Research often involves human life and no matter what race, religion,
health, or mental capacity of the participants, the researchers have a
responsibility to make ethical decisions from the initial steps of the study to
the culmination of the publication. Teachers, students and governmental
officials advocate tolerance, diversity and rights; yet sometimes these groups
are involved in unethical research practices. Even when researchers presumably
take necessary measures to ensure ethical procedures, participants may not
fully understand their rights or have enough knowledge about the research to make
an informed decision (Broom,
2006).
Educators must always be aware of the ethical aspects of any research when
formulating a good research topic.
In one sense it may seem easy to just avoid conducting research that may
be unethical, but it is always advisable to follow steps to ensure that no one
is being harmed and that the published work will be ethically sound. This is
especially true with qualitative research that often involves looking into the
lives of the subjects. Even with quantitative studies, the data is often of a
sensitive nature and researchers must take steps to ensure that subjects’
rights are protected (Creswell, 2012).
The American Psychological Association’s Science
Directorate recommends five steps to help researchers avoid unethical problems (Smith, 2003). One of the first steps is about intellectual property, which
must be discussed with the other researchers and graduate students that may be
contributing as well. The APA Ethics Code advises that researchers and faculty
discuss the contributions of each and have the relationship in writing (Smith, 2003). Even when the research is published, if the authors find
errors, they are ethically obligated to correct them (Smith, 2003).
The second step is to be conscious of multiple roles and
avoid relationships that could impair the professionalism of the research (Smith, 2003). Professors should not coerce
students to participate either as graduate student co-researchers or subjects (Smith, 2003). All understandings and
agreements should be committed to writing and specific assignments for each
outlined in writing (Smith,
2003).
Third, the APA Ethics Code recommends that researchers
follow all informed-consent rules (Smith, 2003). This process should ensure that individual subjects have
volunteered to participate in the study and are aware of the risks and benefits
(Smith,
2003). Participants of research should be made
aware of the following items delineated by the APA Ethics Code: 1) the purpose,
duration and procedure of the research, 2) rights to decline at any time of the
research, 3) potential risks, adverse effects or discomforts associated with
the study, 4) possible benefits of the research, 5) confidentiality limits,
when data is shared, and how it is shared and stored, 6) participation incentives – monetary or other, 7) Contact
person for any questions during or after the study (Smith, 2003). Informed consent forms must be signed, and explained as
well. The 2002 APA Code of Ethics states that there are two instances when
psychologists can skip the informed consent – if permitted by law or when
research “would not reasonably be
expected to distress or harm participants” and involves “the study of normal
educational practices, curricula or classroom management methods conducted in
educational settings.” (Smith,
2003)
The fourth recommendation is for researchers to be aware
of confidential information and privacy rights of participants (Smith, 2003). Researchers must know federal and state laws with regard to
research ethics. The Goals 2000: Education Act of 1994 prohibits researchers
from asking children about their religion, family life and anything about sex,
without parental consent (Smith,
2003).
Researchers should plan ahead and take steps to secure all critical records, be
careful in how it is shared and how it is transmitted (especially in the
digital internet age) (Smith,
2003).
Fifth, the APA Ethics Code recommends that researchers
stay up to date with current codes, laws and rules (Smith, 2003). In 2010, the APA has updated
the 2002 Code of Ethics with some amendments.
Other scientific and professional organizations have
developed guidelines for ethical research (Horner & Minifie,
2011). The Office of Research Integrity places
ethical research as a priority in its articles (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
Due to the history of unethical practices, more agencies have become involved
to protect the innocent (Horner
& Minifie, 2011).
Unfortunately, the government by the people and for the
people has often been the instigator and source of research that violates
ethical principles. This is difficult to grasp – that federal and state laws
can circumvent the ethics standards that are instituted by groups such as the
American Psychological Association (Smith, 2003). During the 1960s, Henry K. Beecher, Harvard School of
Medicine Professor, exposed 22 examples of research that he deemed unethical in
the New England Journal of Medicine (Gaw, 2012). Maurice H. Pappworth, medical doctor in the United Kingdom
published 200 unethical cases during this same time period (Gaw, 2012). Of interest is the testimony
of Dr. Howard M. Spiro in a letter to the editor of the May 2012 Annals of Internal Medicine, where he
shares the unspoken compact between doctors and patients (Gaw, 2012). He was a graduate of the prestigious Harvard Medical School
and intern at Brigham Hospital in the 1940s, yet he shared that “we took care
of them [ward patients] for free, and in return they gave us their bodies to
study.” (Gaw,
2012). He explained that they, as medical
doctors in Boston, were always respectful of life and compassionate towards
patients, but had no concept of the “informed consent.” (Gaw, 2012). They did not see themselves as the Nazi doctors implied by
Pappworth (Gaw,
2012).
Eugenics played a role in unethical studies throughout
the ages and often was based on perspectives of the era about certain types of
people – be that a race or mental capacity. Governments in North America
adopted practices that involved the sterilization of “mentally deficient”
patients without their consent (Park & Radford,
1998). By 1920, sterilization without consent
was legal in 16 states in the United States and parts of Canada, under the
assumed belief that there was some danger in passing on the genetics of those
with abnormal behavior and intelligence (Park & Radford,
1998).
Scientists seemed to focus on the theory of survival of the fittest and the
overall belief of the good of society rather than the sanctity of life. After
World War II, the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene (CNCMH)
surveyed the provinces to determine the number of people with
‘feeblemindedness’ which were used to justify the sterilization programs of
1928 (Park
& Radford, 1998). Research in this area requires the
reader to look at individual case studies and try to understand the thinking of
the time – which reached its height around the 1960s (Park & Radford,
1998).
However, the patients’ voices are not part of any of these case studies, which
does not give a full view of what was happening (Park & Radford,
1998).
When the government takes responsibility for it’s citizens and provides the
money and care, they ultimately make decisions based on what is best for the
government and country. Because of the prevailing beliefs during this time
period, researchers employed by the government often used mentally deficient
subjects for their studies. While many of these instances of sterilization do
not constitute a formal research study, those involved deemed these patients as
subjects. Reviews of cases in Alberta, Canada reveal that families could commit
teens to Provincial Mental Hospitals when they did not get along at home – ‘bad
tempered in her own home.’ (Park & Radford,
1998).
The overarching belief was the need to sterilize those that may pass these
genes on to the next generation (Park & Radford,
1998).
Young women were sterilized for reasons as simple as being on welfare or under
the care of the government (Park & Radford,
1998). However, case studies also reveal
sexual behavior that constituted rape and assault – which understandably
invoked human emotions to curtail criminal activities that affected other
people (Park
& Radford, 1998).
The huge span of what constituted mental illness had a bearing on these case
studies where government boards and individual investigators made decisions
without a subject’s consent (Park & Radford,
1998). Similar cases have been revealed
involving American natives that were sterilized by the government without
informed consent, or consent obtained through coercion (Hodge,
2012). Often at the core of reasoning for
these procedures, was the belief that this helped control population and reduce
racial tensions and the tax burden (Hodge,
2012).
The federal Indian Health Services performed appendectomies that also included
sterilizations without consent (Hodge, 2012).
The Tuskegee Study involved the unethical approach of
studying syphilis in the Alabama Black, male sharecroppers in the United States
during the era of 1932 to 1972 (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
The men thought they were receiving healthcare from the government but in
actuality they were part of a study – comparing those with syphilis to a group
without the disease (Horner
& Minifie, 2011).
Even when penicillin became the drug of choice in the 1950s for treating
syphilis, the researchers failed to treat their study subjects with the
antibiotic, offering instead healthcare and meals (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
The sanctity of life for these groups of people was not valued, but instead
they were considered at the disposal of the government for research because
they were receiving government aid. Often, the staff would employ a Black nurse
to convince the Black sharecroppers to participate (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
Unethical studies often involved the population that
were feeble, poor, at the mercy of the government, racially different, or
considered mentally deficient (Horner & Minifie,
2011). Even with the Hippocratic oath of
470-360 B.C.E., to ‘do no harm’; medical research and researchers have had
differing opinions interpreting this oath and obligation (Horner & Minifie,
2011). In the 1950s to 1970s, researchers at
the New York state school, Willowbrook injected the live hepatitis virus in
mentally retarded children under the auspices of valid medical research (Horner & Minifie,
2011). This deliberate infection of children
and then trial treatment with gamma globulin constituted unethical procedures.
The government offered spaces in the school to parents of mentally deficient
children if they agreed to participation in the study, which could be termed
coercion, in that the poor were unable to receive help in any other way (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
During the 1960s, researcher Stanley Milgram conducted
studies at Yale University to determine authority and obedience responses in
subjects that constituted an unethical study (Benjamin
& Simpson, 2009).
The subjects were college students that were divided into groups – some were
given the role as learner or administrator (of a shock when the learner did not
respond correctly). The learner was a ‘confederate’ in that they knew they
would not be shocked, but they were to pretend to receive the shock, which
would appear real to the subject that administered the shock (Benjamin
& Simpson, 2009).
Milgram found that the participants were willing to give higher shocks out of
obedience to his direction, even at the cost of what seemed painful and unethical
(Benjamin
& Simpson, 2009). The fact that deception was used as
part of the study contributes to the side of unethical research.
In 1939, a graduate student at the University of Iowa
conducted a research study about the effects of labeling orphaned children
(ages of 5 to 16) as stutterers (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
Tudor (the researcher) found that she could induce stuttering in otherwise
normal-speaking children by using adverse responses from others and using the
label of ‘stutterer’ (Horner
& Minifie, 2011). Tudor invoked the help of the orphanage
staff to cooperate in the deception and call the normal speakers stutterers,
which involved unethical measures of causing possible harm (Horner & Minifie,
2011).
Years later, surviving subjects reported lasting psychological damage and
hesitant speech patterns in a study that had no potential benefits for its
subjects (Horner
& Minifie, 2011).
Another area of concern in the ethics of research is the
aspect of paying subjects for their participation in studies that may
constitute risk and adversity (VanderWalde &
Kurzban, 2011).
This side of what constitutes ethical research includes the broad spectrum of
taking advantage of people who are in need of monetary assistance and may even
fall under the auspices of coercion (VanderWalde &
Kurzban, 2011).
An unethical study similar to the Tuskegee case emerged
recently when a professor of Wellesley College discovered an unpublished
research of syphilis in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 and supported by United
States government (U.S. Public Health Service), the Pan American Sanitary
Bureau and the Guatemalan government (Scheperle,
2012). The uninformed subjects of this study
were made up of prisoners, soldiers, orphans and mentally deficient patients in
an asylum (Scheperle,
2012). The participants were unknowingly
infected infected with syphilis and then later treated with penicillin (Scheperle,
2012).
Once again, this study the unethical practice of using subjects without their
knowledge and taking advantage of the less fortunate who could not otherwise
defend themselves.
The importance of research and the ethical methods of
conducting and analyzing data remain obvious considering the history.
Individuals who conduct and train others in the field of exploration and
discovery must understand their responsibility to others and society (Lategan,
2012).
However, once the initial approval for a research study is received,
researchers may let ethical principles slip during all stages of the study (Lategan,
2012).
According to Lategan (2012) there could be a void in the supervising of
research teams and post-graduate students. Universities should have an ethical
code in place and those conducting research should have the desire to live up
to those expectations of honor (Lategan, 2012). Along with the oath of ‘do
no harm’ Lategan (2012, p. 9) advises “no power relationship should be
exercised between lecturer and student” which should extend into all areas of
research. Other areas that need to be included in ethical practices include the
use of hazardous material, execution of discipline, conflict of interest,
privacy, risk, funds and equipment, authorship, use of data, integrity of data,
unfair benefit, creation of knowledge, research teams, postgraduate
supervision, teaching and learning, paradigmatic choices, and dictum of no harm
(Lategan,
2012).
Ethical codes are available in various professions and
include the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Joint
Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, the American Anthropology
Association and the American Psychological Association (Creswell, 2012). Overall researchers should take care to treat individuals
with respect and cultivate a feeling of giving back to the community. Creswell
(2012) gives the example of sharing book royalties with subjects in an HIV
study. Researchers will vary, but the honest will reach to fulfill the demands
of discovering new advances and at the same time value the life of those
involved in that quest.
References
Angelski, C., Fernandez, C. V., Weijer, C.,
& Gao, J. (2012). The publication of ethically uncertain research:
Attitudes and practices of journal editors.
BMC Medical Ethics, 13, 4-4. doi: 10.1186/1472-6939-13-4
Benjamin, L. T. J., & Simpson, J. A. (2009).
The power of the situation: The impact of Milgram's obedience studies on personality
and social psychology. American
Psychologist, 64(1), 12-19. doi: 10.1037/a0014077
Broom, A.Ethical issues in social research. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 14,
151-156. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2005.11.002
Creswell, J. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative
and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Gaw, A. (2012). Exposing unethical human
research: The transatlantic correspondence of Beecher and Pappworth. Annals of Internal Medicine, 156(2),
150-155. doi: 10.1059/0003-4819-156-2-201201170-00012
Hodge, F. S. (2012). No meaningful apology for
American Indian unethical research abuses.
Ethics & Behavior, 22(6), 431-444. doi: 10.1080/10508422.2012.730788
Horner, J., & Minifie, F. D. (2011).
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http://www.srainternational.org/sra03/template/tntbjour.cfm?id=3010
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