Professional Documents
Culture Documents
in Sociological
Research
The instructor of SOC101 announced one day that
the class of that day would be divided into two
parts. In the first part, the instructor would present
his lecture, and in the second part the students
would be required to complete a survey
questionnaire. He emphasized that participation
in the survey was mandatory for all students
present in that class. Is there any ethical issue
involved in this event?
A. Yes
B. No
A researcher was interested to study how children
respond to stress. To empirically observe children’s
responses to stress, the researcher took some
children to a thick forest in an evening and left
them there. He then observed from a certain
distance (from where he was not visible to the
children) how they were reacting to this situation?
Do you think that the study was ethically
conducted?
A. Yes
B. No
Dr. Nawaj conducted a study among employees of
a garment factory about their feelings of being
exploited by the owners. Many employees said that
they were being exploited by the owners while
many said the opposite. Findings of study was
published in local newspaper where the author
presented the evidence in such a way that the
employees could be identified in terms of their
responses. Is there any ethical issue involved in the
above instance?
A. Yes
B. No
Dr. Julia examined the effectiveness of a new drug
among some of her patients. She did not inform
those patients (the subjects) about the purpose of
her study and she did not ask for their consent
before subjecting them to that treatment. She
feared that she would not be able to obtain their
consent if she informed them about the study. Do
you think that this experiment was ethical?
A. Yes
B. No
Maria, social worker, was interested in the lives
and experiences of sex traders. With this end, she
conducted in-depth interviews of some sex
traders of a small town and published those
interviews in local newspaper. As a result, the
identities of those sex traders became publicly
disclosed. Do you think what Maria did was
ethical?
A. Yes
B. No
HELP is a government funded social program that
assists international students with academic skill
building. A comprehensive evaluation of the
program found no significant effect of HELP on its
clients’ skill building. However, to ensure the
continuity of funding, the agency that was running
the program changed some results of the evaluation
to prove that the program was still useful. Do you
thing that the manipulation of research findings is
unethical?
A. Yes
B. No
Contextualizing Ethics in Social Research
analysis
Tolerant
Questioning
threatened.
In field research opportunity to volunteer is
impossible.
Suggestions
Although the norm of voluntary participation is
important, it is sometimes impossible to follow.
Even if you sometime find it to be justified to avoid
this norm, you should still be respectful and careful
about other norms (discussed below)
No Harm
The first right of any participant in a research is
the right to personal safety. A researcher must
recognize this right and respect it. Research that
would endanger the life or physical health of a
human subject is not simply acceptable to the
social science community.
In principle, social research should never injure
the people being studied regardless of whether
they volunteer for the study.
Harms that social science research are likely to involve: (physical
harm is very unlikely social research)
response rate.
It elicits socially desirable responses in surveys
In laboratory experiments, the provision of full
information about the study can completely
undermine its validity.
Deception
The most controversial area of ethical concern but
widely used and accepted practice in social
research
Deception
Deception in research refers to hiding one’s
identity as a researcher and/or concealing to or
misleading the participants about the purpose of
the study. Of, course the most common deception
involves misleading subjects about the purpose of
the study.
Rationale for Deception
The basic rationale for deception is that it is