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Planning Ethically Responsible Research
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Planning Ethically Responsible Research

Second Edition
Volume: 31
February 2013 | 264 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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This book guides readers through one of the most important aspects of their social or behavioural research: planning ethically responsible research. The authors offer practical guidance in each chapter for satisfying federal regulations governing human research and for working with the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB). The book includes an abundance of useful tools: detailed instructions on development of an effective IRB protocol; methods for handling issues of consent, privacy, confidentiality and deception; ways to assess risk and benefit to optimize research outcomes; and how to respect the needs of vulnerable research populations. The book is an invaluable guide to help researchers and graduate students understand ethical concerns within real-life research situations.
 
Chapter 1. Introduction: Research Governance and Research Ethics
 
Chapter 2. Why We Need Ethics: Assessing Vulnerability, Risk and Benefit
 
Chapter 3. The Relevance of Ethical Theory to IRB
 
Chapter 4. A Retrospective IRB Review: Rehabilitating Milgram, Zimbardo and Humphreys
 
Chapter 5. Journalist Ethics Does Not Equal Social Scientists Ethics
 
Chapter 6. Community-Engaged Research and Ethnography: Extreme Misfits with the Medical Model
 
Chapter 7. Communicating Informed Consent and Process Consent
 
Chapter 8. Degrees of non-Disclosure
 
Chapter 9. Strategies for Assuring Confidentiality
 
Chapter 10. The Ethics for the Invisible, Powerless and Vulnerable Research Assistant
 
Chapter 11. Why IRBs Have an Important Place: The Autoethnographic Experiment
 
Chapter 12. Evidence-Based Ethical Problem Solving: A Research Agenda
 
Chapter 13. Making Ethics Review a Learning Institution: Ten Simple Suggestions

"Two important aspects covered in this text are the ethical considerations in qualitative research methodologies, and the attention that is needed in University Research Ethics Committees to understanding and addressing these methodologies."

Dorothy Ettling
University of the Incarnate Word

“I particularly enjoyed the energetic and experienced tone of these writers and their willingness to take a stance...The chapters in the second half of the book on consent, confidentiality and autoethnography have thoughtful coverage of qualitative research issues. Equally welcome is their attempt to come up with constructive solutions rather than to simply criticize...The authors have established record in developing an evidence base on human research ethics and I shall be bringing their final chapter, with its ‘Ten Simple Solutions for Making Ethics Review a Learning Institution’, to my own ethics committee.”

Sally Holland
Cardiff University, UK
Qualitative Research (QRJ)

I was curious to see if there was material here that I might use to introduce the subject of ethics in research to my students. I have currently placed this on my course reading list.

Mr DOUGLAS ANDERSON
Humanities Fine Arts Dept, Front Range Community College
February 17, 2015
Report this review

This one as the one of the textbook in my research methods course

Dr Zhidong Zhang
Colg of Education, University of Texas - Brownsville
June 1, 2013
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Key features

New to the Second Edition

  • Includes greater coverage of working with vulnerable populations such as children, the urban poor, and those at risk for HIV infection
  • Addresses all the "ethical hot spots" in contemporary research, including new research techniques, new areas of study that have come under the purview of Research Ethics Committees, and topical political issues
  • Offers a wider variety of examples of research ethics in practice, including international cases and more cases from the health sciences
  • Explains how regulations come about and why similar activities (e.g., journalism and social research) have very different codes of ethics
  • Provides powerful vignettes from the experiences of other researchers who have encountered important ethical issues

PERR 2 has the same basic objective as the First Edition of providing the theory and practical knowledge needed to plan ethically responsible research. However, it has broadened this objective in myriad ways, including the following. It:

· Explains the sensible origins of ethical requirements that have become senseless rules in some research contexts;

· Explores conflicts of interest between research and institutional objectives;

· Examines the sources of ethical research behavior beyond mere adherence to regulations;

· Bases its recommendations on evidence-based ethical problem solving;

· Introduces ethical theory and shows how theories of normative ethics relate to major national guidelines governing human research;

· Examines the special problems that arise when ethical requirements based on the medical model of human research are applied to field research and qualitative research;

· Examines the proper role of methodologies in addressing research problems and related ethical problems;

· Explores ethical and regulatory issues in greater depth in relation to specific research methods;

· Examines many of the emerging issues that were not discussed in 1992, e.g., conflict of interest, internet research, generic research, data sharing, experimental economics, and many others;

· Presents multiple viewpoints on controversial issues (i.e. Milgram's Obedience Studies, Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, Humphreys' Tearoom Trade);

· Makes extensive use of internet resources;

· Provides major guidance to IRBs and investigators so that they can indeed plan ethically responsible research instead of resorting to one-size-fits-all rules that may be highly ineffective in some contexts and cultures. It is about planning for the unexpected before, during and after the research is conducted, and understanding the inherent uncertainty that surrounds any such plans.

· Seeks to spell out the responsibilities equally for researchers, IRBs, and the various institutions including research institutions, relevant scientific and professional societies, and seek to promote the establishment of a more collegial, trusting relationship among these various stakeholders.

A major theme in the book is problems that arise after review by an IRB.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 5

Chapter 13

For instructors

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