RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

RESEARCH AND REGULATION: ETHICAL CODES AND REVIEW 71
Privacy: this involves a right to control
information about oneself, and protects people
from unwarranted interference in their affairs.
In evaluation, it requires that procedures are
not overtly intrusive and that such evaluation
pertains only to those aspects of a teacher’s
activity that are job related. It also protects the
confidentiality of evaluation information.
Equality: in the context of evaluation, this can
best be understood as a prohibition against
making decisions on irrelevant grounds, such
as race, religion, gender, ethnicity or sexual
orientation.
Public perspicuity: this principle requires
openness to the public concerning evaluative
procedures, their purposes and their results.
Humaneness: this principle requires that
consideration is shown to the feelings and
sensitivities of those in evaluative contexts.
Client benefit: this principle requires that
evaluative decisions are made in a way that
respects the interests of students, parents and
the public, in preference to those of educational
institutions and their staff. This extends to
treating participants as subjects rather than as
‘research fodder’.
Academic freedom: this requires that an atmosphere
of intellectual openness is maintained
in the classroom for both teachers and students.
Evaluation should not be conducted in a way
that chills this environment.
Respect for autonomy: teachers are entitled
to reasonable discretion in, and to exercise
reasonable judgement about, their work.
Evaluations should not be conducted so
as to unreasonably restrict discretion and
judgement.
Strike (1990) develops these principles in a more
extended and systematic form in his contribution.
Research and regulation: ethical codes
and review
Ethical regulation exists at several levels:
legislation, ethics review committees to oversee
research in universities and other institutions
(these can constitute a major hurdle for those
planning to undertake research), ethical codes of
the professional bodies and associations as well
as the personal ethics of individual researchers
are all important regulatory mechanisms. All
investigators, from undergraduates pursuing a
course-based research project to professional
researchers striving at the frontiers of knowledge,
must take cognizance of the ethical codes
and regulations governing their practice. Failure
to meet these responsibilities on the part of
researchers is perceived as undermining the whole
scientific process and may lead to legal and
financial penalties and liabilities for individuals
and institutions.
Professional societies and associations have
formulated codes of practice which express the
consensus of values within a particular group and
which help individual researchers in indicating
what is desirable and what is to be avoided.
Of course, this does not solve all problems,
for there are few absolutes and in consequence
ethical principles may be open to a wide
range of interpretations. The establishment of
comprehensive regulatory mechanisms is well
founded in the United Kingdom, but it is perhaps
in the field of information and data – how they
are stored and the uses to which they are put, for
example – that educational researchers are likely
to find growing interest. This category would
include, for instance, statistical data, data used
as the basis for evaluation, curricular records,
written records, transcripts, data sheets, personal
documents, research data, computer files, and
audio and video recordings.
As information technology establishes itself
in a centre-stage position and as society has
become increasingly dependent on information,
the concept of information is important not only
for what it is, but for what it can do. Numerous
writers have pointed out the connection between
information and power, for example Harris et al.’s
(1992) comments on the power over individuals
through the control of personal information and its
relationship to power of professionalism in which
submission to expert knowledge is required. Data
misuse, therefore, or disclosure at the wrong time or
Chapter 2