Research Ethics - Ethical Principles (par 2 of 3)

Summary

This videocast, the second in a series on research ethics, delves into the principles guiding ethical governance in research. The Euro-Western paradigm focuses on regulation and participant welfare, but there are also criticisms regarding its true intentions of protecting institutions. Alternatives such as the indigenous research paradigm emphasize power sharing, reciprocity, and community benefits. Recent efforts have aimed to make ethical practices more inclusive, moving from strict regulations towards a cooperative, educational approach that values social justice and respect for all knowledge systems.

Highlights

• Research ethics are regulated through university and government systems to maintain high standards 📚.
• Ethical review boards evaluate research applications, prioritizing participant welfare but often protect institutional interests too 🤔.
• Books like Laura Stark's 'Behind Closed Doors' reveal the importance of precedent and personal connections in ethical reviews 📖.
• Indigenous ethics focus on communal knowledge and reciprocal relationships rather than individual expertise and regulations 🌐.
• The videocast inspires a shift towards integrating social justice into research ethics, challenging traditional paradigms 🚀.

Key Takeaways

• The videocast explores ethical principles in research, focusing on the Euro-Western and Indigenous paradigms 🎓.
• Ethical governance systems often aim to protect both participants and institutions, leading to varied interpretations 🔍.
• Indigenous research ethics emphasize power sharing, reciprocity, and respect for diverse knowledge systems 🌍.
• Efforts are being made to shift towards educational and inclusive ethical practices, integrating social justice as a key component ⚖️.
• The videocast highlights the complexity and evolving nature of applying ethical principles across different cultural contexts 📜.

Overview

This fantastic episode of the series on research ethics takes us on a fascinating journey through the meticulous world of ethical principles. With a spotlight on the Euro-Western paradigm, we learn how research ethics are regulated, mainly through university and government bodies. While maintaining high standards to protect research participants is the primary goal, there lurks an intriguing undercurrent of institutions protecting themselves.

But wait, there's more! Indigenous research ethics make a grand entrance, with principles steeped in community benefit and the sharing of power. Here, knowledge isn't just reserved for the chosen few. Instead, it's a beautiful tapestry woven through reciprocal relationships and grounded in respect for all forms of knowledge. The colorful spectrum of these ethics challenges the status quo, demanding a platform for voices from all walks of life to be heard and valued.

And as if that wasn't enough to chew on, the episode wraps up by encouraging a shift in how we perceive ethical practices. Gone are the days of rigid regulations! New approaches highlight the importance of educational growth and social justice in research. It's an exciting prospect, paving the way for an enriching dialogue where everyone's stories are respected as part of the larger human experience.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Research Ethics The second videocast on research ethics discusses ethical principles, with a focus on Euro-Western paradigm principles related to regulation.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Ethical Governance and Ethical Review This chapter discusses the system of ethical governance which is established by various institutions such as universities, health authorities, and government research departments. The primary purpose of this system is to maintain high standards in research professions. There are different perspectives on its actual role; while ostensibly it focuses on safeguarding the welfare of research participants, it can also be seen as protecting the welfare of the researchers and institutions involved.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Critiques and Observations on Ethical Review The chapter titled 'Critiques and Observations on Ethical Review' surveys the systems of ethical governance within institutions, focusing on how ethical reviews are conducted by specific committees, known as research ethics committees in the UK and institutional review boards in the US. These groups evaluate applications for ethical approval from both individual and team researchers, aiming to ensure ethical standards are met in the proposed research.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Resources and Developments in Ethical Principles The chapter titled 'Resources and Developments in Ethical Principles' discusses the paramount importance of ensuring the welfare and well-being of research participants. It stresses that caring for participants should always be a top ethical priority for researchers. Additionally, it critiques the role of ethical review systems and committees, suggesting that these groups may be more focused on safeguarding the interests and minimizing the risks to the institutions conducting the research, rather than prioritizing the protection of the participants themselves.
• 06:00 - 10:00: Euro-Western vs Indigenous Ethical Principles The chapter delves into the ethical principles contrasting Euro-Western with Indigenous perspectives, particularly within the research framework. It highlights the potential for conflicts, such as lawsuits from dissatisfied research participants, concerning how ethical governance and reviews are implemented and their true purpose. It references Laura Stark's ethnographic study, as detailed in her book 'Behind Closed Doors', which examines the workings of institutional review boards in the U.S. This case study underscores the complexities and disagreements in ethical governance in research.
• 10:00 - 13:00: Indigenous Research Ethics: Core Principles This chapter discusses the core principles of Indigenous research ethics, emphasizing the importance of precedent in research approval processes. It highlights the likelihood of approval when a study style has been previously approved and trusted. Additionally, the chapter suggests that personal relationships and trust play significant roles in these processes. A recommended resource for further reading is an online database named TREAD (The Research Ethics Applications Database), which can provide additional insights into research ethics.

Research Ethics - Ethical Principles (par 2 of 3) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 This is the second videocast on research ethics. The first was on ethical theories , the third will be on ethical research practice and in this videocast I'm going to look at ethical principles starting with the euro Western paradigm principles which are around the regulation of research ethics. | Research ethics is regulated through a
• 00:30 - 01:00 system of ethical governance which is set up by universities health authorities some government research departments and it's about setting and maintaining high standards in the profession of research. There are differing views on what this system is actually for. Ostensibly it's for safeguarding the welfare of research participants primarily at any rate. But another way of looking at this is that it's for safeguarding the welfare of the
• 01:00 - 01:30 institutions that set up the systems of ethical governance. This systems of ethical governance are implemented through systems of ethical review and this is carried out by groups of people committees called in the UK research ethics committees or in the U.S. institutional review boards and they receive applications for ethical approval from individual researchers and from teams of researchers. Again ostensibly they're primarily interested
• 01:30 - 02:00 in the welfare of participants and their well-being and making sure that that is cared for and of course that is very important and should be very important ethical consideration for all researchers at all times. It can also be argued that systems of ethical review these committees these groups of so-called experts are really interested in protecting the institutions that commission and carry out the research from any risk and particularly from risk
• 02:00 - 02:30 of being sued by participants who may not be happy with how they've been treated during the research process or may not be in agreement with the findings of research. So there are disagreements about what ethical governance and what ethical review are for. There's a very interesting book called behind closed doors by a woman called Laura Stark who carried out an ethnographic study of three institutional review boards in the United States and found that they work a
• 02:30 - 03:00 lot on the basis of precedent. So if they've approved a similar study they're more likely to approve another study in that style. They also work a lot on who they know they trust people more if they know them better. There are other aspects to this ethnography too and I would encourage you to look it up and read it if you're interested in this topic because it's very well written it's very fascinating. Another resource that might be useful is a online database called TREAD which stands for The Research Ethics Applications Database which is
• 03:00 - 03:30 hosted at Oxford University and it's a database of research ethics applications that have been successful from around the world. It's interesting to look at those and looking through all of the ethics applications on the database which I did a year or two ago reveals that most ethics committees are indeed interested primarily in participant well-being and data storage. Of course research ethics committees are not all the same and some are becoming now much
• 03:30 - 04:00 more genuinely interested in helping researchers to act ethically at all stages of the research process or at least at more stages than simply when they're collecting data. But even the mechanisms of doing this filling in a form for a decision to be made behind closed doors some ethics committees will welcome researchers to the meeting to discuss their project but they very rarely will take the decision in the presence of that researcher. So there is a question that is raised by some
• 04:00 - 04:30 researchers and buy some ethicists about how ethical really is the system of ethical review how ethical are the ethics committees. | There has been some progress on this in recent years so for example there was a conference called the ethics rupture summit held at Fredericton University in Canada and that resulted in the New Brunswick declaration it was by invitation only this conference. 30 or 35 ethics
• 04:30 - 05:00 researchers there I wasn't part of that group as I wasn't so involved myself at the time but it's interesting to me to read the New Brunswick declaration it's only a page long and it speaks of some of the principles that we saw in the last videocast and more from the indigenous research paradigm in the euro Western paradigm so it incorporates principles such as respect and the importance of research benefiting participants not just researchers and
• 05:00 - 05:30 there were people there representing countries where there is a strong tradition of indigenous research such as New Zealand and Canada other such countries I don't know whether indigenous researchers themselves were present but certainly some of those principles made their way in whether or not the people who do that kind of research were there in person. Then the Academy of Social Sciences worked hard over several years to create some core principles for research that people
• 05:30 - 06:00 could use to base ethical guidelines ethical codes on or just to help them think through how they would act ethically. I was involved with this process and there were several symposia with researchers from different disciplines talking about what was important to them and discussing what needed to go into the core principles. And while these principles are perhaps more firmly located in the euro Western paradigm they explicitly privileged democracy for example they also do look at issues of relationship and
• 06:00 - 06:30 reciprocity and respect so this is widening out the whole system of euro Western ethics or certainly trying to. | More recently in New Zealand at least one research committee research Ethics Committee has made its work accessible to community-based researchers so it's not only researchers working for or working within institutions like universities who can go to research ethics committees for guidance on how ethical their research might be. And overall this kind of move is moving away
• 06:30 - 07:00 from the principle of regulation and moving towards the principle of ethical education for researchers for all of us because nobody has got all the answers the greatest research ethics expert in the world doesn't have all the answers to all the ethical dilemmas that everyone may encounter. And another form of this progress is moving away from the old biomedical principle of do no harm which is really very low baseline now for search ethics and moving towards promoting social justice alongside
• 07:00 - 07:30 research and through research and for research to be done in the interest of social justice. So euro western principles are about regulations and also about progress in terms of that regulation it's not static we're moving towards something more even more ethical than our existing ethical systems. | Indigenous ethical principles are different in some ways and interesting and not universal talking about
• 07:30 - 08:00 indigenous ethical principles like talking about euro Western ethical principles makes it seem as though they are Universal and they're not in practice there are variation. But there are some common features so for example Wilson and Wilson put forward these four principles that they regarded as pretty much core to indigenous research ethics. One is that knowledge belongs to everyone. They don't use experts in the way Euro Western paradigm does
• 08:00 - 08:30 in Euro Western research and in euro Western society more widely we will assign expertise to a particular person someone may be an expert on glaciation someone else may be an expert on nutrition but in the indigenous paradigm knowledge is regarded as belonging to everyone everyone is their own form of expert and it's about bringing all those individual knowledge is together that creates an ethical way of knowing. | Then relationship which is key as we saw in
• 08:30 - 09:00 the last videocast key to indigenous research ethics every relationship should be mutually accountable and that's another key principle of indigenous research ethics. And then reciprocity every relationship should be reciprocal as well and that's relationships between people relationships between people and communities relationships between people and organisations and so on and so forth. And also that there should be a holistic
• 09:00 - 09:30 approach that knowing isn't purely cerebal it's also emotional it's also spiritual that knowledge may be held by ancestors who may not now be living that knowledge may be held by the land and knowledge can be gained by being in relation with ancestors with the land for example and with other aspects of being and aspects of experience. | There's a nice quote here from Bageley Chilisa a
• 09:30 - 10:00 professor in Botswana which kind of sums up most things about indigenous research ethics. I'm just going to read it to you in case you can't see it on the screen she says a post-colonial indigenous ethical Theory recognizes power sharing within diversity as an integral part of fairness and social justice and as a means to challenge power structures in order to transform lives. So there are many elements within that quote it's
• 10:00 - 10:30 about power sharing it's about a balance of power not inequalities of power. And it's about power sharing within diversity so however different people may be within that group or within that community they all have a right to share power and that this is integral to social justice it's not only that though it's not only fair and just it's also a way of challenging imbalances of power and ultimately it's about making a positive change to people's lives.
• 10:30 - 11:00 That's what research ethics is for that's what it's about. And Bageley Chilisa in her book on indigenous research methods which is a very interesting book and well worth reading she came up with the four R's in terms of indigenous ethical principles which are really quite similar to the principles set out by Wilson and Wilson's but not exactly the same. So again we have a clear similarity in the first one in that relationships are important and
• 11:00 - 11:30 everyone's accountable for those relationships particularly in research of course the researcher. | And then the second one, in research researchers need to listen carefully listen deeply really pay attention really listen not just collect data that becomes an artifact for them to use but to listen fully not only in terms of paying attention intellectually and cognitively but paying attention emotionally and making
• 11:30 - 12:00 sure that there's space for other knowledge systems than their own and for other voices than their own was in that research whether it be qualitative quantitative or mixed method. Then again we have reciprocity but Chilisa goes a little further than Wilson and Wilson here. She recognizes research as appropriation this is where you're collecting data and taking it away you're appropriating data and appropriating knowledge and it is important to remember I think that research has been a tool of oppression
• 12:00 - 12:30 and subjugation by colonial peoples of colonized peoples and this is perhaps a legacy of that. But again here we see the need for research to benefit participants and benefit communities not only benefiting researchers. And then Chilisa acknowledges the regulation principle which is where we started in the euro western paradigm but she is arguing there is scope within indigenous ethical principles for regulatory
• 12:30 - 13:00 protocols which will explicitly give ownership of research to colonized and marginalized people and ownership of the knowledge produced by research. And this is enshrined now in research ethic protocols in countries such as Australia and New Zealand and Canada where there are big indigenous populations conducting indigenous research.