RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

594 NOTES
Society (2005). Comparable developments may be
found in other fields of endeavour. For an examination
of key ethical issues in medicine, business,
and journalism together with reviews of common
ethical themes across these areas, see Serafini, A.
(ed.) (1989) Ethics and Social Concern. NewYork:
Paragon House. The book also contains an account
of principal ethical theories from Socrates to
R. M. Hare.
2 US Dept of Health, Education and Welfare,Public
Health Service and National Institute of Health
(1971) The Institutional Guide to D.H.E.W. Policy
on Protecting Human Subjects. DHEWPublication
(NIH): 2 December, 72–102.
3 As regards judging researchers’ behaviour, perhaps
the only area of educational research where the
term ethical absolute can be unequivocally applied
and where subsequent judgement is unquestionable
is that concerning researchers’ relationship with
their data. Should they choose to abuse their data
for whatever reason, the behaviour is categorically
wrong; no place here for moral relativism. For
once a clear dichotomy is relevant: if there is
such a thing as clearly ethical behaviour, such
abuse is clearly unethical. It can take the form
of, first, falsifying data to support a preconceived,
often favoured, hypothesis; second, manipulating
data, often statistically, for the same reason
(or manipulating techniques used – deliberately
including leading questions, for example); third,
using data selectively, that is, ignoring or excluding
the bits that don’t fit one’s hypothesis; and fourth,
going beyond the data, in other words, arriving
at conclusions not warranted by them (or overinterpreting
them). But even malpractice as serious
as these examples cannot be controlled by fiat:
ethical injunctions would hardly be appropriate
in this context, let alone enforceable. The only
answer (in the absence of professional monitoring)
is for the researcher to have a moral code that is
‘rationally derived and intelligently applied’, to use
the words of the philosopher, R. S. Peters, and to
be guided by it consistently. Moral competence, like
other competencies, can be learned. One way of
acquiring it is to bring interrogative reflection to
bear on one’s own code and practice, e.g. did I
provide suitable feedback, in the right amounts, to
the right audiences, at the right time In sum, ethical
behaviour depends on the concurrence of ethical
thinking which in turn is based on fundamentally
thought-out principles. Readers wishing to take
the subject of data abuse further should read Peter
Medawar’s (1991) elegant and amusing essay,
‘Scientific fraud’, in D. Pike (ed.) The Threat and the
Glory: Reflections on Science and Scientists. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, and also Broad, W. and
Wade, N. (1983) Betrayers of Truth: Fraud and Deceit
in the Halls of Science.NewYork:Century.
5 SENSITIVE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
1 See also Walford (2001: 38) in his discussion of
gaining access to UK public schools, where an early
question that was put to him was ‘Are you one of
us’
2 Walford (2001:69) comments on the very negative
attitudes of teachers to research on UK independent
schools, the teachers feeling that researchers had
been dishonest and had tricked them, looking only
for salacious, sensational and negative data on the
school (e.g. on bullying, drinking, drugs, gambling
and homosexuality).
8 HISTORICAL AND DOCUMENTARY
RESEARCH
1 By contrast, the historian of the modern period,
i.e. the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is more
often faced in the initial stages with the problem
of selecting from too much material, both at the
stage of analysis and writing. Here the two most
common criteria for such selection are the degree of
significance to be attached to data, and the extent
to which a specific detail may be considered typical
of the whole.
2 However, historians themselves usually reject such
adirectapplicationoftheirworkandrarelyindulge
in it on the grounds that no two events or
contextual circumstances, separated geographically
and temporally, can possibly be equated. As the
popular sayings go, ‘History never repeats itself’ and
so, ‘The only thing we can learn from History is that
we can learn nothing from History’.
3 Thomas, W. I. and Znaniecki, F. (1918) The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press. For a fuller
discussion of the monumental work of Thomas and
Znaniecki, see Plummer, K. (1983) Documents of
Life: An Introduction to the Problems and Literature
of a Humanistic Method. London: Allen & Unwin,
especially Chapter 3, The Making of a Method.
See also Madge, J. (1963) The Origin of Scientific
Sociology. London: Tavistock. For a critique of
Thomas and Znaniecki, see Riley, M. W. (1963)
Sociological Research 1: A Case Approach.NewYork:
Harcourt, Brace & World.
4 Sikes,P., Measor,L. and Woods,P. (1985) Teacher
Careers.Lewes:Falmer.SeealsoSmith,L.M.(1987)
Kensington Revisited. Lewes: Falmer; Goodson,I.
and Walker, R. (1988) Putting life into educational
research. In R. R. Sherman and R. B. Webb
(eds) Qualitative Research in Education: Focus and
Methods. Lewes:Falmer;Acker,S.(1989)Teachers,