NAME : CLIOPATRA SIBUYI

STUDENT NUMBER : 19171463

MODULE CODE : IRM1501

ASSESMENT NO. : 01
Module code –IRM1501 Student number – 19171463

THE RELEVANT PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS IN RESEARCH

There are many ethical principles that can be used when conducting which is why I am going to discuss
the relevant ones. Ethical principles can be defined as a part of a normative theory that stands for moral
judgement.

Am going to discuss four (4) relevant principles which is:

• Minimising the risk of harm

• Earn informed consent
• Protecting anonymity and confidentiality
• Avoiding fraudulent practices
• Right to withdraw

Minimising the risk of harm

According to the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) they outline that the principle of minimising
harm implies that research will involve the least number of human subjects and the fewest number of
tests on these participants required to ensure that data is scientifically valid.

The research conducted should not be harmful to your participants, where there is the possibility that a
member could be harmed or placed in an uncomfortable situation, there must be a good justification for
this. Such scenarios will also need additional planning to show how member harm will be reduced, and
informed consent and detailed briefing.

Harm that members are exposed to:

• Physical harm to member

• Mental distress and discomfort
• Social disadvantage

Ways to reduce the risk of harm:

 • Earn informed consent from members
• Securing the anonymity and confidentiality
• Providing the right to withdraw to members

Earning informed consent

According to the University of Oxford they refer informed consent as one of the principles of ethics in
research which intends that human participants can enter research freely with full information about what
it means for them to take part, and that they give consent before they enter the research.

The full information includes the aim of the research, the techniques used, the possible results of the
research, as well as connected demands, displeasure, inconveniences and risks that the participant might
come across with. Mind you it might happen that you might not know what information a participant
would or would not want to know, which is why any materialistic information, which is the information
you think it might convince whether consent would or wouldn’t be granted.

According to Dissertation Laerd web outlines that another component of informed consent is the principle
that participants should be volunteers, taking part without having been coerced and deceived. Where
informed consent cannot be obtained from participants, you must explain why this is the case. You should
also be aware that there are instances where informed consent is not necessarily needed or needs to be
relaxed.

Protecting anonymity and confidentiality

According to the article of Research strategy and research ethics, it outlines that protecting the anonymity
and confidentiality of research participant is another practical component of research ethics. After all,
participants will typically only be willing to volunteer information, especially information of a private or
sensitive nature, if the researcher agrees to hold such information in confidence. Whilst it is possible that
research participants may be hurt in some way if data collection methods are used somehow insensitively,
there is perhaps a greater danger that harm can be caused once data has been collected. This occurs when
data is not treated confidentially, whether in terms of the storage of data, its analysis, or during the
publication process. However, this does not mean that all data collected from research participants needs
to be kept confidential or anonymous. It may be possible to disclose the identity and views of individuals
at various stages of the research process. Nonetheless, permission should be sought before such
confidential information is disclosed.
 Student number – 19171463

An alternative is to remove identifiers e.g., (vernacular terms, names, geographical cues,etc.) or provide
proxies when writing up. However, such a stripping of identifiable information may not always be possible
to anticipate at the outset of your dissertation when thinking about issues of research ethics. This is not
only a consideration for dissertation following a qualitative research design, but also a quantitative
research design.

Avoiding deceptive practices

According to the article of Research strategy and research ethics which says at first sight, deceptive
practices fly in the face of informed consent. After all, how can participants know that they are taking part
in research and what the research requires of them if they are being deceived? This is part of what makes
the use of deceptive practices controversial. For this reason, in most circumstances, dissertation research
should avoid any kind of deceptive practices. However, this is not always the case.

Deception is sometimes a necessary component of covert research, which can be justified in some cases.
Covert research reflects research where the identity of the observer and the purpose of the research is
not known to participants. For example; it is not feasible to let everyone in a particular research setting
know what you're doing and overt observation or knowledge of the purpose of the research may alter the
particular phenomenon that is being studied.

To conclude we can definitely say that this are the relevant ethics in research which a researcher can
adhere to when conducting research to avoid making several mistakes and misconducts .
Student no. 19171463

Bibliography

From a book

• Study guide for IRM1501 page 42 – 43

internet:

• www.dissertation.laerd.com
DECLARATION

I declare that this assignment is my own work. Where I have used someone's work, I have indicated by
using the bibliography. Every contribution of other people have being indicated in the bibliography. I will
not allow anyone to copy this work.

NAME : CLIOPATRA SIBUYI

STUDENT NUMBER : 19171463

DATE : 17-03-2023