RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

RESEARCH AND REGULATION: ETHICAL CODES AND REVIEW 73
The American Sociological Association’s Code
of Ethics and Policies and Procedures of the
ASA Committee on Professional Ethics (1999) has
five general principles: professional competence;
integrity; professional and scientific responsibility;
respect for people’s rights, dignity and diversity;
and social responsibility. These are then devolved
onto twenty ethical standards, including nonexploitation,
confidentiality, informed consent,
deception, offering inducements and many others.
The Statement of Ethical Practice for the
British Sociological Association (2002) includes
sections on: professional integrity; relations with
and responsibilities towards research participants;
relationships with research participants; covert
research; anonymity, privacy and confidentiality;
relations with and responsibilities towards sponsors
and/or funders; carrying obligations, roles and
rights; pre-empting outcomes and negotiations
about research; and obligations to sponsors and/or
funders during the research process.
The Social Research Association’s Ethical
Guidelines (2003) draws on European law
(http://www.respectproject.org) and indicates four
levels of obligations: to society; to funders and
employers; to colleagues; and to subjects (including
avoiding undue intrusion, obtaining informed
consent, modifications to informed consent, protecting
the interests of subjects, enabling participation,
maintaining confidentiality of records, and
preventing disclosure of identities).
The British Educational Research Association’s
Ethical Guidelines (2000) are devolved onto:
responsibilities to the research profession; responsibility
to the participants (including working with
children, informed consent, rights to withdrawal);
responsibility to the public; relationships with
funding agencies; publication; intellectual ownership;
relationship with host institution. Similarly,
the Ethical Standards of the American Educational Research
Association (2000) includes: responsibilities
to the field; research populations, educational
institutions, and the public (including working
with children), informed consent, confidentiality,
honesty (‘deception is discouraged’ and ‘should
be used only when clearly necessary’, after which
the reasons for the deception should be explained
(para. B3)), rights of withdrawal, exploitation for
personal gain, sensitivity to local circumstances
(e.g. culture, religion, gender), avoidance of negative
consequences, dissemination, anonymity;
intellectual ownership; editing, reviewing and
appraising research; sponsors, policy-makers and
other users of research; and students and student
researchers.
Web sites of these research associations’ ethical
principles and guidelines can be found either on
the home page of each association or as follows:
American Educational Research Association:
http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/About
AERA/Ethical Standards/Ethical
Standards.pdf
American Psychological Association: http://www.
apa.org/ethics/code2002.html
American Sociological Association: http://www.
asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html
British Educational Research Association: http://
www.bera.ac.uk
British Psychological Society: http://www.bps.
org.uk/document-download-area/
document-download$.cfmfile uuid=
6D0645CC-7E96-C67F-
D75E2648E5580115&ext=pdf
British Sociological Association: http://www.
britsoc.co.uk/new site/user doc/
Statement%20of%20Ethical%20Practice.
doc
Social Research Association: http://www.thesra.
org.uk/ethics03.pdf
The difficulty and yet the strength with
ethical codes is that they cannot and do not
provide specific advice for what to do in specific
situations. Ultimately, it is researchers themselves,
their integrity and conscience, informed by an
acute awareness of ethical issues, underpinned
by guideline codes and regulated practice, which
should decide what to do in a specific situation,
and this should be justified, justifiable, thought
through and defensible.
There is a certain degree of homogeneity
between the codes and guidelines cited above.
While they are helpful in providing guidance,
they cannot tell the researcher what to do in every
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