This document discusses research ethics and misconduct. It defines research ethics as respecting individuals involved in research studies through honesty and informed consent. Research ethics are important to respect participants, ensure safety, and establish standards. Projects requiring ethics approval involve human or animal participants. Key ethical issues include informed consent, deception, the right to withdraw, and confidentiality. The document also discusses definitions of misconduct, examples of unethical historical studies, ethics codes like the Nuremberg Code and Belmont Report, and how to prevent misconduct through quality practices and oversight.

1. Research Ethics
and Misconduct in Research

2. What is research
ethics?
• Research ethics concerns the responsibility
of researchers to be honest and respectful to
all individuals who are affected by their
research studies or their reports of the
studies’ results.

3. Why is research ethics important?
• -It is a reflection of respect for those who ‘take
part’ in research
• -It ensures no unreasonable, unsafe or
thoughtless demands are made by researchers
• -It ensures sufficient knowledge is shared by all
concerned
• -It imposes a common standard in all the above
respects

4. -It has become the norm as an expectation for
research activity
-…. a professional requirement for practitioners
in some disciplines e.g. psychology
-… a requirement for access to participants in
others e.g. health

5. What projects need ethical approval?
• -Human participants
• -Use of the ‘products’ of
human participants
• -Animal participants
• -Work that potentially
impacts on human
participants
• -Where ethical approval
is deemed unnecessary
a disclaimer may be
signed by researcher
(and supervisor)

6. Key ethical issues
• -Informed Consent - special consideration
for minors
• •Deception: Passive deception ( or
omission) is the withholding or omitting of
information; the researcher intentionally
does not tell participants some
information about the study.

7. Continuation
• •Active deception ( or commission) is the
presenting of misinformation about the study
to participants. The most common form of
active deception is misleading participants
about the specific purpose of the study.
• -Need for debriefing : The final point is that
deceived participants must receive a debriefing
that provides a full description of the true
purpose of the study, including the use and
purpose of deception, after the study is
completed.

8. Continuation
• -Right to withdraw
• -Confidentiality
• -Safety and risk

9. OTHER ETHICAL ISSUES AND SCIENTIFIC
INTEGRITY
• -Researchers do not fabricate data.
(They do not make false, deceptive, or
fraudulent statements concerning their
publications or research findings.)
• -If they discover significant errors in
their published data, they take
reasonable steps to correct such errors
in a correction, re-traction, erratum, or
other appropriate publication means.

10. Continuation
• -They do not present portions of
another’s work or data as their
own, even if the other work or
data source is cited occasionally.
• -It is important to distinguish
between error and fraud.
• -Fraud, is an explicit effort to
falsify or misrepresent data.

11. Unethical examples
-Breaking and re-breaking of bones ( to see
how many times they could be broken before
healing failed to occur) Nazi
-Patients had been injected with live
cancer cells (Jewish Chronic Disease
Hospital, NY, 1963)

12. continuation
400 men had been left to suffer with
syphilis long after a cure ( penicillin) was
available. (Tuskegee, Alabama, 1932-72)
• 400 had latent syphilis, with a control group of 201 men
who were not infected. As an incentive for participation in
the study, the men were promised free medical care, but
were deceived by the PHS, who never informed subjects
of their diagnosis, despite the risk of infecting others, and
the fact that the disease could lead to blindness,
deafness, mental illness, heart disease, bone
deterioration, collapse of the central nervous system, and
death; Instead, the men were told that they were being
treated for "bad blood,” a colloquialism that described
various conditions such as syphilis, anemia and fatigue.
The collection of illnesses the term included was a leading
cause of death within the southern African-American
community.
-Milgram’s study sustained no physical harm,
they suffered shame and embarrassment for
having behaved inhumanely toward their fellow
human beings.(1963)

13. Ethics code
1. Nuremberg Code, a set of 10 guidelines
for the ethical treatment of human
participants in research

14. continuation
• The Belmont Report, 1979 :
• ( 1) Individuals should consent to
participate in studies and those who
cannot give their consent, such as children,
people with diminished abilities, and
prisoners, need to be protected.
• ( 2) The researcher not harm the
participants, minimize risks, and maximize
possible benefits.
• ( 3) fairness in procedures for selecting
participants.

15. - APA guide: The researcher is obligated to protect
participants from physical or psychological harm.
During or after a study, participants may feel increased
anxiety, anger, lower self- esteem, or mild depression,
especially in situations in which they feel they have
been cheated, tricked, deceived, or insulted.The APA
ethical guidelines require that researchers ensure the
confidentiality of their research participants. Ensuring
that participants’ records are kept anonymous.

17. What is misconduct in Research?
• Research misconduct is
defined as (Code of Federal
Regulations: 42 CFR Part 93):
Fabrication, falsification, or
plagiarism in proposing,
performing, or reviewing
research, or in reporting
research results.

18. Research Misconduct Prevention
• -Self-policing with Quality Research
Practices
• -Good science practices minimize the risk
of misconduct. For example: Strict
adherence to the scientific method, Clear,
detailed recordkeeping, Meaningful and
clear delineation of collaboration, Shared
understanding of authorship roles and
responsibilities, Attentive mentoring for
newer members of the research
environment, Encouragement and support
for asking questions and open discussion,
Responding to Research Misconduct,
Obligations to Act

20. Sources of information
and photos in the slides
• https://www.google.com/search?client
=firefox-b-d&q=research+ethics+ppt
• https://www.staffs.ac.uk › images ›
researchethicsadinov05_
• https://www.slideshare.net › uqudent ›
introduction-to-research-ethics
• https://www.google.com/search?q=nur
emberg+code&tbm=
• https://www.google.com/search?q=eth
ics+in+research&tbm=isch&ved
• https://www.google.com/search?q=eth
ical+issues+in+research&tbm
• https://www.google.com/search?q=ho
w+to+avoid+misconduct+in+research&
tbm=isch&ved=
• https://www.google.com/search?q=mis
conduct+in+research&rlz=
• https://www.google.com/search?q=the
+belmont+report%2C+1979+code&tbm