TO WHAT EXTENT DO I GET CONCERNED ABOUT ETHICS IN RESEARCH?

By

Leidy Marcela Chacón Vargas

Nowadays the ethical issue is not a concern for researchers in areas such as medicine; it is a matter of the social studies too. But to what extent we as teacher-investigators are incorporating ethics in our studies? In order to answer this question I am going to talk from my experience appealing to what has been said by theorists around this field.

On the one hand, authors such as Punch emphasizes on the political and ethical issues that have a place in the development of any research process. In that respect it is mentioned the role of factors like the researcher personality, the nature of the research project, the researcher’s institutional background, and expectations in team research, (1994: 86-87), among others. These aspects have to do with politics in terms of the negotiations that must be approached. Researchers have to deal with power in the different contexts where they perform; sometimes it is not easy to convince people or entities about the nature of their tasks as investigators and to get the needed support. In certain contexts researchers are seen as spies or intruders; so to cope with that the reputation of the researcher, the quality of his investigations, the visibility that he has as well as the clarity of his objectives must be proved. From my own experience these political perils really affect any research process that you want to conduct. In my case the policies of certain institutions have limited me in spite of the fact that I show coherence in my purpose, what I have perceived is that they feel that my purpose is to evaluate or judge them, another aspect is that they do not have a common concept of what research is and implies.

On the other hand Punch (1994) states ethics in research generally has to do with harm, consent, deception, privacy and confidentiality of data. The author says that it is a matter of an ethical code that can be assumed in different ways depending on the researcher and the kind of study he is conducting. For instance he claims: “my position is that a professional code of ethics is beneficial as a guideline that alerts researchers to the ethical dimensions of their work, particularly prior to entry. I am not arguing that the field worker should abandon all ethical considerations once she or he has gotten in, but rather that informed consent is unworkable in some sorts of observational research” (p. 90). To my understanding being ethical when investigating is a matter of clarity in the objectives that I want to achieve and my honesty when communicating them, at the same time it is necessary to make your participants confident about their anonymity and freedom to be part or not of my process.  At the same time in my role as a teacher I have to show them the process that I want to follow considering them as partners rather than clients. It is a cooperative process and as such should be understood.

In that respect Sabar (Undated) and Mohr (1996) agree on ethical statements related to our role as teacher-researchers. They strongly state that research in education cannot become a process of establishing status between the researcher and the researched, but a partnership where the both sides get beneficial.

REFERENCES

Mohr, Marian, (1996) Ethics and Standards for Teacher Research: Drafts and Decisions, conference paper delivered at AERA conference, New York

Punch, Maurice. (1994). Politics and ethics in qualitative research. In Nk Denzin & Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of qualitative research (pp 83-97. Thousand Oak. CA: Sage. Copyright 1994 by Sage. Reprinted by Permission of Sage Publications.    

Sabar, Naama, (Undated) Teacher Researchers' Attitudes Towards Teacher-Informants: Some Ethical Implications, article submitted to the Journal of Teacher Education.