Turning Ideas into Research. Barbara Fawcett
of the Health Research Council of New Zealand (2008); in Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement Guidelines on research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and the Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2012); and in Canada, a tri-council statement of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2010). These guidelines have been developed with and by Indigenous and non-Indigenous members, but are still considered by many Indigenous leaders as conforming to a white, Western, post-colonial paradigm (Bessarab and Ng’andu, 2010; Bessarab, 2013).
Although the governance structures of research authorities vary across countries, governments, universities, agencies and so on, there are some common elements of ethics applications that can be linked back to the ethical stance or approach that primarily informs them. In Table 3.1 we have identified some of these common elements with reference to the principles-based approach discussed in the earlier part of this chapter. Drilling down into each section, the four principles are clearly evident in the intention of each section.
Finally, ethics applications usually include questions about particular relationships between researchers and participants that may be considered unequal, and often list specific groups. Some relationships that may fall into this category are:
Teachers and students
Employers and employees
Children
Those in dependent relationships with government authorities, such as wards of the state and those under guardianship or care orders
Prisoners
Refugees and asylum seekers
Members of the armed services
Those with mental health issues
Those with intellectual or developmental issues
Patients and health care providers
Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples
The intention of these questions is to clearly recognize that unequal relationships can exist between the researcher and those being researched. Research applicants who tick any of these categories on the application form need to satisfy the ethics reviewers that their research does not exploit or disempower these participants. The moral basis of such questions, their intention and possible outcomes are discussed later in the chapter.
In a few final words on ethics committees, we need to acknowledge the current reality for many such committees and the researchers who interact with them. The demands on institutional research ethics committees to review increasing numbers of research ethics applications each year, combined with the growing complexities of contemporary research approaches, have led to many of those involved in the process considering the possibilities of alternative methods of assessment and review. Whilst the established approaches have merit in the achievement of the ethical imperatives of these committees, without discretion they can at times be seen as prescriptive and counter-productive in terms of the spirit and intention of new research initiatives and more ‘political’ orthodoxies. Rather than considering the ethical merits of the study, there are, on occasion, elements of risk management and political pragmatism that may influence the levels of approval for some types of research. To many researchers the process of obtaining research ethics approval seems more a bureaucratic process than one about ethics. Conversely, for those who are members of research ethics committees, often reviewing underdeveloped and ill-thought-out applications, the process is a continual reminder of the need to uphold ethical principles and practices that are often poorly understood by researchers.
Table 3.1 Principles-based approach underpinning research ethics applicati
Concluding remarks
The process of thinking about a project from an ethical perspective is a fundamental activity that is integral to all research inquiry and not supplementary to it. Beginning from the accepted view that all research should be conducted ethically, we have briefly looked at the theoretical, historical and contextual positioning of ethical decision-making as a moral pursuit. We have examined contemporary understandings and perspectives, including the opportunities and constraints of formalized research ethics processes. In considering these ideas, we have undertaken a review of the developments in social research more generally; suffice to say that whilst these models are important for new researchers to understand, it is of equal importance to acknowledge that there can no longer be seen to be an absolute dichotomy between quantitative and qualitative methodologies or positivistically orientated and naturalistic paradigms. Critical theory, for example, has a place in post-positivism where mixed methods may be used and where forms of objectivity are still pursued, however qualified by the epistemological position of the researcher. These ideas will be explored in later chapters.
Inclusivity has been explored as a feature of contemporary approaches that challenge more privileged perspectives of the relationships between researchers, participants and epistemological positions. It is also suggested as a way forward in research ethics to counter well-intentioned but oppressively constructed research that may perpetuate systemic problems that the research is aiming to eliminate and the entrenched conceptualization of knowledge frames, towards a more emancipatory view.
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