In one line: Research on people rests on respect between researcher and participant. The researcher holds the power, so the responsibility is hers.
A researcher has a good question: does losing a night's sleep damage memory?
To answer it, someone has to lose a night's sleep.
At that point the question stops being only scientific. It is also about what one person may ask of another.
Two sides of every proposal
- Benefits: the knowledge gained and the people it may help.
- Costs: the discomfort, risk or loss of privacy for participants.
Responsibility is the concept that covers this. An ethical consideration is any point about fair and harmless treatment of participants.
Ethical principles exist so that benefits are maximised and costs minimised. Weighing one against the other is a cost-benefit analysis, carried out by an ethics committee before a study is approved.
Remember: The more a study asks of people, the more it has to justify.
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Key idea: Six considerations cover a participant's whole path through a study, from the first invitation to the published report.
The six considerations
Informed consent
Agreement given with knowledge of what the study involves.
Three conditions: sufficient information, real comprehension with the chance to ask questions, and voluntariness.
Anonymity
Participants cannot be identified from the data or from any report.
Records are stored privately and used only for the agreed purpose: confidentiality.
Right to withdraw
Participants may leave at any point and may remove their data.
They are informed of this before the study begins, and no pressure is applied.
Deception
Participants are misinformed about the aim, given misleading instructions, or not told everything.
Permitted only when the study would otherwise be impossible, and kept to the minimum.
Protection from harm
No undue stress, embarrassment or physical risk.
The standard is that participation carries no more risk than everyday life.
Debrief
A full account at the end: the purpose, the participant's role, any deception and the reason for it.
Questions are answered honestly.
Agree · Stay unnamed · Leave freely · Not misled · Not harmed · Told the truth
Apply them to the sleep study. Students are kept awake for 24 hours and then tested on a word list.
Consent must spell out what a night without sleep involves. Protection from harm means no driving home afterwards. The right to withdraw means anyone may go to bed at 3 am without losing their payment.
The six in one word: CARDUD: Consent, Anonymity, Right to withdraw, Deception, Undue stress, Debrief.
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Key idea: In some research a consideration cannot be met in the usual way, and another safeguard has to take its place.
Five hard cases
Children
Children, and adults who cannot fully understand the study, cannot give legal consent.
A parent or guardian gives consent by proxy, and the participant gives assent.
Observing in public
In a covert observation or a field experiment, asking first would alter the behaviour.
The accepted limit: public places, where people expect to be seen, and nobody identified.
Deception that is needed
Knowing the aim creates demand characteristics, so some studies withhold it.
The forms it takes: a confederate or a staged event, misleading instructions, or simply leaving something out.
Small groups and long studies
In a small or unusual group, a few details identify a person.
In a longitudinal study the researchers must keep names in order to return to the same people.
Sensitive topics
Questions about trauma or loss may cause distress that is not visible.
Vulnerable participants need screening beforehand and access to support afterwards.
Proxy consent · No consent possible · Justified deception · Identifiable data · Vulnerability
Withdrawal has its own difficulties. One person leaving a focus group changes the discussion for the rest. And a payment large enough to matter can make leaving feel impossible.
Hard does not mean optional: A consideration that cannot be met directly is met another way.
No consent beforehand: no identification, and low risk. Deception during: full debrief after, with the right to withdraw data.
Key idea: Ethical standards are not outside the research. They alter the sample, the behaviour and the data.
| Rule | What it does to the data |
|---|---|
| Informed consent | Participant variables; knowing the aim invites demand characteristics |
| Right to withdraw | Sampling bias, if those who leave differ from those who stay |
| Anonymity | More valid self-report, but no follow-up or checking |
| Deception | Natural behaviour; some withdraw their data afterwards |
| Protection from harm | Limits the procedures a researcher may use |
| Debrief | Restores trust; comes too late in long studies |
The loss of participants over the course of a study is attrition. In the sleep study, the students who give up at 3 am are probably the ones most affected by tiredness, so the final sample under-states the effect.
Exam tip: An ethical safeguard can be evaluated twice: once for what it does for participants, once for what it does to the findings.
The second is the one most answers leave out.
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Your four class practicals
- Your class runs four small studies of its own, called class practicals: an experiment, an interview, an observation and a survey.
- Paper 2 asks about the ones your class ran.
- Keep a short note of each: aim, what you did, who took part, what you found, and the ethics.
How this is asked: A question on your class practical can name a concept: explain the concept of responsibility in relation to your practical, for 4 marks.
Responsibility is also one of the concepts you may choose in the longer question on a study you are given.
Four moves, four short paragraphs
- Define responsibility in a sentence.
- A consideration that could not be met in the usual way, and why.
- What was done instead to protect people.
- What else was done, or should have been.
The trap: pretending every box was ticked: An observation in public has no consent form. Saying "we obtained informed consent" is wrong.
Say which consideration could not be met, and how you acted responsibly all the same.
Your class practical was an observation. Your class sat in a shopping centre for 20 minutes and recorded whether people walking alone or in groups used their phones. Nobody was told. Explain the concept of responsibility in relation to the observation in your class practical.
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