and/or verbal) (n=41) and type. The most often-given information was freedom to withdraw from the study (n=33) and a declaration of voluntariness (n=30). Other information included confidentiality (n=22), withdrawals' non-interference with further treatment (n=7), the right to not answer questions (n=4), aim of the study (n=2), risks and benefits (n=2) and feedback of results (n=1). Those responsible for providing information as well as those receiving the information were described. Some informed consent discussions included an ethical rationale for the information process by referring to principles, codes or laws (n=16).

Confidentiality

Items coded in the confidentiality category reported that information was accessible to only authorised persons. Confidentiality procedures were succinctly reported (n=43). Besides describing confidentiality as something that participants were guaranteed and informed about, some researchers identified how confidentiality had been handled: data were safely stored protecting participant's identity (n=12); data were analysed and reported without identifying participants (n=19) and participants in focus group interviews were counselled in ways to promote freedom of expression and confidentiality (n=2).

Ethical aspect of the methods

The category for ethical aspect of the methods included the research ethics issues in collecting data, except for questions regarding informing participants. Ethical aspects of study methods were comprised of descriptions of interviews and questionnaires (n=37). Explanations of why interviews were ethically problematic were done by referring to principles or risks of harm (n=17). The negative aspects stated (n=24) were physical and psychological with an emphasis on emotional. Strategies to impede negative consequences were depicted (n=20): adopt a sensitive attitude, adapt to the physical and mental status of the interviewee, reduce questions, provide time to reflect on the interview and arrange for a contact person. Sometimes, statements about how the participants seemed to enjoy the interview experience were included (n=14). A few sections described problems that appeared during the research interview (n=14)—for example, interviewees who cried or did not answer all questions. The most comprehensive sections covered all these issues, but the most common strategy was to mention the potential laboriousness of the interview yet argue that participants benefited from practical solutions that were provided in the interview situation or by claiming that research participants appreciated the opportunity to tell their stories. The reported ethical problems with questionnaires were primarily the tedium of answering questions and how researchers adjusted the number of requests for completion out of respect and concern for participants' possible fatigue.

Use of ethical principles and regulations

Discussions that included the usage of principles and ethical regulations like laws and research ethics codes were coded to the category of ethical principles and regulations. This category was analytically different from others because it revealed how ethics were applied in the research sections. Explicit report of laws, ethics codes and principles occurred in fewer than half of the dissertations (n=25). Principles were employed but performed in qualitatively different ways (n=17). The simplest form was to state that the study had been performed in accordance with a research ethics declaration, code or rules outlined in a research ethics book. The most elaborate ones integrated the principles and described how they were used as compasses for research procedures (n=8).

Rationale for the study

To provide an ethical rationale for the study means to justify why the study is important in a wider perspective. Thirteen dissertations featured an ethical rationale for the study, and when included, it was framed in terms of risks and benefits. The need for new and valuable knowledge that could potentially improve conditions for other people weighed heavier than the extra demand and little direct gain that the research subjects gained from participating. Some reported that the value of pursuing the research outweighed the disadvantages but entailed the necessity of protecting the autonomy of the research participants.

Fair participant selection

Fair selection of participants signifies reflections on a justified choice of participants. The reason to include vulnerable groups and groups that previously has been excluded from research was sometimes given (n=9). A few sections justified the choice of participants (n=8). The importance of including important and vulnerable groups so their voices would be heard was the main reason reported.

Design of the research ethics section

The topics of the research ethics sections are outlined in table 2 . Most frequent was to report four ethics issues (n=16), followed by three (n=14) or five issues (n= 14). The majority (72%) included 3–5 issues. Four sections stated one topic and only one dissertation section reported seven issues. The most common composition of a section about research ethics discussed five topics: the approval from a research review board, information and informed consent, ethical aspects of the methods, confidentiality and principles.

Complexity of reasoning

The analysed texts demonstrated three stages of performance as measured by hierarchical complexity: abstract (n=4), formal (n=54) and systematic (n=6).

Abstract stage text performances consisted of declarative statements ( table 3 ). Unsupported categorical assertions were made and justified by invoking another assertion. Generalisations were created by quantifying people and events. Often-used quantifications in the sample were “all participants” and “all studies”. Research ethics sections included mainly generalisations about actions that had been performed.

Representative examples of reasoning in research ethics at three stages of complexity

Reasoning at the formal stage of performance used empirical or logical evidence ( table 3 ). Assertions were supported by explicit logic or evidence to justify the assertion—for example, by providing a logical explanation—for example, using such terms as because, in order to, since, if, then, therefore. Descriptions of hypothetical or alternative options in the future were sometimes included. The logic was linear. Such linear logic took the form of if–then constructions or chains of logic. Some used principles as logical reasons for actions.

Systematic stage performances were characterised by the ability to coordinate at least two logical relations into a system ( table 3 ); in other words, they demonstrated reasoning about complex causation and ability to understand a system of logical relationships. For example, one researcher described procedures for finding the “right people” by invoking a multivariate system that required the coordination of multiple variables. Systemic stage performances were characterised by more fluid reasoning than the linear, logical performances.

Comparing content and complexity

Few dissertations demonstrated abstract reasoning and systematic reasoning, four and six, respectively, but showed interesting patterns. The texts with abstract stage reasoning reported either one or two topics. All four mentioned approval; information and methodological issues were raised by only two. Texts with systematic reasoning introduced three to five ethical issues. Half of them discussed principles (as compared to merely citing a principle as the reason for an action), and the other three reported the rationale for the study, indicating that the topic and study could perhaps be viewed in a wider context. Among the majority of texts demonstrating formal reasoning, the topics varied from one to seven, meaning at least formal reasoning was needed to explain all conceivable aspects. Formal reasoning is required to report such tasks as fair selection of participants, rationale for the study and principles, ethics codes and laws.

Our study demonstrates that research ethics are insufficiently reported and inadequately described in many nursing dissertations. Few ethical topics are considered, and they are not discussed in a thorough way. While most note official approval and describe informed consent issues, other issues like the rationale for the study and how the participants were selected are infrequently reported. The level of complexity of reasoning was inadequate in most dissertations. The majority of the dissertations used formal reasoning, although by their nature, the ethical issues introduced in them require more complex reasoning to be satisfactorily addressed.

A methodological strength of our study is its inclusion of a large number of dissertations, which are likely representative of dissertations by Swedish nurses. A major advantage of our method is that the analytical approach permits assessments and comparisons of the coverage of ethical issues and the complexity of reasoning.

A methodological shortcoming is that the analysis was primarily focused on the section denoted “Ethical considerations/approval”, thus some ethics topics and reasoning might have passed undetected if they were treated in other parts of the dissertation. The analysis is thus limited to what the authors define as belonging to ethics sections. Our analysis identified the most complex stage of reasoning as a criterion for analysis because ethical considerations are complex matters. A more extensive analysis could have also analysed the entire low to high range of reasoning demonstrated in each ethics section. An implication of the language analyses is that we do not know which and how the ethical issues were applied in reality. Some issues could have been omitted from the dissertation text even though the issue was dealt with in practice and vice versa. The consistency between writing about ethics and ethical behaviour in the field—for example, in contact with research subjects and patients, should be investigated in future studies.

The first main finding is the incompleteness of the elaboration of topics and details in several dissertations, which is consistent with several studies in the domain of research ethics. A previous study showed a high level of errors in research ethics committee letters; that is, procedural violations, missing information, slip-ups and discrepancies. 8 Earlier research on Swedish nurses' dissertations demonstrate the questionable quality due to short length, few references and a narrow range of topics. 12

In our study, few topics were addressed. Emanuel et al argued for seven requirements to be considered and met in the conduct of ethical research: scientific value, validity, fair subject selection, favourable risk–benefit ratio, independent review, informed consent and respect for potential and enrolled subjects. 23 Applied to our findings, some requirements may be treated in other parts of a dissertation, but several dissertations leave out topics that are necessary for judging their ethical quality.

Informing potential participants and pursuing informed consent was reported in almost 90% of the dissertations' ethics sections. This frequency is higher than that reported in a study of Turkish nurses' dissertations where subjects were not informed about the study (72.7%) and the researchers had not obtained permission from the subjects (73.6%). 11

The second main finding is the insufficient level of complexity of reasoning, with which research ethics are handled. Findings from a discourse analysis of research ethics committee letters showed that there was “the lack of formal reasoning” (p 258) and ethical arguments—for example, informed consent are described as procedural norms rather than an ethics principle possible to dispute. 9 This is consistent with our findings, because a significant number invoked research ethics principles to justify procedures taken, rather than to use principles to support ethical arguments for and against certain procedures. However, our findings also showed that the great majority used at least some formal reasoning, as measured by hierarchical complexity.

Unfortunately, formal reasoning is necessary but not sufficient for adequacy in ethical matters. The analysis showed that formal reasoning and systematic reasoning were needed to elaborate on topics, and the comparison of complexity reasoning and content indicated that higher levels of reasoning involved more elaborated use of ethics principles. Very few used systematic reasoning, and none used metasystematic, which would be preferable because several of the research ethics concepts are metasystematic stage principles. For example, informed consent is a metasystematic stage concept because it coordinates the system of informing a research subject and the system of obtaining consent from the person. 24 This means that metasystematic reasoning is needed for a full understanding and use of these concepts.

What are possible explanations for the low levels of reasoning on research ethics? One possibility is that ethical issues are dealt with at a sufficiently high level of complexity in practice, whereas the text of the dissertation merely reflects a research tradition that discounts the importance of performing and explaining ethical reasoning. Disciplinary norms for terse writing styles are presumably promoted by supervisors and department guidelines. For example, nurses' dissertations in social science use more references to methods, ethics and philosophy of science than dissertation in the medical science tradition. 23 In addition, poor writing may occur because researchers mimic previous dissertations or regard ethical considerations as bureaucratic hurdles rather than moral requirements to protect participants. The supervisor role is an important factor since they sometimes acknowledge a considerable lack of knowledge about research ethics. 25 Another conceivable explanation is that the level of ethical reasoning corresponds rather accurately to the level of complexity the doctoral students and their supervisors use to handle complex issues in general. In other words, they are arguing on ethical issues at their highest complexity level. In that case, the scientists' (PhD students' and supervisors') ability to discuss at more complex levels must be improved for ethical issues to be sufficiently managed in the future. All these possibilities suggest further research is needed to account for our findings, since ethics have long been an important part of nurses' education and occupation.

There are several implications of insufficient ethical reasoning. Integrity of the research subjects and patients are at risk, and patients, if they participate, may be informed without understanding the implications. From the perspective of the readers of the scientific literature, it is impossible to assess how and why the authors dealt with various ethical issues. A crucial implication is the consequences of selection of research questions, methods and participants/sample. Scientists performing at abstract or formal stages are less likely to integrate relevant ethical aspects into their research aims than scientists at higher complexity levels. This is because such integration, by its nature, is multivariate at minimum. They will differ quite dramatically in the way they understand principles as principles, “risks” and “benefits”, rationale of the investigation, etc. Researchers with systemic or metasystematic stage reasoning are able to ask more complex questions, juggle ethics, research questions, and methods and design more complex research projects. 26

Our conclusion is that if the established praxis to include discussion of research ethics in Swedish nurses' dissertations is going to be valuable, and if its purpose is to indicate that the research complied with expected ethics, then the reporting must exhibit a certain quality, comprehensiveness and sufficiently significant treatment of ethics. Our study illustrates that factors that improve the quality include: appropriately thorough consideration of several ethical issues while avoiding minutiae; use of ethical principles in appropriate contexts to justify choices and reasons to support actions taken and use of at least formal and systematic reasoning. In addition, we would like to see more reflection and a critical stance to what has been done in the dissertation work.

In order to accomplish the intent of reporting research ethics, several improvements are needed. The most straightforward solution is to enhance the research ethics teaching in graduate education. Students must learn how to perform ethically sound research from the first steps of planning and performing to writing up the results and their potential and ability to report and reflect on ethical aspects of the research process must be enhanced. A more profound resolution is to emphasise metasystematic thinking in post-graduate studies and recruit senior researcher and post-graduate students who already have developed a systematic or metasystematic way of reasoning. This longer-term solution will also constitute the foundation for further development of complexity in handling ethics issues in the future.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank professor Per Sjölander for valuable comments on the discussion.

Emanuel EJ ,
Wendler D ,
Dixon-Woods M ,
Ashcroft RE
Finlay KA ,
Fernandez CV
Angell EL ,
Jackson CJ ,
Ashcroft RE ,
Dixon-Woods M
O'Reilly M ,
Rowan-Legg A ,
Ulusoy MF ,
Kjellström S ,
Creswell JW
Commons ML ,
Smith JEV ,
Goodheart EA ,
Dawson TL ,
Swedish law
Rodriguez JA ,
Szirony TA ,
Richards FA

Supplementary materials

Web only appendix.

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web only appendix

Competing interests None.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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Ethical Issues in Research: Perceptions of Researchers, Research Ethics Board Members and Research Ethics Experts

Marie-josée drolet.

1 Department of Occupational Therapy (OT), Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Trois-Rivières (Québec), Canada

Eugénie Rose-Derouin

2 Bachelor OT program, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Trois-Rivières (Québec), Canada

Julie-Claude Leblanc

Mélanie ruest, bryn williams-jones.

3 Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec), Canada

In the context of academic research, a diversity of ethical issues, conditioned by the different roles of members within these institutions, arise. Previous studies on this topic addressed mainly the perceptions of researchers. However, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the transversal ethical issues from a wider spectrum, including other members of academic institutions as the research ethics board (REB) members, and the research ethics experts. The present study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to document the ethical issues experienced by a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts. Data collection involved socio-demographic questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. Following the triangulation of different perspectives (researchers, REB members and ethics experts), emerging ethical issues were synthesized in ten units of meaning: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. This study highlighted several problematic elements that can support the identification of future solutions to resolve transversal ethical issues in research that affect the heterogeneous members of the academic community.

Introduction

Research includes a set of activities in which researchers use various structured methods to contribute to the development of knowledge, whether this knowledge is theoretical, fundamental, or applied (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). University research is carried out in a highly competitive environment that is characterized by ever-increasing demands (i.e., on time, productivity), insufficient access to research funds, and within a market economy that values productivity and speed often to the detriment of quality or rigour – this research context creates a perfect recipe for breaches in research ethics, like research misbehaviour or misconduct (i.e., conduct that is ethically questionable or unacceptable because it contravenes the accepted norms of responsible conduct of research or compromises the respect of core ethical values that are widely held by the research community) (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ; Sieber, 2004 ). Problematic ethics and integrity issues – e.g., conflicts of interest, falsification of data, non-respect of participants’ rights, and plagiarism, to name but a few – have the potential to both undermine the credibility of research and lead to negative consequences for many stakeholders, including researchers, research assistants and personnel, research participants, academic institutions, and society as a whole (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ). It is thus evident that the academic community should be able to identify these different ethical issues in order to evaluate the nature of the risks that they pose (and for whom), and then work towards their prevention or management (i.e., education, enhanced policies and procedures, risk mitigation strategies).

In this article, we define an “ethical issue” as any situation that may compromise, in whole or in part, the respect of at least one moral value (Swisher et al., 2005 ) that is considered socially legitimate and should thus be respected. In general, ethical issues occur at three key moments or stages of the research process: (1) research design (i.e., conception, project planning), (2) research conduct (i.e., data collection, data analysis) and (3) knowledge translation or communication (e.g., publications of results, conferences, press releases) (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). According to Sieber ( 2004 ), ethical issues in research can be classified into five categories, related to: (a) communication with participants and the community, (b) acquisition and use of research data, (c) external influence on research, (d) risks and benefits of the research, and (e) selection and use of research theories and methods. Many of these issues are related to breaches of research ethics norms, misbehaviour or research misconduct. Bruhn et al., ( 2002 ) developed a typology of misbehaviour and misconduct in academia that can be used to judge the seriousness of different cases. This typology takes into consideration two axes of reflection: (a) the origin of the situation (i.e., is it the researcher’s own fault or due to the organizational context?), and (b) the scope and severity (i.e., is this the first instance or a recurrent behaviour? What is the nature of the situation? What are the consequences, for whom, for how many people, and for which organizations?).

A previous detailed review of the international literature on ethical issues in research revealed several interesting findings (Beauchemin et al., 2021 ). Indeed, the current literature is dominated by descriptive ethics, i.e., the sharing by researchers from various disciplines of the ethical issues they have personally experienced. While such anecdotal documentation is relevant, it is insufficient because it does not provide a global view of the situation. Among the reviewed literature, empirical studies were in the minority (Table 1 ) – only about one fifth of the sample (n = 19) presented empirical research findings on ethical issues in research. The first of these studies was conducted almost 50 years ago (Hunt et al., 1984 ), with the remainder conducted in the 1990s. Eight studies were conducted in the United States (n = 8), five in Canada (n = 5), three in England (n = 3), two in Sweden (n = 2) and one in Ghana (n = 1).

Summary of Empirical Studies on Ethical Issues in Research by the year of publication

Further, the majority of studies in our sample (n = 12) collected the perceptions of a homogeneous group of participants, usually researchers (n = 14) and sometimes health professionals (n = 6). A minority of studies (n = 7) triangulated the perceptions of diverse research stakeholders (i.e., researchers and research participants, or students). To our knowledge, only one study has examined perceptions of ethical issues in research by research ethics board members (REB; Institutional Review Boards [IRB] in the USA), and none to date have documented the perceptions of research ethics experts. Finally, nine studies (n = 9) adopted a qualitative design, seven studies (n = 7) a quantitative design, and three (n = 3) a mixed-methods design.

More studies using empirical research methods are needed to better identify broader trends, to enrich discussions on the values that should govern responsible conduct of research in the academic community, and to evaluate the means by which these values can be supported in practice (Bahn, 2012 ; Beauchemin et al., 2021 ; Bruhn et al., 2002 ; Henderson et al., 2013 ; Resnik & Elliot, 2016; Sieber 2004 ). To this end, we conducted an empirical qualitative study to document the perceptions and experiences of a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts, to answer the following broad question: What are the ethical issues in research?

Research Methods

Research design.

A qualitative research approach involving individual semi-structured interviews was used to systematically document ethical issues (De Poy & Gitlin, 2010 ; Hammell et al., 2000 ). Specifically, a descriptive phenomenological approach inspired by the philosophy of Husserl was used (Husserl, 1970 , 1999 ), as it is recommended for documenting the perceptions of ethical issues raised by various practices (Hunt & Carnavale, 2011 ).

Ethical considerations

The principal investigator obtained ethics approval for this project from the Research Ethics Board of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). All members of the research team signed a confidentiality agreement, and research participants signed the consent form after reading an information letter explaining the nature of the research project.

Sampling and recruitment

As indicated above, three types of participants were sought: (1) researchers from different academic disciplines conducting research (i.e., theoretical, fundamental or empirical) in Canadian universities; (2) REB members working in Canadian organizations responsible for the ethical review, oversight or regulation of research; and (3) research ethics experts, i.e., academics or ethicists who teach research ethics, conduct research in research ethics, or are scholars who have acquired a specialization in research ethics. To be included in the study, participants had to work in Canada, speak and understand English or French, and be willing to participate in the study. Following Thomas and Polio’s (2002) recommendation to recruit between six and twelve participants (for a homogeneous sample) to ensure data saturation, for our heterogeneous sample, we aimed to recruit approximately twelve participants in order to obtain data saturation. Having used this method several times in related projects in professional ethics, data saturation is usually achieved with 10 to 15 participants (Drolet & Goulet, 2018 ; Drolet & Girard, 2020 ; Drolet et al., 2020 ). From experience, larger samples only serve to increase the degree of data saturation, especially in heterogeneous samples (Drolet et al., 2017 , 2019 ; Drolet & Maclure, 2016 ).

Purposive sampling facilitated the identification of participants relevant to documenting the phenomenon in question (Fortin, 2010 ). To ensure a rich and most complete representation of perceptions, we sought participants with varied and complementary characteristics with regards to the social roles they occupy in research practice (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ). A triangulation of sources was used for the recruitment (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006 ). The websites of Canadian universities and Canadian health institution REBs, as well as those of major Canadian granting agencies (i.e., the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fonds de recherche du Quebec), were searched to identify individuals who might be interested in participating in the study. Further, people known by the research team for their knowledge and sensitivity to ethical issues in research were asked to participate. Research participants were also asked to suggest other individuals who met the study criteria.

Data Collection

Two tools were used for data collecton: (a) a socio-demographic questionnaire, and (b) a semi-structured individual interview guide. English and French versions of these two documents were used and made available, depending on participant preferences. In addition, although the interview guide contained the same questions, they were adapted to participants’ specific roles (i.e., researcher, REB member, research ethics expert). When contacted by email by the research assistant, participants were asked to confirm under which role they wished to participate (because some participants might have multiple, overlapping responsibilities) and they were sent the appropriate interview guide.

The interview guides each had two parts: an introduction and a section on ethical issues. The introduction consisted of general questions to put the participant at ease (i.e., “Tell me what a typical day at work is like for you”). The section on ethical issues was designed to capture the participant’s perceptions through questions such as: “Tell me three stories you have experienced at work that involve an ethical issue?” and “Do you feel that your organization is doing enough to address, manage, and resolve ethical issues in your work?”. Although some interviews were conducted in person, the majority were conducted by videoconference to promote accessibility and because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were digitally recorded so that the verbatim could be transcribed in full, and varied between 40 and 120 min in duration, with an average of 90 min. Research assistants conducted the interviews and transcribed the verbatim.

Data Analysis

The socio-demographic questionnaires were subjected to simple descriptive statistical analyses (i.e., means and totals), and the semi-structured interviews were subjected to qualitative analysis. The steps proposed by Giorgi ( 1997 ) for a Husserlian phenomenological reduction of the data were used. After collecting, recording, and transcribing the interviews, all verbatim were analyzed by at least two analysts: a research assistant (2nd author of this article) and the principal investigator (1st author) or a postdoctoral fellow (3rd author). The repeated reading of the verbatim allowed the first analyst to write a synopsis, i.e., an initial extraction of units of meaning. The second analyst then read the synopses, which were commented and improved if necessary. Agreement between analysts allowed the final drafting of the interview synopses, which were then analyzed by three analysts to generate and organize the units of meaning that emerged from the qualitative data.

Participants

Sixteen individuals (n = 16) participated in the study, of whom nine (9) identified as female and seven (7) as male (Table 2 ). Participants ranged in age from 22 to 72 years, with a mean age of 47.5 years. Participants had between one (1) and 26 years of experience in the research setting, with an average of 14.3 years of experience. Participants held a variety of roles, including: REB members (n = 11), researchers (n = 10), research ethics experts (n = 4), and research assistant (n = 1). As mentioned previously, seven (7) participants held more than one role, i.e., REB member, research ethics expert, and researcher. The majority (87.5%) of participants were working in Quebec, with the remaining working in other Canadian provinces. Although all participants considered themselves to be francophone, one quarter (n = 4) identified themselves as belonging to a cultural minority group.

Description of Participants

With respect to their academic background, most participants (n = 9) had a PhD, three (3) had a post-doctorate, two (2) had a master’s degree, and two (2) had a bachelor’s degree. Participants came from a variety of disciplines: nine (9) had a specialty in the humanities or social sciences, four (4) in the health sciences and three (3) in the natural sciences. In terms of their knowledge of ethics, five (5) participants reported having taken one university course entirely dedicated to ethics, four (4) reported having taken several university courses entirely dedicated to ethics, three (3) had a university degree dedicated to ethics, while two (2) only had a few hours or days of training in ethics and two (2) reported having no knowledge of ethics.

Ethical issues

As Fig. 1 illustrates, ten units of meaning emerge from the data analysis, namely: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. To illustrate the results, excerpts from verbatim interviews are presented in the following sub-sections. Most of the excerpts have been translated into English as the majority of interviews were conducted with French-speaking participants.

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Ethical issues in research according to the participants

Research Integrity

The research environment is highly competitive and performance-based. Several participants, in particular researchers and research ethics experts, felt that this environment can lead both researchers and research teams to engage in unethical behaviour that reflects a lack of research integrity. For example, as some participants indicated, competition for grants and scientific publications is sometimes so intense that researchers falsify research results or plagiarize from colleagues to achieve their goals.

Some people will lie or exaggerate their research findings in order to get funding. Then, you see it afterwards, you realize: “ah well, it didn’t work, but they exaggerated what they found and what they did” (participant 14). Another problem in research is the identification of authors when there is a publication. Very often, there are authors who don’t even know what the publication is about and that their name is on it. (…) The time that it surprised me the most was just a few months ago when I saw someone I knew who applied for a teaching position. He got it I was super happy for him. Then I looked at his publications and … there was one that caught my attention much more than the others, because I was in it and I didn’t know what that publication was. I was the second author of a publication that I had never read (participant 14). I saw a colleague who had plagiarized another colleague. [When the colleague] found out about it, he complained. So, plagiarism is a serious [ethical breach]. I would also say that there is a certain amount of competition in the university faculties, especially for grants (…). There are people who want to win at all costs or get as much as possible. They are not necessarily going to consider their colleagues. They don’t have much of a collegial spirit (participant 10).

These examples of research misbehaviour or misconduct are sometimes due to or associated with situations of conflicts of interest, which may be poorly managed by certain researchers or research teams, as noted by many participants.

Conflict of interest

The actors and institutions involved in research have diverse interests, like all humans and institutions. As noted in Chap. 7 of the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2, 2018),

“researchers and research students hold trust relationships, either directly or indirectly, with participants, research sponsors, institutions, their professional bodies and society. These trust relationships can be put at risk by conflicts of interest that may compromise independence, objectivity or ethical duties of loyalty. Although the potential for such conflicts has always existed, pressures on researchers (i.e., to delay or withhold dissemination of research outcomes or to use inappropriate recruitment strategies) heighten concerns that conflicts of interest may affect ethical behaviour” (p. 92).

The sources of these conflicts are varied and can include interpersonal conflicts, financial partnerships, third-party pressures, academic or economic interests, a researcher holding multiple roles within an institution, or any other incentive that may compromise a researcher’s independence, integrity, and neutrality (TCPS2, 2018). While it is not possible to eliminate all conflicts of interest, it is important to manage them properly and to avoid temptations to behave unethically.

Ethical temptations correspond to situations in which people are tempted to prioritize their own interests to the detriment of the ethical goods that should, in their own context, govern their actions (Swisher et al., 2005 ). In the case of researchers, this refers to situations that undermine independence, integrity, neutrality, or even the set of principles that govern research ethics (TCPS2, 2018) or the responsible conduct of research. According to study participants, these types of ethical issues frequently occur in research. Many participants, especially researchers and REB members, reported that conflicts of interest can arise when members of an organization make decisions to obtain large financial rewards or to increase their academic profile, often at the expense of the interests of members of their research team, research participants, or even the populations affected by their research.

A company that puts money into making its drug work wants its drug to work. So, homeopathy is a good example, because there are not really any consequences of homeopathy, there are not very many side effects, because there are no effects at all. So, it’s not dangerous, but it’s not a good treatment either. But some people will want to make it work. And that’s a big issue when you’re sitting at a table and there are eight researchers, and there are two or three who are like that, and then there are four others who are neutral, and I say to myself, this is not science. I think that this is a very big ethical issue (participant 14). There are also times in some research where there will be more links with pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, there are then large amounts of money that will be very interesting for the health-care institutions because they still receive money for clinical trials. They’re still getting some compensation because its time consuming for the people involved and all that. The pharmaceutical companies have money, so they will compensate, and that is sometimes interesting for the institutions, and since we are a bit caught up in this, in the sense that we have no choice but to accept it. (…) It may not be the best research in the world, there may be a lot of side effects due to the drugs, but it’s good to accept it, we’re going to be part of the clinical trial (participant 3). It is integrity, what we believe should be done or said. Often by the pressure of the environment, integrity is in tension with the pressures of the environment, so it takes resistance, it takes courage in research. (…) There were all the debates there about the problems of research that was funded and then the companies kept control over what was written. That was really troubling for a lot of researchers (participant 5).

Further, these situations sometimes have negative consequences for research participants as reported by some participants.

Respect for research participants

Many research projects, whether they are psychosocial or biomedical in nature, involve human participants. Relationships between the members of research teams and their research participants raise ethical issues that can be complex. Research projects must always be designed to respect the rights and interests of research participants, and not just those of researchers. However, participants in our study – i.e., REB members, researchers, and research ethics experts – noted that some research teams seem to put their own interests ahead of those of research participants. They also emphasized the importance of ensuring the respect, well-being, and safety of research participants. The ethical issues related to this unit of meaning are: respect for free, informed and ongoing consent of research participants; respect for and the well-being of participants; data protection and confidentiality; over-solicitation of participants; ownership of the data collected on participants; the sometimes high cost of scientific innovations and their accessibility; balance between the social benefits of research and the risks to participants (particularly in terms of safety); balance between collective well-being (development of knowledge) and the individual rights of participants; exploitation of participants; paternalism when working with populations in vulnerable situations; and the social acceptability of certain types of research. The following excerpts present some of these issues.

Where it disturbs me ethically is in the medical field – because it’s more in the medical field that we’re going to see this – when consent forms are presented to patients to solicit them as participants, and then [these forms] have an average of 40 pages. That annoys me. When they say that it has to be easy to understand and all that, adapted to the language, and then the hyper-technical language plus there are 40 pages to read, I don’t understand how you’re going to get informed consent after reading 40 pages. (…) For me, it doesn’t work. I read them to evaluate them and I have a certain level of education and experience in ethics, and there are times when I don’t understand anything (participant 2). There is a lot of pressure from researchers who want to recruit research participants (…). The idea that when you enter a health care institution, you become a potential research participant, when you say “yes to a research, you check yes to all research”, then everyone can ask you. I think that researchers really have this fantasy of saying to themselves: “as soon as people walk through the door of our institution, they become potential participants with whom we can communicate and get them involved in all projects”. There’s a kind of idea that, yes, it can be done, but it has to be somewhat supervised to avoid over-solicitation (…). Researchers are very interested in facilitating recruitment and making it more fluid, but perhaps to the detriment of confidentiality, privacy, and respect; sometimes that’s what it is, to think about what type of data you’re going to have in your bank of potential participants? Is it just name and phone number or are you getting into more sensitive information? (participant 9).

In addition, one participant reported that their university does not provide the resources required to respect the confidentiality of research participants.

The issue is as follows: researchers, of course, commit to protecting data with passwords and all that, but we realize that in practice, it is more difficult. It is not always as protected as one might think, because professor-researchers will run out of space. Will the universities make rooms available to researchers, places where they can store these things, especially when they have paper documentation, and is there indeed a guarantee of confidentiality? Some researchers have told me: “Listen; there are even filing cabinets in the corridors”. So, that certainly poses a concrete challenge. How do we go about challenging the administrative authorities? Tell them it’s all very well to have an ethics committee, but you have to help us, you also have to make sure that the necessary infrastructures are in place so that what we are proposing is really put into practice (participant 4).

If the relationships with research participants are likely to raise ethical issues, so too are the relationships with students, notably research assistants. On this topic, several participants discussed the lack of supervision or recognition offered to research assistants by researchers as well as the power imbalances between members of the research team.

Lack of Supervision and Power Imbalances

Many research teams are composed not only of researchers, but also of students who work as research assistants. The relationship between research assistants and other members of research teams can sometimes be problematic and raise ethical issues, particularly because of the inevitable power asymmetries. In the context of this study, several participants – including a research assistant, REB members, and researchers – discussed the lack of supervision or recognition of the work carried out by students, psychological pressure, and the more or less well-founded promises that are sometimes made to students. Participants also mentioned the exploitation of students by certain research teams, which manifest when students are inadequately paid, i.e., not reflective of the number of hours actually worked, not a fair wage, or even a wage at all.

[As a research assistant], it was more of a feeling of distress that I felt then because I didn’t know what to do. (…) I was supposed to get coaching or be supported, but I didn’t get anything in the end. It was like, “fix it by yourself”. (…) All research assistants were supposed to be supervised, but in practice they were not (participant 1). Very often, we have a master’s or doctoral student that we put on a subject and we consider that the project will be well done, while the student is learning. So, it happens that the student will do a lot of work and then we realize that the work is poorly done, and it is not necessarily the student’s fault. He wasn’t necessarily well supervised. There are directors who have 25 students, and they just don’t supervise them (participant 14). I think it’s really the power relationship. I thought to myself, how I saw my doctorate, the beginning of my research career, I really wanted to be in that laboratory, but they are the ones who are going to accept me or not, so what do I do to be accepted? I finally accept their conditions [which was to work for free]. If these are the conditions that are required to enter this lab, I want to go there. So, what do I do, well I accepted. It doesn’t make sense, but I tell myself that I’m still privileged, because I don’t have so many financial worries, one more reason to work for free, even though it doesn’t make sense (participant 1). In research, we have research assistants. (…). The fact of using people… so that’s it, you have to take into account where they are, respect them, but at the same time they have to show that they are there for the research. In English, we say “carry” or take care of people. With research assistants, this is often a problem that I have observed: for grant machines, the person is the last to be found there. Researchers, who will take, use student data, without giving them the recognition for it (participant 5). The problem at our university is that they reserve funding for Canadian students. The doctoral clientele in my field is mostly foreign students. So, our students are poorly funded. I saw one student end up in the shelter, in a situation of poverty. It ended very badly for him because he lacked financial resources. Once you get into that dynamic, it’s very hard to get out. I was made aware of it because the director at the time had taken him under her wing and wanted to try to find a way to get him out of it. So, most of my students didn’t get funded (participant 16). There I wrote “manipulation”, but it’s kind of all promises all the time. I, for example, was promised a lot of advancement, like when I got into the lab as a graduate student, it was said that I had an interest in [this particular area of research]. I think there are a lot of graduate students who must have gone through that, but it is like, “Well, your CV has to be really good, if you want to do a lot of things and big things. If you do this, if you do this research contract, the next year you could be the coordinator of this part of the lab and supervise this person, get more contracts, be paid more. Let’s say: you’ll be invited to go to this conference, this big event”. They were always dangling something, but you have to do that first to get there. But now, when you’ve done that, you have to do this business. It’s like a bit of manipulation, I think. That was very hard to know who is telling the truth and who is not (participant 1).

These ethical issues have significant negative consequences for students. Indeed, they sometimes find themselves at the mercy of researchers, for whom they work, struggling to be recognized and included as authors of an article, for example, or to receive the salary that they are due. For their part, researchers also sometimes find themselves trapped in research structures that can negatively affect their well-being. As many participants reported, researchers work in organizations that set very high productivity standards and in highly competitive contexts, all within a general culture characterized by individualism.

Individualism and performance

Participants, especially researchers, discussed the culture of individualism and performance that characterizes the academic environment. In glorifying excellence, some universities value performance and productivity, often at the expense of psychological well-being and work-life balance (i.e., work overload and burnout). Participants noted that there are ethical silences in their organizations on this issue, and that the culture of individualism and performance is not challenged for fear of retribution or simply to survive, i.e., to perform as expected. Participants felt that this culture can have a significant negative impact on the quality of the research conducted, as research teams try to maximize the quantity of their work (instead of quality) in a highly competitive context, which is then exacerbated by a lack of resources and support, and where everything must be done too quickly.

The work-life balance with the professional ethics related to work in a context where you have too much and you have to do a lot, it is difficult to balance all that and there is a lot of pressure to perform. If you don’t produce enough, that’s it; after that, you can’t get any more funds, so that puts pressure on you to do more and more and more (participant 3). There is a culture, I don’t know where it comes from, and that is extremely bureaucratic. If you dare to raise something, you’re going to have many, many problems. They’re going to make you understand it. So, I don’t talk. It is better: your life will be easier. I think there are times when you have to talk (…) because there are going to be irreparable consequences. (…) I’m not talking about a climate of terror, because that’s exaggerated, it’s not true, people are not afraid. But people close their office door and say nothing because it’s going to make their work impossible and they’re not going to lose their job, they’re not going to lose money, but researchers need time to be focused, so they close their office door and say nothing (participant 16).

Researchers must produce more and more, and they feel little support in terms of how to do such production, ethically, and how much exactly they are expected to produce. As this participant reports, the expectation is an unspoken rule: more is always better.

It’s sometimes the lack of a clear line on what the expectations are as a researcher, like, “ah, we don’t have any specific expectations, but produce, produce, produce, produce.” So, in that context, it’s hard to be able to put the line precisely: “have I done enough for my work?” (participant 3).

Inadequate ethical Guidance

While the productivity expectation is not clear, some participants – including researchers, research ethics experts, and REB members – also felt that the ethical expectations of some REBs were unclear. The issue of the inadequate ethical guidance of research includes the administrative mechanisms to ensure that research projects respect the principles of research ethics. According to those participants, the forms required for both researchers and REB members are increasingly long and numerous, and one participant noted that the standards to be met are sometimes outdated and disconnected from the reality of the field. Multicentre ethics review (by several REBs) was also critiqued by a participant as an inefficient method that encumbers the processes for reviewing research projects. Bureaucratization imposes an ever-increasing number of forms and ethics guidelines that actually hinder researchers’ ethical reflection on the issues at stake, leading the ethics review process to be perceived as purely bureaucratic in nature.

The ethical dimension and the ethical review of projects have become increasingly bureaucratized. (…) When I first started working (…) it was less bureaucratic, less strict then. I would say [there are now] tons of forms to fill out. Of course, we can’t do without it, it’s one of the ways of marking out ethics and ensuring that there are ethical considerations in research, but I wonder if it hasn’t become too bureaucratized, so that it’s become a kind of technical reflex to fill out these forms, and I don’t know if people really do ethical reflection as such anymore (participant 10). The fundamental structural issue, I would say, is the mismatch between the normative requirements and the real risks posed by the research, i.e., we have many, many requirements to meet; we have very long forms to fill out but the research projects we evaluate often pose few risks (participant 8). People [in vulnerable situations] were previously unable to participate because of overly strict research ethics rules that were to protect them, but in the end [these rules] did not protect them. There was a perverse effect, because in the end there was very little research done with these people and that’s why we have very few results, very little evidence [to support practices with these populations] so it didn’t improve the quality of services. (…) We all understand that we have to be careful with that, but when the research is not too risky, we say to ourselves that it would be good because for once a researcher who is interested in that population, because it is not a very popular population, it would be interesting to have results, but often we are blocked by the norms, and then we can’t accept [the project] (participant 2).

Moreover, as one participant noted, accessing ethics training can be a challenge.

There is no course on research ethics. […] Then, I find that it’s boring because you go through university and you come to do your research and you know how to do quantitative and qualitative research, but all the research ethics, where do you get this? I don’t really know (participant 13).

Yet, such training could provide relevant tools to resolve, to some extent, the ethical issues that commonly arise in research. That said, and as noted by many participants, many ethical issues in research are related to social injustices over which research actors have little influence.

Social Injustices

For many participants, notably researchers, the issues that concern social injustices are those related to power asymmetries, stigma, or issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion, i.e., social injustices related to people’s identities (Blais & Drolet, 2022 ). Participants reported experiencing or witnessing discrimination from peers, administration, or lab managers. Such oppression is sometimes cross-sectional and related to a person’s age, cultural background, gender or social status.

I have my African colleague who was quite successful when he arrived but had a backlash from colleagues in the department. I think it’s unconscious, nobody is overtly racist. But I have a young person right now who is the same, who has the same success, who got exactly the same early career award and I don’t see the same backlash. He’s just as happy with what he’s doing. It’s normal, they’re young and they have a lot of success starting out. So, I think there is discrimination. Is it because he is African? Is it because he is black? I think it’s on a subconscious level (participant 16).

Social injustices were experienced or reported by many participants, and included issues related to difficulties in obtaining grants or disseminating research results in one’s native language (i.e., even when there is official bilingualism) or being considered credible and fundable in research when one researcher is a woman.

If you do international research, there are things you can’t talk about (…). It is really a barrier to research to not be able to (…) address this question [i.e. the question of inequalities between men and women]. Women’s inequality is going to be addressed [but not within the country where the research takes place as if this inequality exists elsewhere but not here]. There are a lot of women working on inequality issues, doing work and it’s funny because I was talking to a young woman who works at Cairo University and she said to me: “Listen, I saw what you had written, you’re right. I’m willing to work on this but guarantee me a position at your university with a ticket to go”. So yes, there are still many barriers [for women in research] (participant 16).

Because of the varied contextual characteristics that intervene in their occurrence, these social injustices are also related to distributive injustices, as discussed by many participants.

Distributive Injustices

Although there are several views of distributive justice, a classical definition such as that of Aristotle ( 2012 ), describes distributive justice as consisting in distributing honours, wealth, and other social resources or benefits among the members of a community in proportion to their alleged merit. Justice, then, is about determining an equitable distribution of common goods. Contemporary theories of distributive justice are numerous and varied. Indeed, many authors (e.g., Fraser 2011 ; Mills, 2017 ; Sen, 2011 ; Young, 2011 ) have, since Rawls ( 1971 ), proposed different visions of how social burdens and benefits should be shared within a community to ensure equal respect, fairness, and distribution. In our study, what emerges from participants’ narratives is a definite concern for this type of justice. Women researchers, francophone researchers, early career researchers or researchers belonging to racialized groups all discussed inequities in the distribution of research grants and awards, and the extra work they need to do to somehow prove their worth. These inequities are related to how granting agencies determine which projects will be funded.

These situations make me work 2–3 times harder to prove myself and to show people in power that I have a place as a woman in research (participant 12). Number one: it’s conservative thinking. The older ones control what comes in. So, the younger people have to adapt or they don’t get funded (participant 14).

Whether it is discrimination against stigmatized or marginalized populations or interest in certain hot topics, granting agencies judge research projects according to criteria that are sometimes questionable, according to those participants. Faced with difficulties in obtaining funding for their projects, several strategies – some of which are unethical – are used by researchers in order to cope with these situations.

Sometimes there are subjects that everyone goes to, such as nanotechnology (…), artificial intelligence or (…) the therapeutic use of cannabis, which are very fashionable, and this is sometimes to the detriment of other research that is just as relevant, but which is (…), less sexy, less in the spirit of the time. (…) Sometimes this can lead to inequities in the funding of certain research sectors (participant 9). When we use our funds, we get them given to us, we pretty much say what we think we’re going to do with them, but things change… So, when these things change, sometimes it’s an ethical decision, but by force of circumstances I’m obliged to change the project a little bit (…). Is it ethical to make these changes or should I just let the money go because I couldn’t use it the way I said I would? (participant 3).

Moreover, these distributional injustices are not only linked to social injustices, but also epistemic injustices. Indeed, the way in which research honours and grants are distributed within the academic community depends on the epistemic authority of the researchers, which seems to vary notably according to their language of use, their age or their gender, but also to the research design used (inductive versus deductive), their decision to use (or not use) animals in research, or to conduct activist research.

Epistemic injustices

The philosopher Fricker ( 2007 ) conceptualized the notions of epistemic justice and injustice. Epistemic injustice refers to a form of social inequality that manifests itself in the access, recognition, and production of knowledge as well as the various forms of ignorance that arise (Godrie & Dos Santos, 2017 ). Addressing epistemic injustice necessitates acknowledging the iniquitous wrongs suffered by certain groups of socially stigmatized individuals who have been excluded from knowledge, thus limiting their abilities to interpret, understand, or be heard and account for their experiences. In this study, epistemic injustices were experienced or reported by some participants, notably those related to difficulties in obtaining grants or disseminating research results in one’s native language (i.e., even when there is official bilingualism) or being considered credible and fundable in research when a researcher is a woman or an early career researcher.

I have never sent a grant application to the federal government in English. I have always done it in French, even though I know that when you receive the review, you can see that reviewers didn’t understand anything because they are English-speaking. I didn’t want to get in the boat. It’s not my job to translate, because let’s be honest, I’m not as good in English as I am in French. So, I do them in my first language, which is the language I’m most used to. Then, technically at the administrative level, they are supposed to be able to do it, but they are not good in French. (…) Then, it’s a very big Canadian ethical issue, because basically there are technically two official languages, but Canada is not a bilingual country, it’s a country with two languages, either one or the other. (…) So I was not funded (participant 14).

Researchers who use inductive (or qualitative) methods observed that their projects are sometimes less well reviewed or understood, while research that adopts a hypothetical-deductive (or quantitative) or mixed methods design is better perceived, considered more credible and therefore more easily funded. Of course, regardless of whether a research project adopts an inductive, deductive or mixed-methods scientific design, or whether it deals with qualitative or quantitative data, it must respect a set of scientific criteria. A research project should achieve its objectives by using proven methods that, in the case of inductive research, are credible, reliable, and transferable or, in the case of deductive research, generalizable, objective, representative, and valid (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). Participants discussing these issues noted that researchers who adopt a qualitative design or those who question the relevance of animal experimentation or are not militant have sometimes been unfairly devalued in their epistemic authority.

There is a mini war between quantitative versus qualitative methods, which I think is silly because science is a method. If you apply the method well, it doesn’t matter what the field is, it’s done well and it’s perfect ” (participant 14). There is also the issue of the place of animals in our lives, because for me, ethics is human ethics, but also animal ethics. Then, there is a great evolution in society on the role of the animal… with the new law that came out in Quebec on the fact that animals are sensitive beings. Then, with the rise of the vegan movement, [we must ask ourselves]: “Do animals still have a place in research?” That’s a big question and it also means that there are practices that need to evolve, but sometimes there’s a disconnection between what’s expected by research ethics boards versus what’s expected in the field (participant 15). In research today, we have more and more research that is militant from an ideological point of view. And so, we have researchers, because they defend values that seem important to them, we’ll talk for example about the fight for equality and social justice. They have pressure to defend a form of moral truth and have the impression that everyone thinks like them or should do so, because they are defending a moral truth. This is something that we see more and more, namely the lack of distance between ideology and science (participant 8).

The combination or intersectionality of these inequities, which seems to be characterized by a lack of ethical support and guidance, is experienced in the highly competitive and individualistic context of research; it provides therefore the perfect recipe for researchers to experience ethical distress.

Ethical distress

The concept of “ethical distress” refers to situations in which people know what they should do to act ethically, but encounter barriers, generally of an organizational or systemic nature, limiting their power to act according to their moral or ethical values (Drolet & Ruest, 2021 ; Jameton, 1984 ; Swisher et al., 2005 ). People then run the risk of finding themselves in a situation where they do not act as their ethical conscience dictates, which in the long term has the potential for exhaustion and distress. The examples reported by participants in this study point to the fact that researchers in particular may be experiencing significant ethical distress. This distress takes place in a context of extreme competition, constant injunctions to perform, and where administrative demands are increasingly numerous and complex to complete, while paradoxically, they lack the time to accomplish all their tasks and responsibilities. Added to these demands are a lack of resources (human, ethical, and financial), a lack of support and recognition, and interpersonal conflicts.

We are in an environment, an elite one, you are part of it, you know what it is: “publish or perish” is the motto. Grants, there is a high level of performance required, to do a lot, to publish, to supervise students, to supervise them well, so yes, it is clear that we are in an environment that is conducive to distress. (…). Overwork, definitely, can lead to distress and eventually to exhaustion. When you know that you should take the time to read the projects before sharing them, but you don’t have the time to do that because you have eight that came in the same day, and then you have others waiting… Then someone rings a bell and says: “ah but there, the protocol is a bit incomplete”. Oh yes, look at that, you’re right. You make up for it, but at the same time it’s a bit because we’re in a hurry, we don’t necessarily have the resources or are able to take the time to do things well from the start, we have to make up for it later. So yes, it can cause distress (participant 9). My organization wanted me to apply in English, and I said no, and everyone in the administration wanted me to apply in English, and I always said no. Some people said: “Listen, I give you the choice”, then some people said: “Listen, I agree with you, but if you’re not [submitting] in English, you won’t be funded”. Then the fact that I am young too, because very often they will look at the CV, they will not look at the project: “ah, his CV is not impressive, we will not finance him”. This is complete nonsense. The person is capable of doing the project, the project is fabulous: we fund the project. So, that happened, organizational barriers: that happened a lot. I was not eligible for Quebec research funds (…). I had big organizational barriers unfortunately (participant 14). At the time of my promotion, some colleagues were not happy with the type of research I was conducting. I learned – you learn this over time when you become friends with people after you enter the university – that someone was against me. He had another candidate in mind, and he was angry about the selection. I was under pressure for the first three years until my contract was renewed. I almost quit at one point, but another colleague told me, “No, stay, nothing will happen”. Nothing happened, but these issues kept me awake at night (participant 16).

This difficult context for many researchers affects not only the conduct of their own research, but also their participation in research. We faced this problem in our study, despite the use of multiple recruitment methods, including more than 200 emails – of which 191 were individual solicitations – sent to potential participants by the two research assistants. REB members and organizations overseeing or supporting research (n = 17) were also approached to see if some of their employees would consider participating. While it was relatively easy to recruit REB members and research ethics experts, our team received a high number of non-responses to emails (n = 175) and some refusals (n = 5), especially by researchers. The reasons given by those who replied were threefold: (a) fear of being easily identified should they take part in the research, (b) being overloaded and lacking time, and (c) the intrusive aspect of certain questions (i.e., “Have you experienced a burnout episode? If so, have you been followed up medically or psychologically?”). In light of these difficulties and concerns, some questions in the socio-demographic questionnaire were removed or modified. Talking about burnout in research remains a taboo for many researchers, which paradoxically can only contribute to the unresolved problem of unhealthy research environments.

Returning to the research question and objective

The question that prompted this research was: What are the ethical issues in research? The purpose of the study was to describe these issues from the perspective of researchers (from different disciplines), research ethics board (REB) members, and research ethics experts. The previous section provided a detailed portrait of the ethical issues experienced by different research stakeholders: these issues are numerous, diverse and were recounted by a range of stakeholders.

The results of the study are generally consistent with the literature. For example, as in our study, the literature discusses the lack of research integrity on the part of some researchers (Al-Hidabi et al., 2018 ; Swazey et al., 1993 ), the numerous conflicts of interest experienced in research (Williams-Jones et al., 2013 ), the issues of recruiting and obtaining the free and informed consent of research participants (Provencher et al., 2014 ; Keogh & Daly, 2009 ), the sometimes difficult relations between researchers and REBs (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ), the epistemological issues experienced in research (Drolet & Ruest, accepted; Sieber 2004 ), as well as the harmful academic context in which researchers evolve, insofar as this is linked to a culture of performance, an overload of work in a context of accountability (Berg & Seeber, 2016 ; FQPPU; 2019 ) that is conducive to ethical distress and even burnout.

If the results of the study are generally in line with those of previous publications on the subject, our findings also bring new elements to the discussion while complementing those already documented. In particular, our results highlight the role of systemic injustices – be they social, distributive or epistemic – within the environments in which research is carried out, at least in Canada. To summarize, the results of our study point to the fact that the relationships between researchers and research participants are likely still to raise worrying ethical issues, despite widely accepted research ethics norms and institutionalized review processes. Further, the context in which research is carried out is not only conducive to breaches of ethical norms and instances of misbehaviour or misconduct, but also likely to be significantly detrimental to the health and well-being of researchers, as well as research assistants. Another element that our research also highlighted is the instrumentalization and even exploitation of students and research assistants, which is another important and worrying social injustice given the inevitable power imbalances between students and researchers.

Moreover, in a context in which ethical issues are often discussed from a micro perspective, our study helps shed light on both the micro- and macro-level ethical dimensions of research (Bronfenbrenner, 1979 ; Glaser 1994 ). However, given that ethical issues in research are not only diverse, but also and above all complex, a broader perspective that encompasses the interplay between the micro and macro dimensions can enable a better understanding of these issues and thereby support the identification of the multiple factors that may be at their origin. Triangulating the perspectives of researchers with those of REB members and research ethics experts enabled us to bring these elements to light, and thus to step back from and critique the way that research is currently conducted. To this end, attention to socio-political elements such as the performance culture in academia or how research funds are distributed, and according to what explicit and implicit criteria, can contribute to identifying the sources of the ethical issues described above.

Contemporary culture characterized by the social acceleration

The German sociologist and philosopher Rosa (2010) argues that late modernity – that is, the period between the 1980s and today – is characterized by a phenomenon of social acceleration that causes various forms of alienation in our relationship to time, space, actions, things, others and ourselves. Rosa distinguishes three types of acceleration: technical acceleration , the acceleration of social changes and the acceleration of the rhythm of life . According to Rosa, social acceleration is the main problem of late modernity, in that the invisible social norm of doing more and faster to supposedly save time operates unchallenged at all levels of individual and collective life, as well as organizational and social life. Although we all, researchers and non-researchers alike, perceive this unspoken pressure to be ever more productive, the process of social acceleration as a new invisible social norm is our blind spot, a kind of tyrant over which we have little control. This conceptualization of the contemporary culture can help us to understand the context in which research is conducted (like other professional practices). To this end, Berg & Seeber ( 2016 ) invite faculty researchers to slow down in order to better reflect and, in the process, take care of their health and their relationships with their colleagues and students. Many women professors encourage their fellow researchers, especially young women researchers, to learn to “say No” in order to protect their mental and physical health and to remain in their academic careers (Allaire & Descheneux, 2022 ). These authors also remind us of the relevance of Kahneman’s ( 2012 ) work which demonstrates that it takes time to think analytically, thoroughly, and logically. Conversely, thinking quickly exposes humans to cognitive and implicit biases that then lead to errors in thinking (e.g., in the analysis of one’s own research data or in the evaluation of grant applications or student curriculum vitae). The phenomenon of social acceleration, which pushes the researcher to think faster and faster, is likely to lead to unethical bad science that can potentially harm humankind. In sum, Rosa’s invitation to contemporary critical theorists to seriously consider the problem of social acceleration is particularly insightful to better understand the ethical issues of research. It provides a lens through which to view the toxic context in which research is conducted today, and one that was shared by the participants in our study.

Clark & Sousa ( 2022 ) note, it is important that other criteria than the volume of researchers’ contributions be valued in research, notably quality. Ultimately, it is the value of the knowledge produced and its influence on the concrete lives of humans and other living beings that matters, not the quantity of publications. An interesting articulation of this view in research governance is seen in a change in practice by Australia’s national health research funder: they now restrict researchers to listing on their curriculum vitae only the top ten publications from the past ten years (rather than all of their publications), in order to evaluate the quality of contributions rather than their quantity. To create environments conducive to the development of quality research, it is important to challenge the phenomenon of social acceleration, which insidiously imposes a quantitative normativity that is both alienating and detrimental to the quality and ethical conduct of research. Based on our experience, we observe that the social norm of acceleration actively disfavours the conduct of empirical research on ethics in research. The fact is that researchers are so busy that it is almost impossible for them to find time to participate in such studies. Further, operating in highly competitive environments, while trying to respect the values and ethical principles of research, creates ethical paradoxes for members of the research community. According to Malherbe ( 1999 ), an ethical paradox is a situation where an individual is confronted by contradictory injunctions (i.e., do more, faster, and better). And eventually, ethical paradoxes lead individuals to situations of distress and burnout, or even to ethical failures (i.e., misbehaviour or misconduct) in the face of the impossibility of responding to contradictory injunctions.

Strengths and Limitations of the study

The triangulation of perceptions and experiences of different actors involved in research is a strength of our study. While there are many studies on the experiences of researchers, rarely are members of REBs and experts in research ethics given the space to discuss their views of what are ethical issues. Giving each of these stakeholders a voice and comparing their different points of view helped shed a different and complementary light on the ethical issues that occur in research. That said, it would have been helpful to also give more space to issues experienced by students or research assistants, as the relationships between researchers and research assistants are at times very worrying, as noted by a participant, and much work still needs to be done to eliminate the exploitative situations that seem to prevail in certain research settings. In addition, no Indigenous or gender diverse researchers participated in the study. Given the ethical issues and systemic injustices that many people from these groups face in Canada (Drolet & Goulet, 2018 ; Nicole & Drolet, in press ), research that gives voice to these researchers would be relevant and contribute to knowledge development, and hopefully also to change in research culture.

Further, although most of the ethical issues discussed in this article may be transferable to the realities experienced by researchers in other countries, the epistemic injustice reported by Francophone researchers who persist in doing research in French in Canada – which is an officially bilingual country but in practice is predominantly English – is likely specific to the Canadian reality. In addition, and as mentioned above, recruitment proved exceedingly difficult, particularly amongst researchers. Despite this difficulty, we obtained data saturation for all but two themes – i.e., exploitation of students and ethical issues of research that uses animals. It follows that further empirical research is needed to improve our understanding of these specific issues, as they may diverge to some extent from those documented here and will likely vary across countries and academic research contexts.

Conclusions

This study, which gave voice to researchers, REB members, and ethics experts, reveals that the ethical issues in research are related to several problematic elements as power imbalances and authority relations. Researchers and research assistants are subject to external pressures that give rise to integrity issues, among others ethical issues. Moreover, the current context of social acceleration influences the definition of the performance indicators valued in academic institutions and has led their members to face several ethical issues, including social, distributive, and epistemic injustices, at different steps of the research process. In this study, ten categories of ethical issues were identified, described and illustrated: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. The triangulation of the perspectives of different members (i.e., researchers from different disciplines, REB members, research ethics experts, and one research assistant) involved in the research process made it possible to lift the veil on some of these ethical issues. Further, it enabled the identification of additional ethical issues, especially systemic injustices experienced in research. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these injustices (social, distributive, and epistemic injustices) have been clearly identified.

Finally, this study brought to the fore several problematic elements that are important to address if the research community is to develop and implement the solutions needed to resolve the diverse and transversal ethical issues that arise in research institutions. A good starting point is the rejection of the corollary norms of “publish or perish” and “do more, faster, and better” and their replacement with “publish quality instead of quantity”, which necessarily entails “do less, slower, and better”. It is also important to pay more attention to the systemic injustices within which researchers work, because these have the potential to significantly harm the academic careers of many researchers, including women researchers, early career researchers, and those belonging to racialized groups as well as the health, well-being, and respect of students and research participants.

Acknowledgements

The team warmly thanks the participants who took part in the research and who made this study possible. Marie-Josée Drolet thanks the five research assistants who participated in the data collection and analysis: Julie-Claude Leblanc, Élie Beauchemin, Pénéloppe Bernier, Louis-Pierre Côté, and Eugénie Rose-Derouin, all students at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), two of whom were active in the writing of this article. MJ Drolet and Bryn Williams-Jones also acknowledge the financial contribution of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which supported this research through a grant. We would also like to thank the reviewers of this article who helped us improve it, especially by clarifying and refining our ideas.

Competing Interests and Funding

As noted in the Acknowledgements, this research was supported financially by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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GETTING STARTED
Introduction
FUNDAMENTALS
Acknowledgements
Research questions & hypotheses
Concepts, constructs & variables
Research limitations
Getting started
Sampling Strategy
Research Quality
Research Ethics
Data Analysis

Research strategy and research ethics

Research ethics is not a one size fits all approach. The research strategy that you choose to guide your dissertation determines the approach that you should take towards research ethics . Even though all dissertation research at the undergraduate and master's level should adhere to the basic ethical principles of doing good (i.e., beneficence ) and doing no harm (i.e., malfeasance ), this does not mean that the approach you take towards research ethics will be the same as other students. Rather, the approach to research ethics that you adopt in your dissertation should be consistent with your chosen research strategy. Since your research strategy consists of a number of components , the approach you adopt should reflect each of these components.

In our Research Strategy section, we introduce these major components , which include research paradigms , research designs , research methods , sampling strategies and data analysis techniques . Whilst all of these components can have ethical implications for your dissertation, we focus on research designs , a couple of research methods , sampling strategies , and data analysis techniques to illustrate some of the factors you will need to think about when designing and conducting your dissertation, as well as writing up the Research Ethics section of your Research Strategy chapter (typically Chapter Three: Research Strategy ). The impact of each of these components of research strategy on research ethics is discussed in turn:

Research designs and research ethics

Research methods and research ethics.

Sampling strategies and research ethics
Data analysis techniques and research ethics

Each type of research design that you can use to guide your dissertation has unique ethical challenges. These types of research design include quantitative research designs , qualitative research designs and mixed methods research designs . The impact of each of these types of research design on research ethics is discussed in turn:

Quantitative research design

Compared with qualitative research designs, the more structured and well-defined characteristics of quantitative research designs allow researchers to plan much of the research process before it starts. Even during the research process, there tends to be relatively little drift from these plans. From an ethical perspective, this makes it easier to: (a) understand what ethical challenges you may face; (b) plan how to overcome these ethical challenges; and (c) write a more robust Ethics Proposal and/or Ethics Consent Form .

This is the case whether your dissertation involves experimental or non-experimental research. In the case of non-experimental research, this can often mean that instead of having to submit an Ethics Proposal to an Ethics Committee , you may only have to convince your supervisor that you have addressed any potential ethical challenges you expect to face. This will save you time. However, if you are conducting experimental research, especially involving human subjects, there is a greater likelihood that you will need to submit an Ethics Proposal to an Ethics Committee , which can slow down the research process. Despite this, the pre-planned and procedural nature of quantitative research designs does make it easier to understand what ethical challenges you may face, which avoids potential ethical issues arising during the research process that may affect the way you can analyse and present your data.

Qualitative research design

Qualitative research designs tend to be more evolutionary in nature when compared with quantitative research designs. For example, data collected during the research process can influence the choice of research methods in subsequent phases of a qualitative research design. As a result, it is often only during the research process that potential ethical issues that may be faced in the next phase of a research project become clear. This can make it harder to: (a) understand what ethical challenges you may face; (b) plan how to overcome these ethical challenges; and (c) write an Ethics Proposal and/or Ethics Consent Form that are considered robust; at least at the outset of the dissertation process.

If your research involves (a) controversial practices (e.g., covert observation) and/or (b) sensitive groups (e.g., children, marginalised people), where ethics approval may be more challenging, the addition of a qualitative research design, with its uncertainty, may make achieving approval more difficult. However, Ethics Committees are increasingly recognising the evolutionary nature of qualitative research designs and the potential ethical uncertainties they sometimes create. For the most part, you should be able to recognise most of the potential ethical scenarios you may face during the research process and propose in advance how you would overcome these.

Mixed methods research design

If you are using a mixed methods research design, you will need to take into account the ethical challenges inherent in quantitative and qualitative research designs. After all, you will be using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. To some extent, this may put a greater burden on your dissertation, slowing down the research process, especially if you need to conduct a qualitative research phase (e.g., interviews) before you can settle on the appropriate type of quantitative research phase (e.g., experimental or non-experimental).

Whilst quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research designs all present ethical challenges, most are easily overcome. Even when using mixed methods research designs, you should be able to recognise different ethical scenarios ; that is, different ethical issues you would face if using one research method before another, or one research method in conjunction with another. Recognising the basic ethical principles that dissertations should adhere to is a good starting point [see the article: Principles of research ethics ].

The potential ethical issues raised by different research methods not only differ from one type of research method to the next (e.g., surveys versus in-depth interviews), but also the way in which a research method is used (e.g., overt versus covert observation). To illustrate some of the different ethical issues you will face across research methods, we discuss surveys and structured interviews , observation and informal and in-depth interviews . Each of these research methods is discussed in turn:

Surveys and structured interviews

By their very nature, surveys and structured interviews have to be designed before the research process starts. In fact, since these two types of research method typically use closed questions where respondents must choose from pre-defined options, most of the potential answers to questions are known in advance.

From an ethical perspective, this makes it easier to get informed consent from respondents because most aspects of the survey and structured interview process are fairly certain. Before you start the survey or structured interview process, you can clearly explain what you will be asking potential respondents, and even show them the entire research instrument (i.e., survey and interview questions and options) before they start. This can not only help you achieve informed consent , but also ease the mind of the research participant, minimising the potential for distress, which is an important basic principle of research ethics [see the article: Principles of research ethics ].

Observation

Observation, whether overt or covert , faces additional ethical considerations when compared with the use of surveys and structured interviews. Covert observation, where participants are unaware that you are conducting research, raises particular ethical issues. However, even when using overt observation, where those individuals being observed know that they are being watched, there are some specific ethical challenges that you need to overcome. Let's look at overt and covert observation in turn:

Overt observation

Most research that uses observation as a research method will be overt in nature; that this, the research participants will be aware that you are observing them and should know what you are observing. In this sense, it should be possible to obtain informed consent from those individuals that you are observing.

However, this is not always the case. In some instances, access to research participants in an observational setting such as an organisation may have been granted by a gatekeeper ; an individual that has the right to grant access (e.g., a senior manager in an organisation). In such instances, permission may have been granted to carry out your research and participants may be aware what you are doing, but they have not necessarily given you their informed consent . In fact, gatekeepers such as senior managers with organisations may have required employees to take part. As such, participants may not have been given the right to withdraw from your research, which is one of the basic principles of research ethics [see the article: Principles of research ethics ].

Furthermore, even if an individual has been granted the right to withdraw from your research, you will need to think about how can manage this if you are observing a large group interaction (e.g., a meeting) where everyone else in the group has given their informed consent . Whilst we are not suggesting that you cannot continue with such observation, you would need to have thought about the ways that you can separate the data provided by this individual during the observation when analysing and reporting the data.

Covert observation

Covert observation can be viewed as ethically problematic because it is a form of deceptive practice . Not only are respondents not giving you informed consent , but you may also be keeping the observation covert because you feel that respondents would be otherwise unwilling to take part in your research. Whilst 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 research.

Sometimes it is simply impossible to get informed consent from each participant, especially if you are accessing a group through a gatekeeper or are observing people on the move . Furthermore, if you have not been introduced to each person being observed and/or you do not have access to their contact details, it may be difficult to get informed consent later on, as well as get permission to use and/or publish any data you have collected (e.g., quotations, summaries of what was said, specific facts discussed, etc.). This could jeopardise the protection of data and individuals? confidentiality, which is a basic principle of research ethics [see the article: Principles of research ethics ].

Therefore, you will need to provide strong justifications why covert observation is necessary for the success of your dissertation, and why other, less deceptive research methods could not have been used instead.

Informal and in-depth interviews

Compared with structured interviews (and surveys), there is potentially greater uncertainty for research participants when taking part in informal and in-depth interviews. There are a couple of broad reasons for this:

Informal and in-depth interviews cannot be pre-planned in the same way that structured interviews can. Whilst it is possible to know some of the initial questions you may ask research participants at the outset of the interview, the majority of questions asked are likely to arise during the interview process as you learn more about the phenomena you are interested in. This evolutionary characteristic of informal and in-depth interviews makes it more difficult to let potential research participants know what to expect from the interview process. However, since such interview creep is inevitable, you need to be prepared for it. Nonetheless, it should still be possible to get informed consent provided you: (a) let potential research participants know what the research is about; (b) explain how the interview process will develop; that is, that you will ask new questions based on the responses you get from the research participant and as you knowledge of the phenomena you are interested in develops; and (c) reassure potential research participants that they have the right to withdraw at any time from the interview process.

In the case of in-depth interviews, in particular, greater disclosure and self-expression often take place during the interview process. Since in-depth interviews tend to be more personal in nature, you need to be able to address any ethical concerns that research participants may have. For example, greater disclosure may require: (a) a stricter adherence to data protection and participant confidentiality; (b) greater transparency by you, the researcher, when it comes to letting the research participant know how you have interpreted what they have said; and (c) specific permissions from participants to report quotations and other personally identifiable information and/or facts.

Irrespective of the research method that you use, you will need to think about what data you will be recording, how that data is to be stored, and whether research participants know how their data will be used. This is an important part of gaining informed consent.

Responsible Thesis-Writing Process

Information searching
Research data management
Interview and Survey Data

Scientific ethics and research ethics

Research misconduct.

Research notification
Research permission
Business collaboration
Accessibility
Publishing thesis
Save in Osuva
More useful information

Scientific ethics is defined as commitment to the ideals of science: integrity, openness and critical inquiry. Every member of the scientific community, from the student beginning their Bachelor’s thesis to the world famous academic, follows the same rules and guidelines of ethical scientific practice.

The ethics of science is not new, and it is not based on vague, obscure principles. The demands of scientific ethics are these common values: truth, credibility and integrity. As in human society, so in the ethics of science, it is forbidden to steal, lie or cheat.

Ethical ideals have very little meaning unless they are cherished and promoted. Their implementation must be safeguarded, and any infraction must be investigated. In Finland, the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) has drawn up a guide for research ethics called Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland (2012). This guide was created in collaboration with the scientific community, including feedback and comments from several universities.

Research ethics is not primarily about avoiding ethical infractions. Rather, research ethics promotes commitment to procedures and practices that enable a high level of reliability and quality in research.

The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity has divided morally significant violations of the responsible conduct of research into two groups: disregard for the responsible conduct of research and research misconduct. Both violations decrease the reliability of results and may invalidate the research itself. However, violations may vary as regards their degree of severity. The researcher who disregards or is negligent of the principles of responsible research conduct may not have understood that their shortcomings are not only damaging to the quality of their work but are also morally questionable practices. In contrast, research misconduct is an intentional choice, and not accidental or due to negligence.

Violations of research ethics in all disciplines

Plagiarism, misappropriation of research ideas, - materials, or results
Falsification i.e. modifying or distorting research results
Concealing significant results, especially risks
Appropriation of the research to one or only some researchers when others have made significant contributions
Unequal treatment of members of a research group, e.g., in dividing tasks or hiring
Sexual harassment and racism
Morally questionable research subjects, such as eugenics.

Literature review

Plagiarism or improper citation of sources
Disregard of proper citation practices
Quotations taken out of context, misrepresentation of the source text
Falsified sources

Research interviews

Asking leading questions, manipulation or other forms of mistreatment of the interview subjects
Misleading the interview subjects about the purpose of the interview
Distorting the interview responses
Violating the anonymity or confidentiality of the interview subjects
Using or publishing the interviews, recordings or images without the express permission of the parties involved

Medical and biological research

Mistreatment of lab animals
Painful experiments
Unnecessary experiments

Technological and scientific research

Negligent or unprotected tests; experiments carried out without simulations or training, which pose a threat to those conducting the experiment or to outsiders. (Unacceptable risk: dangerous to all)
Experiments which pose a risk to the researcher’s health and safety (e.g., exposure to toxins or radiation, test flights) (High risk: dangerous for researchers or experiment participants).
Unnecessary creation of dangerous products, substance compounds or devices
Releasing inadequately tested products, such as pharmaceutical drugs, to the market
Potentially dangerous or risky applications of research results (e.g., nuclear power, weapons technology)

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Last Updated: Jan 31, 2024 11:56 AM
URL: https://uva.libguides.com/responsible-thesis

Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and complexity of reasoning

Affiliation.

1 Institute of Gerontology, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, PO Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden. [email protected]
PMID: 20605998
DOI: 10.1136/jme.2009.034561

Background: Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations.

Purpose: To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations.

Methods: Analyses of ethical content and complexity of ethical reasoning were performed on 64 Swedish nurses' PhD dissertations dated 2007.

Results: A total of seven ethical topics were identified: ethical approval (94% of the dissertations), information and informed consent (86%), confidentiality (67%), ethical aspects of methods (61%), use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection (14%). Four of those of topics were most frequently addressed: the majority of dissertations (72%) included 3-5 issues. While many ethical concerns, by their nature, involve systematic concepts or metasystematic principles, ethical reasoning scored predominantly at lesser levels of complexity: abstract (6% of the dissertations), formal (84%) and systematic (10%).

Conclusions: Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and implications is insufficient. This is partly due to traditions and norms that discount ethical concerns but is probably also a reflection of the ability of PhD students and supervisors to handle complexity in general. It is suggested that the importance of ethical considerations should be emphasised in graduate and post-graduate studies and that individuals with capacity to deal with systematic and metasystematic concepts are recruited to senior research positions.

Academic Dissertations as Topic*
Confidentiality
Ethics, Research*
Informed Consent
Nursing Research / ethics*
Problem Solving*

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Writing Tips

A Guide to Logistical/Ethical Considerations in Thesis/Dissertation Writing

4-minute read

14th May 2023

Why include a section on logistical/ethical considerations in your thesis/dissertation?

Ethical and logistical considerations are the guidelines that marshal your research practices and activities. With so many necessary steps to planning your dissertation , it may be tempting to dash off your logistical and ethical considerations section. However, don’t make that mistake! Including a thorough section on logistical and ethical considerations in your thesis shows that you have carefully considered your research plan, from the ethical implications of your research findings to the impact of performing the study itself.

And above all else, not providing well-thought-out ethical and logistical considerations in your research plan could derail your entire dissertation and have other grave consequences . But not to worry! Here, we offer a step-by-step guide to writing your logistical and ethical considerations section so that you can tick another essential item off your thesis checklist .

Steps for creating a logistical/ethical considerations section

Clarify your ethical and logistical principles.

Your ethical and logistical principles will depend on many factors, such as research topic, fieldwork, and the possibility of direct interaction with vulnerable populations.

However, several overarching research principles are always helpful to remember. For example, the Belmont Report lists three often invoked principles: respect for persons, beneficence (i.e., maximize potential benefits to research subjects and minimize potential harm), and justice (i.e., people should be treated fairly). However, many other principles exist (and we offer a few other frequently cited principles below that might apply to your research).

If you haven’t done so already, discuss the ramifications of your dissertation work from an ethical standpoint with your adviser, who may bring up concerns that you’ve overlooked. You should also check with your organization’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) to confirm that there are no policies you need to be aware of.

Evaluate each step of your research plan, as well as its potential risks and implications, and plan how you will ensure the ethical treatment of all persons involved.

Now that you have clarified your ethical and logistical principles, go through each stage of your research plan and consider the ethical impact of each step. Come up with a systematic plan to make sure that you’re protecting the ethical standards you’ve laid out for each one of the people affected by your research.

Record your practices thoroughly and carefully during your research.

During the course of your study, keep detailed records of how you made sure the practices that address the ethical and logistical considerations were completed.

For example, if you should be obtaining verbal consent before conducting an interview, maintain a system to record that the consent was received.

Or, if it’s necessary to keep your digital data secure, be sure to make a note of the hardware and software you use. Plenty of online templates can help you keep these details organized.

Write the ethical and logistical considerations section.

If you’ve kept detailed records, writing up your ethical and logistical considerations should be a straightforward process. It’s more common these days to see a section devoted to research ethics in dissertation structures .

Once again, check with your adviser to make sure you follow the proper protocol when you add your section on ethical and logistical considerations to your dissertation.

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Potential ethical and logistical considerations

This is not a comprehensive list, but here are a few more common ethical and logistical considerations that may apply to your research work:

● Informed consent : Participants should be able to voluntarily join the study and know what the study is about and what the implications of the work are.

● Anonymity, confidentiality, and data protection : Participants should have a reasonable expectation that their confidential data will remain private.

● Nondiscrimination : You should avoid discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or any other factor.

● Social responsibility : Research should contribute to the common good.

Following the four steps outlined in this post will help you write an ethical and logistical considerations section in your dissertation:

1. Define your principles

2. Evaluate the risks and implications of each stage of your research

3. Record your practices carefully

4. Write up your considerations in the appropriate format for the dissertation.

Although ethical considerations vary from study to study, our guide should get you through another step in writing your thesis! Remember to include enough time for editing and proofreading your dissertation , and if you’re interested in some help from us, you can try a sample of our services for free . Good luck writing your dissertation!

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Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Published on 7 May 2022 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 behaviours, 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

Why do research ethics matter, getting ethical approval for your study, types of ethical issues, voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, potential for harm, results communication, examples of ethical failures, frequently asked questions about research ethics.

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.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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 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 anonymise 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 pseudonymisation 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.

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.

Some research designs aren’t conducive to confidentiality, but it’s important to make all attempts and inform participants of the risks involved.

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, counselling, or medical services if needed.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

These experiments were inhumane and resulted in trauma, permanent disabilities, or death in many cases.

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.

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.

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.

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. These principles include voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, potential for harm, and results communication.

Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from others .

These considerations protect the rights of research participants, enhance research validity , and maintain scientific integrity.

Anonymity means you don’t know who the participants are, while confidentiality means you know who they are but remove identifying information from your research report. Both are important ethical considerations .

You can keep data confidential by using aggregate information in your research report, so that you only refer to groups of participants rather than individuals.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement but a serious ethical failure.

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Research Ethics

York University is committed to the highest standards of integrity in research. All projects involving the use of Human Subjects , Animals and Biohazardous Materials are subject to review by the appropriate University committee. York University has formulated policies for the conduct of research involving all three of these areas. It is the policy of the University that researchers conducting research involving human subjects , animals and/or biohazardous agents must obtain approval of their research from the relevant ethics committee prior to commencing research activities.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies is governed by the Senate Policy on Research Involving Human Participants . The Senate Policy states that all University-based research involving human participants, whether funded or non-funded, faculty or student, scholarly, commercial or consultative, is subject to the ethics review process.

Graduate students undertaking research for graduate courses, major research papers, theses, or dissertations involving human participants are required to follow the appropriate procedures and obtain ethics approval before conducting research activities . Students also must maintain active registration status while conducting the approved research. The information below outlines the ethics protocols and procedures for each category of research.

Theses, Dissertations and Pilot Projects
Graduate Courses and Major Research Papers (MRPs)

Please carefully review the procedures that are relevant to your project, and ensure that you complete and submit all of the required documents along with your research proposal to your graduate program. Incomplete or illegible protocols will be returned to the student, which will delay the process. If you have further questions about research ethics review processes, consult Decision Chart- Full Board and Delegated Ethics Review Processes .

Graduate Student Risk Assessment

The Graduate Student Risk Assessment Guidelines of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) serve to assist graduate students in identifying appropriate health and safety considerations and preventative efforts prior to departing for field activities. In concert with the Graduate Student Risk Assessment Form, Undertaking, Release and Checklist , graduate students should review these guidelines with their faculty supervisor. Assessing risk is a critical step in determining necessary hazard controls and other mitigation required for specific research activities.

Please visit Graduate Student Risk Assessment for more information including applicable forms.

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Theses, Dissertations and Pilot Projects Involving Human Participants

Graduate students conducting research for the purposes of completing a graduate thesis or dissertation are subject to review by a delegated ethics review committee comprised of the Associate Dean(s), Research, Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Chair/Vice-Chair HPRC. Where delegated reviewers decide that a protocol should not be approved, the protocol will be referred to the HPRC for full board review.

All graduate student researchers must complete the TCPS tutorial to establish that they have completed the necessary education component and attach their certificate of completion to their protocols. Protocols will not be accepted for review unless a valid TCPS tutorial certificate is attached.

When is Ethics Review Required

All research involving human participants is considered research subject to review. The Principal Investigator (researcher) of any research project involving human participants:

MUST have a protocol that describes how the researcher(s) will interact with the human participants; and
MUST have that protocol reviewed and approved by the appropriate Research Ethics Committee before the research commences; and
MUST obtain informed consent from ALL research participants. For minor-age participants (Those under the age of 16 for minimal-risk research), both parental consent and participant assent are required.

NOTE: Failure to obtain ethics approval prior to the commencement of Research Activities is considered both a breach of Senate Policy as well as research misconduct. All such instances of non-compliance will be addressed by the appropriate institutional office. NOTE: Graduate students must be registered as active in a graduate program while conducting approved research with human participants, animals, and/or biological agents. Graduate students on leave or who have withdrawn from their graduate program with an approved research protocol on record may not conduct/continue to conduct any research with human participants, animals, and/or biological agents, until such time that their student registration status becomes active.

With an ‘inactive’ registration status, please note that your approved protocol will be marked as suspended by the Office of Research Ethics. When you are ready to return to your studies, students must petition to reinstate, and must contact the Office of Research Ethics at [email protected] , citing their protocol number, and inquire as to whether they need to reapply (if leave has been longer than a year) or if the pause can be lifted.

Graduate students are not permitted to conduct any research with human participants, animals and/or biological agents without an approved proposal by their programs and FGS and an approved ethics protocol.

Research Ethics Review and Approval: Forms and Processes

If the research is minimum risk*: – Form TD1: Thesis/Dissertation Research Proposal – Thesis/Dissertation Proposal – Form TD2: Research Ethics Protocol Form for Graduate Student Thesis, Dissertation, or Pilot Project – Informed consent and other relevant documents described in TD2 checklist – TCPS Tutorial Certificate (*Must complete the CORE 2022 certificate released in 2022)
If the research involves Aboriginal/Indigenous Peoples; clinical trials; or research that is more than minimum risk: – Form TD1: Thesis/Dissertation Research Proposal – Thesis/Dissertation Proposal – Human Participant Research Committee (HPRC) form – Informed consent and other relevant documents described in HPRC form – TCPS Tutorial Certificate (*Must complete the CORE 2022 certificate released in 2022)
If the research is conducted as part of or a subset of a faculty member’s approved research project: – Form TD1: Thesis/Dissertation Research Proposal – Thesis/Dissertation Proposal – Form TD4: Statement of Relationship Between Proposal and an Existing HPRC-Approved Project – HPRC Approval Certificate for faculty’s research project – TCPS Tutorial Certificate (*Must complete the CORE 2022 certificate released in 2022)
If the research that is based on secondary data analysis: – Form TD1: Thesis/Dissertation Research Proposal – Thesis/Dissertation Proposal – Form TD2: Research Ethics Protocol Form for Graduate Student Thesis, Dissertation, or Pilot Project – Informed consent and other relevant documents described in TD2 checklist (if applicable) – TCPS Tutorial Certificate (*Must complete the CORE 2022 certificate released in 2022)

*For the purposes of Research Ethics Review, “minimal risk” research is defined by the TCPS as research in which the probability and magnitude of possible harms implied by participation in the research is no greater than those encountered by participants in those aspects of their everyday life that relate to the research.

*If your research involves an in-person method, please review required documents and steps .

NOTE: If the proposed research poses an elevated risk to yourself as the researcher requiring further health and safety considerations, you must consult the Graduate Student Risk Assessment Guidelines and complete the Graduate Student Risk Assessment Form .

A pilot project is defined as preliminary research that is necessary in order to be able to write the thesis or dissertation proposal. Pilot projects must still include a description of research procedures and sample research instruments (e.g., survey or interview questions). Please submit TD2 form and informed consent documents .
Secondary Data Analysis is described as the analysis of data involving human participants collected for a purpose other than that for which it was originally collected in order to pursue a research interest which is distinct from that of the original work.
The HPRC uses the definition of minimal risk as outlined in the SSHRC/NSERC/CIHR Tri-Council Policy Statement: “Ethical Conduct for Research involving Humans” (December 2014): “‘minimal risk’ research is defined as research in which the probability and magnitude of possible harms implied by participation in the research is no greater than those encountered by participants in those aspects of their everyday life that relate to the research” (Article 2.8B). An expanded version of this definition is available from the Office of Research Ethics upon request.
your research will be conducted on Aboriginal land (Canada; international);
recruitment criteria will include Aboriginal identity as either a factor for the entire study or for a subgroup of the study;
your research will seek input from participants regarding an Aboriginal community’s cultural heritage, artefacts or traditional knowledge;
aboriginal identity or membership in an aboriginal community will be used as a variable for the purpose of analysis of the research data; or
interpretation of research results will refer to Aboriginal communities, peoples, language, history or culture. Note: Literary criticism and/or history (excluding oral history) and/or primarily textual activities are not applicable.
To access the HPRC form, please visit HPRC form

All research involving human participants for graduate courses and Graduate Major Research Papers (MRPs) that is non-funded, minimal-risk, does not involve Aboriginal peoples or a clinical trial must be reviewed by the relevant unit level Delegated Ethics Review Committee. Research subject to review includes, but is not limited to: surveys, questionnaires, interviews, participant observation and secondary data analysis.

NOTE: Research conducted for a course or Major Research Paper (MRP) that is more than minimal risk and /or involves Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples and/or involves clinical trials must be reviewed by the Human Participants Review Committee (HPRC). For these types of research, students are required to complete the HPRC form and submit it to the HPRC for review. Please contact the Office of Research Ethics for more information ( [email protected] )

For more information on ethics review requirements for graduate and undergraduate course-related research and MRPs, please go to, “Ethics Review Requirements" for Course-Related Research by Students.

When Is Ethics Review Required?

All research involving human participants is considered research subject to review . The Principal Investigator (researcher) of any research project involving human participants:

MUST obtain informed consent from ALL research participants. For minor age participants (those under the age of 16 for minimal risk research), both parental consent and participant assent is required.

What Forms Do I Use and Where Do I Submit Them?

A. If you are a Graduate or Undergraduate Course Instructor:

If the students in your graduate or undergraduate course are conducting research involving human participants as part of a course assignment, the research is minimal risk and does NOT involve Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples, and all students in the class are conducting the same or similar research, then proceed as follows:

Complete the Generic Protocol: Course Related Research Involving Human Participants
Review the “ Course Director Responsibilities ” document
Submit the completed Protocol Package ( Protocol form, Consent document(s) and other relevant documents ) (such as survey tools, questionnaires, recruitment materials etc) to the relevant Unit level Delegated E thics Review Committee

B. If you are an Undergraduate Student:

If you are conducting research involving human participants , as part of an undergraduate course assignment, or as an individual project (either for the class or for an undergraduate thesis), then proceed as follows:

Complete the Individualized Protocol: Course Related Research Involving Human Participants ;
Review the “ Student Researcher Responsibilities ” document
Submit the completed Protocol Package ( Protocol form, Consent document(s), your completed TCPS tutorial certificate and other relevant documents ) (such as survey tools, questionnaires, recruitment materials etc) to the relevant Unit level Delegated Ethics Review Committee for review and approval.

C. If you are a Graduate Student:

If you are conducting research involving human participants , as part of a graduate course assignment , and the research is minimal risk and does NOT involve Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples, then proceed as follows:
Complete the Individualized Protocol: Course Related Research Involving Human Participants;
Submit the completed Protocol Package ( Protocol form, Consent document(s), your completed TCPS tutorial certificate and other relevant documents ) (such as survey tools, questionnaires, recruitment materials etc) to the relevant Unit level Delegated Ethics Review Committee .

2. If you are conducting research involving human participants, in support of a Major Research Paper and the research is minimal risk and does NOT involve Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples, then proceed as follows:

Complete the MRP Protocol: Research Involving Human Participants ;
Review the “ Student Researcher Responsibilities ” document;
Submit the MRP protocol package ( Protocol form, Consent document(s), your completed TCPS tutorial certificate and other relevant documents ) (such as survey tools, questionnaires, recruitment materials etc) to your Supervisory/Advisory Committee for approval and signature;
Submit the signed MRP Protocol package the relevant Unit level Delegated Ethics Review Committee for review and approval.

D. Graduate Program Directors:

Annually, each Graduate Program will compile the following information for the period from June 1st to May 31 st and submit it to the Faculty of Graduate Studies:

A listing of all courses in which research was conducted involving human participants
A listing of the titles of MRPs involving human participants and the names of students who undertook the MRPs
Information about the Unit level Delegated Ethics Review Committee, including the Chair, review members and administrative contact

Further information about the Delegated Ethics Review Committees (Composition, responsibilities, reporting requirements and forms) are available at the Office of Research Ethics website .

For more information, please consult the following sources:

Research Ethics Policies & Guidelines, Office of Research Ethics
SSHRC/NSERC/CIHR Tri-Council Policy Statement Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
TCPS Tutorial
HPRC protocol * This form is to be used ONLY by those students who are conducting research involving Aboriginal/Indigenous Peoples; clinical trials; and/or research that is more than minimum risk:
Amendment Request Form Graduate Student—Thesis or Dissertation
Renewal Request Form Graduate Student—Thesis or Dissertation

Faculty of Graduate Studies: Research Officer by visiting our FGS Staff Directory .

Office of Research Ethics: [email protected] ORE will host virtual office hours (via Zoom) for students and faculty members who have questions about ethics applications for research involving human participants. Their virtual office hours will be every Wednesday between 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM . No appointment is necessary. Zoom: Join the Meeting Meeting ID: 966 4558 9774

Connect with FGS

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Example Documents

Each project is different and so the documentation required for different projects is different too. Below you will find some examples of study documentation, which you may use as a guide when producing your own.

General Tips

Use simple words and sentences.
Ensure the information is easy to follow - consider how you format the text and whether to use flowcharts/diagrams.
Ask rather than demand.
Avoid using jargon.
Use the active (not passive) voice, e.g. 'We invite you...' instead of 'You are invited to...'
Tailor your material to the audience, e.g. consent forms for preschool children will be different to those for young adults.
For guidance on writing a good lay summary, see VoiceNorth's short video: Bitesize Training - How to Write a Good Lay Summar y.

Ethics Application Forms

At Newcastle University, researchers must complete an ethics application form, before any research commences, either by:

completing the University Online Ethics Form or
by completing the HRA IRAS form (if NHS/HSC Research Ethics Committee approval required)*

*Note, if you are unsure whether your study requires NHS/HSC REC approval, you should complete the University Online Ethics Form first, which will notify you accordingly if NHS/HSC REC approval is needed.

Ethics application forms will ask the researcher for key information about the research project, including:

Principal Investigator contact details
Project description
Proposed project start and end dates
Details of the risks associated with the research
Proposed measures to prevent/minimise the risks
Additional details, as applicable

The information provided should be written for a lay audience, and supporting documentation should be attached with the application form (e.g. information sheets, consent forms, data management plans and other relevant research materials, including for example research questionnaires, recruitment materials).

Below are examples of ethics application forms:

1. Example Ethics Form - Cyber Bullying [PDF: 122KB]

2. Example Ethics Form - Student Project [WORD: 50KB]

3. Example Ethics Form - Food & Nutrition [PDF: 496KB]

4. Example Ethics Form - Sexual Health [PDF: 201KB]

Participant Information Sheets (PIS)

The Participant Information Sheet (PIS) provides participants with sufficient information about the research study to allow them to make an appropriate (fully informed) decision about taking part. For further information, please see the Human Participation - Informing Participants section.

‌ Example Information Sheet

Consent Forms

On receiving the information about the research study (typically through a Participant Information Sheet), the participant should be allowed time to consider whether or not to take part. If they wish to take part, typically participants will sign a Consent Form. For further information, please refer to the section on Human Participation - Acquiring Voluntary Consent and the University's Informed Consent Guidelines .

The University has also developed an Example Consent Form that can be downloaded and adapted to the research project.

Data Management Plans

A research data management plan outlines how a researcher will collect, use and store data, during and after the research study. For further information, please see the Data - Governance considerations for research data .

DMPOnline provides access to example Data Management Plans. The online tool can also be used to develop Data Management Plans that meet different funder requirements.

Further guidance is available through the University's Research Data Service (RDS) .

Privacy Notice

A Privacy Notice sets out how personal information will be processed in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Participants in a research project should be provided with a Privacy Notice alongside a Participant Information Sheet (PIS), and have the opportunity to ask questions before they sign a Consent Form .

To support researchers, the University has created a template form that can be downloaded and adapted to the project:

Template Privacy Notice for research

If you wish to recommend any changes to the information above, or have any example documents that may help other researchers, please contact [email protected] .

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COMMENTS

Ethical Considerations in Research
Revised on June 22, 2023. 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 ...
Step 6: Issues of research ethics for your dissertation
CONSIDERATION #1 Your dissertation and university ethics guidelines. Whilst ethical requirements in research can vary across countries, there are a number of basic principles of research ethics that you will be expected to follow. Broadly speaking, your dissertation research should not only aim to do good (i.e., beneficence), but also avoid doing any harm (i.e., non-malfeasance).
Principles of research ethics
Principles of research ethics. There 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 ...
Ethical Issues in Research
Definition. Ethics is a set of standards, a code, or value system, worked out from human reason and experience, by which free human actions are determined as ultimately right or wrong, good, or evil. If acting agrees with these standards, it is ethical, otherwise unethical. Scientific research refers to a persistent exercise towards producing ...
Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and
quality and depth of the research ethics section is essential to examine whether a researcher has acquired necessary skills to reflect and report on ethics. Despite an increasing interest in research ethics, surprisingly little is known about the quality of research ethics in dissertations, particularly in nursing research. Research on written ...
How to take account of research ethics in your dissertation
When considering the research ethics in your dissertation, you need to think about: (a) the five basic ethical principles you need to take into account; and (b) how research ethics are influenced by your chosen research strategy. In addition, we set out some of the components that you will need to consider when writing an Ethics Consent Form ...
Ethics and Integrity in Research
One of my earliest experiences of seeking cross-disciplinary consensus on research ethics was for the RESPECT project funded by the European Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) which drew up professional and ethical guidelines for the conduct of what was classed as "socio-economic" research but which, in essence, covered the whole range of ...
Dissertations 4: Methodology: Ethics
Research Ethics. In the research context, ethics can be defined as "the standards of behaviour that guide your conduct in relation to the rights of those who become the subject of your work, or are affected by it" (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill 2015, p239). The University itself is guided by the fundamental principle that research involving ...
Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and complexity of
The quality and depth of the research ethics section is essential to examine whether a researcher has acquired necessary skills to reﬂect and report on ethics. Despite an increasing interest in research ethics, surprisingly little is known about the quality of research ethics in dissertations, particularly in nursing research.
Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and complexity of
Background Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations. Purpose To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations. Methods Analyses of ethical content ...
Ethical Issues in Research: Perceptions of Researchers, Research Ethics
Introduction. Research includes a set of activities in which researchers use various structured methods to contribute to the development of knowledge, whether this knowledge is theoretical, fundamental, or applied (Drolet & Ruest, accepted).University research is carried out in a highly competitive environment that is characterized by ever-increasing demands (i.e., on time, productivity ...
Ethical Dilemmas in Qualitative Research: A Critical Literature Review
To discuss the challenges faced by qualitative researchers in research ethics boards: Case studies—projects submitted to ethics boards: Research ethics boards review process may threaten core foundational principles. It is necessary a proportionate representation of qualitative researchers on research ethics boards: McMurphy et al. Canada ...
Research strategy and research ethics
The research strategy that you choose to guide your dissertation determines the approach that you should take towards research ethics. Even though all dissertation research at the undergraduate and master's level should adhere to the basic ethical principles of doing good (i.e., beneficence) and doing no harm (i.e., malfeasance ), this does not ...
Research ethics in dissertations: Ethical issues and complexity of
Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and ...
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Scientific ethics and research ethics Scientific ethics is defined as commitment to the ideals of science: integrity, openness and critical inquiry. Every member of the scientific community, from the student beginning their Bachelor's thesis to the world famous academic, follows the same rules and guidelines of ethical scientific practice.
PDF Five principles for research ethics
The code also says psychologists should make reasonable efforts to avoid offering "excessive or inappropriate financial or other inducements for research participation when such inducements are likely to coerce participation." 4. Respect confidentiality and privacy.
Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and ...
Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and implications is insufficient. This is partly due to traditions and norms that discount ethical concerns but i …
Research ethics in dissertations: Ethical issues and complexity of
Background: Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations. Purpose: To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations. Methods: Analyses of ethical ...
A Guide to Logistical/Ethical Considerations in Thesis/Dissertation
1. Define your principles. 2. Evaluate the risks and implications of each stage of your research. 3. Record your practices carefully. 4. Write up your considerations in the appropriate format for the dissertation. Although ethical considerations vary from study to study, our guide should get you through another step in writing your thesis!
Ethical Considerations in Research
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 ...
What Is Ethics in Research and Why Is It Important?
Education in research ethics is can help people get a better understanding of ethical standards, policies, and issues and improve ethical judgment and decision making. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simply do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For ...
Research Ethics
Theses, Dissertations and Pilot Projects Involving Human Participants. Graduate students conducting research for the purposes of completing a graduate thesis or dissertation are subject to review by a delegated ethics review committee comprised of the Associate Dean(s), Research, Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Chair/Vice-Chair HPRC.
Example Documents
At Newcastle University, researchers must complete an ethics application form, before any research commences, either by: completing the University Online Ethics Form or; by completing the HRA IRAS form (if NHS/HSC Research Ethics Committee approval required)* *Note, if you are unsure whether your study requires NHS/HSC REC approval, you should complete the University Online Ethics Form first ...

Ethics and Integrity in Research

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Research ethics in dissertations: ethical issues and complexity of reasoning

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Design and methodological approaches

Data collection

Data analysis

Research ethics issues in dissertations

Ethics approval

Information and informed consent

Confidentiality

Ethical aspect of the methods

Use of ethical principles and regulations

Rationale for the study

Fair participant selection

Design of the research ethics section

Complexity of reasoning

Comparing content and complexity

Acknowledgments

Supplementary materials

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Ethical Issues in Research: Perceptions of Researchers, Research Ethics Board Members and Research Ethics Experts

Eugénie Rose-Derouin

Julie-Claude Leblanc

Introduction

Research Methods

Ethical considerations

Sampling and recruitment

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Participants

Ethical issues

Research Integrity

Conflict of interest

Respect for research participants

Lack of Supervision and Power Imbalances

Individualism and performance

Inadequate ethical Guidance

Social Injustices

Distributive Injustices

Epistemic injustices

Ethical distress

Returning to the research question and objective

Contemporary culture characterized by the social acceleration

Strengths and Limitations of the study

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Competing Interests and Funding

Research strategy and research ethics

Research designs and research ethics

Quantitative research design

Qualitative research design

Mixed methods research design

Surveys and structured interviews

Observation

Overt observation

Covert observation

Informal and in-depth interviews

Responsible Thesis-Writing Process

Scientific ethics and research ethics

Violations of research ethics in all disciplines

Literature review

Research interviews

Medical and biological research