I have decided to pick up on one of Lisa's points about confidentiality within research ethics.
I found a particular paragraph on a website which talks about how almost all research guarantees the participants confidentiality. They are always assured that identifying information will not be made available to anyone who is not directly involved in the study. It also looks at the principle of anonymity which means that the participant will remain anonymous throughout the study, even to the researchers themselves. Clearly, the anonymity standard is a stronger guarantee of privacy, but it is sometimes difficult to accomplish, especially in situations where participants have to be measured at multiple time points (e.g., a pre-post study).
William M.K. Trochim, Last Revised: 10/20/2006, Ethics in Research, retrieved 09/11/2010 from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/ethics.php.
Confidentiality is extremely important.. however I feel that sometimes it is not always assured. For example on an online questionnaire you may have to tick a box to ensure your names is not shown etc. but this may not always be obvious. However I think that in most reputable research papers etc. this anonymity is assured.
ReplyDeleteWhen there is a guarentee of confidentiality, the researcher themselves have a moral obligation to make sure that the participant's information and data must be kept private.
ReplyDeleteBy keeping someones confidentiality they therefore gain trust from that participant - therefore they will be more willing to help and be of more use in research.
It is important to make sure that confidentiality is not breached by accident. Handling of data is the main way in which someones information can be lost or used wrongly.
Ethics in Research. Ian Gregory. 2003.