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Research involving human participants always
generates ethical issues. As McLeod
writes (1994) "It is reasonable to
conclude that any research design will
generate ethical dilemmas. The implication
is not that research should be abandoned,
but that every effort should be made to
examine the effect that a study will have on
all the people who participate in it"
(McLeod 1994, p. 168).
Ethical research practice
is centred around gaining informed consent
from research participants as well as
ongoing "process consenting" (Munall 1988),
which repeatedly checks consent with
participants throughout the study. For
informed consent to be valid participants
need to give their consent voluntarily,
after having been given sufficient
information about a project including
possible risks and whilst being deemed
competent to do so. Participants need to be
free to withdraw from a study at any point
they may choose to do so up to the point of
publication without having to fear negative
consequences.
Other general issues around
ethical research are trustworthiness of the
researcher, managing possible risks involved
in the project, data protection and
anonymity and the integrity and quality of
the research (Bond 2004). I would hope that
elements in my research design already
account for ethical issues, such as a
participatory element and respondent
validation for in depth data.
The ethical guidelines,
which I want to utilize for my project are
Bond (2004) for research ethics, and Goss et
al (2001) for online counselling, covering
both research and online work.
Furthermore, I envisage particular ethical
issues to arise from using the internet to
gather data (Mann and Stewart 2002). For
example, informed consent becomes more
difficult to establish over the internet.
Not only may it be difficult to establish
participants real identity or their
competency to give consent, but it is also
difficult administratively to collect
written signatures over the internet (Mann
and Stewart 2002).
With regards to my project I hope to
approach informed consent in a graded way,
depending on what data I am asking for. When
collecting data through online
questionnaires I am hoping to gain informed
consent for the use of the data through a
tick box, whereas I would ask for a written
signature and process consent if I use case
material.
Another major ethical
consideration in this project is data
protection and confidentiality. Due to the
nature of the internet confidentiality can
not be assured for data, which is in transit
unless it has been encrypted (Mann and
Stewart 2002). I will either need to find a
technical solution to this issue or clearly
state to participants that I can not ensure
confidentiality whilst data is in transit.
Moreover, data held electronically is
subject to data protection legislation,
which I will need to comply with (Mann and
Stewart 2002). Further ethical issues, which
I will need to explore are my own protection
as well as protection for my research
participants, i.e. conduct a risk
assessment, and legal issues around
indemnity insurance when working in a global
field.
References
Bond, T. (2004) Ethical
guidelines for researching counselling and
psychotherapy. British Association for
Counselling and Psychotherapy
Goss, S., Anthony, K.,
Jamieson, A., Palmer, S. (2001) Guidelines
for Online Counselling and Psychotherapy.
British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy
Mann, C., Stewart F. (2002)
Internet Communication and Qualitative
Research. A Handbook for researching online.
Sage
Munall, P. (1988) Ethical
considerations in qualitative research.
Western Journal of Nursing Research Vol. 10,
pp. 150 - 162
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