Scenarios for teaching research ethics
A good way to teach research ethics is to ask your students to discuss scenarios and try to work out the most ethical course of action. Here are some scenarios you can use.
SCENARIO A
You are doing an evaluation of a horticultural therapy project for people with mental health problems. You have received formal ethical approval for your study design. You are collecting data through observation and interviews, and you plan to maintain the anonymity and confidentiality of your participants. In the middle of your data collection, your participants tell you they don't want to be anonymous in your research. They think their participation is important and they want their contributions to be acknowledged. The staff at the project support them in this, telling you they think it would be good for the participants' self-esteem because they could show other people they took part in worthwhile research. What do you do?
SCENARIO B
You are researching people's experiences of medical treatment in a local hospital accident and emergency department for your Masters' degree dissertation or thesis. There is a triage system in place which is intended to prioritise patients for treatment solely on the basis of the severity of their symptoms. The hospital has a well-written equal opportunities policy which you have quoted in your literature review. However, you are surprised when your data analysis reveals that in this department white patients are treated, on average, 10% faster than patients of colour. Also, white men are treated 18% faster than women of colour. What are the ethical implications of these findings? How would you address the ethical issues raised?
SCENARIO C
You and a colleague are working on an evaluation of a community centre. The evaluation has been commissioned by the local council. The community centre is not well used and is losing money. The council has to make up the shortfall and, while they haven't said so, you suspect they want evidence to support the centre's closure. You can see that the centre has considerable potential as a local resource. However, the evidence you have gathered from questionnaires and interviews shows that most local people are not interested in using the centre. During data analysis, you realise that your colleague is massaging the findings to make them look more positive. You question this, and your colleague breaks down in tears, saying that a family member has a job at the centre and they can't manage without that income. What do you do?
SCENARIO D
You have been doing research in a school for children aged 5-11, studying how best to help pupils cope with the transition from one class teacher to another. You have collected data from children, teachers, and family members. Your findings show that a number of changes are necessary, particularly for children with extra support needs, who have the most difficulty coping with these transitions. You have also found that one teacher is deeply unpopular with children and families. The head teacher regularly expresses confidence in your work, but she doesn't know much about research, and is very busy and difficult to contact. She has asked you to present your findings to her and the school community at a special assembly for all the children, teachers, and governors. Family members have also been invited. What ethical dilemmas does this raise? How would you address them?
SCENARIO E
The Government pays you to do an evaluation of a pilot project to help people who finish custodial sentences. At the initial meeting with the project manager, you establish that the evaluation report will be sent to all prisons in the country, and disseminated online for prisons in other countries, to help them if they want to set up a similar project. The evidence you assemble shows that the project reduces reoffending and is cost-effective. However, your research also shows that there is still room for improvement. You write twelve carefully worded recommendations which are firmly rooted in the data. Nine are unequivocally positive and three offer specific and implementable suggestions for improvement, designed to reduce reoffending further and increase cost-effectiveness. The project manager is very upset, taking the suggestions for improvement as criticism of his work. He says if you do not remove those three recommendations, he will not disseminate the report. What do you do?
SCENARIO F
You live in the housing estate where you were born, among a close-knit community. Research is unpopular there: people don't see the point of answering the questions of strangers when nothing ever seems to change or improve for the community as a result. However, in the course of your work, you have had to do some research, so you have developed an understanding of what the point might be. Two new researchers come to your community and tell people they want to do participatory research with community members to investigate ways in which research could be made more user-friendly for communities like yours. A meeting is set up for community members to discuss this with the researchers and make a decision about whether or not to go ahead. Because you know a bit about research, you are asked to join the meeting. What ethical issues does this raise? How would you address them?