LESSON 2

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 Father Saturnino Urios University
Arts and Sciences Program

ETHICS OF
RESEARCH
Learning Outcomes
a. Identify the following practices that can be considered
ethical or unethical;
b. Explain the codes, conduct, and the rights of research
participants; and
c. Answer a 10-item quiz.

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 Moral
Compass Quiz

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▰ You're struggling to meet your research
goals. A colleague suggests
fabricating some data points to
strengthen your conclusions.

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▰ You discover a colleague's published
research contains errors that could impact
patient care. Do you prioritize public safety
and potentially harm their reputation, or
remain silent to avoid conflict?

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▰ A research team invites participants
from only one socioeconomic
background for a study on income
inequality.

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▰ You strongly believe a specific treatment is
ineffective. During a data analysis, you find
data suggesting its potential
benefit. Howbeit, you still downplayed this
finding to fit your opinion.

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▰ A student is assigned a research
project on a topic they lack sufficient
knowledge about.

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▰ You're conducting research on a new
drug, but discover regulatory protocols
haven't been fully followed. Do you
press on to avoid delays or halt the
research and report the oversight?

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▰ A pharmaceutical company offers significant
funding for your research on a specific drug.
You have previously consulted for them. Do
you disclose the conflict and potentially lose
funding, or remain silent, raising ethical
concerns?

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Ethics in Research
⮚ Provides researchers with ethical principles or
guidelines for the successful conduct of research.
“rightness” or “wrongness” of
human act

WHAT IS ETHICS? = the morality of a human

act.
= doing the right thing at the
right time

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 In research, ethics:

✔ Concerns with what is good for the people and the

society as a whole.
✔ Provides rules that govern the society as a whole.
✔ Provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of
research.

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 In research, ethics:

✔ Allows researchers and scholars to further educate

themselves and monitor their activities in the conduct
of research.

Ensure a HIGH ethical standard

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 Researchers must:

✔ Ensure that research subjects are not placed in

harm’s way.
✔ Be reminded that they have the moral obligation to
provide maximum benefits to the participants.
✔ Be guided by ethical principles to maintain research
integrity and avoid research misconduct.

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 Researchers must:

✔ There are acceptable and unacceptable conduct of research,

especially when humans and animals are involved.
Examples:
▪ Series of medical experiments on a large number of concentration
camp prisoners, including children, conducted by Nazi Germany.
▪ Nazi medical doctors forced concentration camp prisoners to
participate in the experiment; the prisoners did not willingly volunteer to
participate; and no consent was given for the procedures.
▪ The experiments resulted in trauma, disfigurement, permanent
disability, and death.
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 Famous experiments that the Nazi medical
doctors conducted on the prisoners

⮚ Sterilization and fertilization experiments

⮚ Head injury experiments
⮚ Mustard gas experiments
⮚ Freezing experiments
⮚ Malaria experiments
⮚ Experiments on twins
⮚ Bones, muscles, and nerve transplantation
experiments

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

HONESTY
▪ Researchers ought to honestly report data and results of
the study, including the methods and procedures
employed in data-gathering as well as publication status.

▪ Researchers should NOT falsify, fabricate, and

misrepresent data and results.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

OBJECTIVITY
▪ Researchers should uphold objectivity and scientific rigor
at all times.
▪ Scientific rigor is the strict application of the scientific method to ensure unbiased and
well-controlled experimental design, methodology, analysis, interpretation and reporting of
results.

▪ Researchers should strive to avoid all forms of bias in

experimental design, data analysis and interpretation,
peer-review process, grant writing, and other facets of
research.
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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

CONFIDENTIALITY
▪ Researchers should uphold the principle of
confidentiality.

▪ One way of effectively doing this is to protect confidential

communications, such as papers or grant submitted for
publications, patient records…

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

COMPETENCE
▪ Researchers are supposed to be knowledgeable and
experts in their own discipline or field of specialization.
▪ Researchers ought to maintain and improve their
professional competence and expertise through life-long
education and learning.
▪ Researchers ought to take steps to promote competence
in science.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

INTEGRITY
▪ Researchers ought to keep their promises and honor
agreements with donors and research participants.

▪ Researchers need to strive for consistency in thought and

action.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

LEGALITY

▪ Research always has a legal dimension.

▪ Researchers ought to obey laws and relevant institutional

and governmental policies.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

MATURITY AND OPENNESS

▪ Knowledge is supposed to be free

▪ Researchers must willingly share data, results, ideas, and
resources.
▪ They must be open to constructive criticism and new
ideas.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Respect for intellectual Property

▪ Researchers ought to honor copyrights, patents, and
other forms of intellectual property.

▪ Researchers should not use methods, data, and results

owned by other researchers or scholars without
permission or proper acknowledgement.

▪ Researchers should avoid plagiarism at all times.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Responsible Publication
▪ Researchers need to publish in order to advance
knowledge and scholarships and not just to advance
one’s own career.
▪ Researchers also need to avoid wasteful publication, such
as publishing in predatory journals, and duplicative
publication.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Non-discrimination
▪ Researchers ought to avoid all forms of discrimination
against colleagues and students on the basis of sex, race,
ethnicity, and other factors that are related to their
scientific competence and integrity.
▪ Senior researchers need to help educate, mentor, and
advise students; they have to promote the welfare of their
students and allow them to make their own decisions.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Human Subject Protection

▪ Researchers should respect human dignity, privacy, and
autonomy at all times.

▪ When conducting research on human subjects,

researchers should take precautionary measures to
minimize, if not completely avoid, harms and risks.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Human Subject Protection

▪ They also need to maximize the benefits that participants
may get from the results of the study.

▪ If a researcher discovers a cure for a particular disease

through her research on indigenous plants, a reasonable
part of the patent should go to the indigenous community
where the plants are located.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Animal Care
▪ In recent years, we have what we call “animal rights.”
▪ Researchers should respect animal rights at all times.

▪ They out to show utmost care for animals when using

them in research.
▪ Researchers should NOT conduct unnecessary or poorly
designed animal experiments.

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 Ethical Principles that Guide Research

Social Responsibility
▪ Researchers should conduct research not only for the
advancement of their career but for good of society as a
whole.

▪ Researchers should strive to promote social good and

mitigate social harms.

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 Importance of Ethics in Research
(Resnik, 2007)

1. Ethics promotes the pursuit of knowledge and truth and

avoidance of error.
2. Many of the ethical norms help ensure the researchers are
held accountable to the public.
3. Adherence to ethical principles also helps build public
support for research. People are more likely to fund
researches that promote a variety of important moral and
social values such as social responsibility, human
rights, animal welfare, health, and safety.
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 Ethical Codes and Policies for Research
(Resnik, 2007)

Given the importance of ethics in the conduct of research, many

professional associations, government agencies, and universities have
come up with the following codes and policies for research:

1. Honesty 6. Confidentiality 11. Non-discrimination

2. Objectivity 7. Responsible Publication 12. Competence
3. Integrity 8. Responsible Mentoring 13. Legality
4. Care 9. Respect for Colleagues 14. Human subjects’ protection
5. Openness 10. Social Responsibility

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RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
(Trochim, 2006; Smith, 2003; and Polit, 2006)

▪ Voluntary Participation
▪ Informed Consent
▪ Confidentiality
▪ Anonymity

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 UNETHICAL ACTIVITIES

The following are the common breaches in ethics.

▪ Publishing the same paper in two different journals without informing the
editor/s.
▪ Failing to inform a collaborator of one’s intent to file a patent in order to
become the sole inventor.
▪ Including a colleague as an author of a paper in return for a favor even
though he/she did not contribute it.
▪ Discussing with your colleagues data from the paper you are reviewing
for a journal.
▪ Trimming outlines from a data set without providing sufficient
justification. 41
UNETHICAL ACTIVITIES

The following are the common breaches in ethics.

▪ Using inappropriate statistical techniques in order to obtain favorable results
and enhance the significance of one’s research.
▪ Making the results of the study publicly known without first giving peers the
opportunity to review the work.
▪ Failing to acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field (This
includes relevant prior work in the review of related literature and studies.)
▪ Making derogatory comments and personal attacks in your review of author’s
submitted work.
▪ Injudicious and inhumane use of animals in research.
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THE END

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