Turning Ideas into Research. Barbara Fawcett
was also a participant, answering the interview questions herself and subjecting them to the same discursive analysis. In keeping with one of the principles of critical reflection and discursive analysis, artificial binary or dichotomous positions that become entrenched in subjective understandings of the realities of practice were broken down. Researcher and participants equally contributed to the ‘co-construction’ of knowledge. Morley concluded that this approach challenged the dominant view of what constitutes ethical research and in so doing was an enabling and emancipatory process for the participants through the shared, reconstructed discourses about their practice.
As seen in previous chapters, similar tensions exist in Indigenous research. Whilst external and objective ethical considerations are in place to prevent exploitative research processes, the relationships between Indigenous researchers and Indigenous knowledge cannot be subjected to what Bessarab (2013: 73) calls ‘a colonizing, Western Enlightenment worldview’. She calls for the embedding of Indigenous epistemology in both practice supervision and research relationships. Australian Indigenous research contextualizes knowledge systems and ways of knowing through ‘yarning’, described by Bessarab and Ng’andu (2010) as ‘a culturally safe way of engaging in conversation with Aboriginal people’, and cultural supervision would be a key part of the relationship.
Even if the epistemological position of the researcher and the research draws on participatory approaches, this relationship with knowledge, that is, the co-production of knowledge through the research endeavour, is not automatically emancipatory. Drawing on extensive international work with refugee groups and internally displaced persons, Pittaway et al. (2010) and Hugman et al. (2011) critically examine the efficacy of such research approaches, the constraints and realities of work in the field, and the challenging organizational ethics processes. Their work suggests a new theorization of these relationships based on the work of human rights advocates, anti-oppressive social work approaches, a renewed emphasis on human agency and the privileging of reciprocity of benefit, with researchers being required to articulate clear and tangible benefits and outcomes for the groups participating in the research.
The ethical considerations here are clear and shift the emphasis and meaning of ‘benefit’ from that of an undeserved reward to explicit outcomes that lead to improvements and changes in oppressive social relationships. The challenge for research ethics committees is to ensure that they are open to these changes, ensuring that they assess whether researching is being undertaken ethically rather than to a prescriptive ethics formula. This may mean broadening understandings of the positioning of the researcher in the research; different ways of knowing and the co-construction of the entire research endeavour by both researcher and participants, including the development of the research questions; the theorization of knowledge; the research design and method; and the co-production of meaning and new knowledge.
Ethics, research and trustworthiness
In considering trustworthiness, the nature of trust itself requires examination. Beauchamp and Childress (2001: 34) define trust as ‘the confident belief in and reliance upon the moral character and competence of another person. Trust entails a confidence that another will act with the right motives and in accordance with appropriate moral norms.’ Once again we can see the interplay of morality and ethical positioning in debates regarding the trustworthiness of research studies and their outcomes. We will discuss this in more detail in Chapter 8 when we look at the constructive appraisal of research and consider wider understandings of trustworthiness that include technical aspects that demonstrate trustworthiness in research orientations. Foreshadowing this, we can see that the nature of reality itself becomes the contextual arena within which research orientations are located. In scientifically orientated positivist orientations Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggested that the nature of reality is understood either as a single entity made up of observable parts and understood as one truth, or with naturalistic orientations where reality is multiple, constructed by context and meaning, and understood as an individual interpretation of experience. When these differences were being teased out, the place of values was also differentiated; however, some thirty years later, post-positivist research also needs to consider the value stance of research inquiry. Thus trustworthiness consists of more than a list of measurable criteria for methodology and research design.
Understanding research ethics committees
Having explored the theoretical, historical and contextual dimensions of ethical decision-making, we can now turn in more detail to research ethics and the governance structures that have been developed to support, review and implement ethical approaches to research.
Research ethics has developed as a subset of wider ethical discourses that help us determine what are considered to be the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of doing things. They are based on values and beliefs that are held in high esteem and are aspirational to a society, a culture, groups and individuals. Most researchers and those thinking about undertaking research are aware of the societal expectation that research must be undertaken in an ethical way, and an important part of the research process is seeking approval from a research ethics committee. Many researchers, however, experience this process as yet another ‘hoop’ to jump through or even an obstacle to be overcome in their research programme.
Institutions such as universities, health services, government bodies and non-government agencies auspice and mandate research ethics committees to oversee the ethical integrity of research studies for which they are responsible. These committees usually operate within overarching national or state-based legislation and policy frameworks that adhere to and accept universally accepted codes for the ethical conduct of research. As previously discussed, they emerged in the 1960s in most countries in the developed world following international developments on the ethical conduct of research. Their main objectives are to review, approve and monitor research projects and investigations to ensure the integrity of the research and the welfare, safety and rights of those participating in it. They have powers to reject, sanction and terminate research activities that do not meet ethical standards.
These bodies are known by various names in different countries: some of the more common names are ‘institutional review boards’ (USA), ‘research ethics boards’ (Canada), ‘research ethics committees’ (UK), ‘human subject ethics committees’ and ‘human research ethics committees’ (Australia).
Research ethics committees usually have representatives from a broad cross-section of constituencies including biomedical sciences, physical sciences, humanities and social sciences, theological and consumer backgrounds. Research activity must be expressed in lay language and be able to be understood and assessed by members of the community as well as technical experts from the field who will determine its scientific and academic merit. Committees review research proposals in detail, and research can only proceed once their approval is obtained. When a study is completed, researchers wishing to publish their research in refereed journals or books are required to provide details of the ethics committee review and approval to editors.
With the emergence of these committees, predominantly in the mid-1960s, the criteria for review of research proposals was exclusively located within a scientifically orientated positivist research paradigm. The nature of reality was fixed, single and tangible. Research quality was measured by the adherence to methodology that measured elements, and quantified and proved causal relationships between identified variables located in a research hypothesis. Research studies could be trusted if they clearly demonstrated internal and external validity, reliability and objectivity. The researcher was independent of the research subjects. Research was done ‘on’ and ‘to’ subjects. Data and analysis were formulaic and context-free. The research was considered to be objective and value-free. Conclusions and results could be generalized and knowledge creation was linear, supporting one singular notion of truth and reality.
More recently, research ethics committees aim to ensure that relationships between researchers and those involved in the research process recognize and address implicit and explicit ethical relationships that may lead to the researchers and participants being unequal members of the research inquiry. This is particularly the case for groups that may be vulnerable