Social Research Ethics

By Prof Lakshmi Lingam, Dr Sunita Bandewar | Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Learners enrolled: 914

Various fields of science adhere to the rigours of scientific method like reliability, validity and replicability governing research. Unlike research in pure sciences, which attempts to carry out research in a laboratory setting, in social sciences, research is based largely within the context of society, communities and everyday lives of people. Crucial to social science practice is the relationship between the researcher and the researched. Since human beings are embedded within a system of social hierarchies, these too manifest within social science research. Central to research ethics is the recognition of asymmetrical/imbalanced relationship amongst the key players in research - researchers, research institutes, sponsors/funders, research participants and communities, for example. Awareness of ethical considerations become very important, and must be navigated to ensure that research respects the dignity, privacy and rights of the individuals being researched. This course will attempt to build the awareness and understanding of participants who enroll for this course to: 1. Appreciate the salience of research ethics in upholding scientific integrity of research enterprise and 2. Identify and apply the methods of ethical reasoning to social science research.

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Elective
Duration :	15 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	4
Level :	Postgraduate
Start Date :	15 Jul 2019
End Date :	30 Oct 2019
Enrollment Ends :	10 Sep 2019
Exam Date :

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1:

Introductory Concepts & Principles: Amongst others, this course engages with two key domains which are: research; and research ethics. During this opening week, course participants will be engaged with select key questions as a way of laying down foundations to the course. These key questions include: What is Social Sciences Research? What is the relevance and significance of social sciences research? What is the idea of Ethics? In what ways does it manifest in our everyday and in research? What is the relevance of Ethics within social sciences research? Do course participants view it as a mandatory requirement or process embedded in carrying out robust rigorous research?

Week 2:

Key Elements of Research: During this week, course participants will be taken through an understanding of research paradigms, location of theory within research, quantitative and qualitative research designs. This week’s content will provide the background for sessions that come up during Week 10 and 11.

Week 3:

Justice, Equity and Fairness governing Research: In this third week of the course, participants will learn and appreciate equity frameworks in the context of carrying out research to build knowledge of relevance in a manner that addresses broader justice questions. Participants will learn that this is an overarching framework to be considered right at the outset while designing research making specific research work robustly informed by justice and equity at conceptual and operational levels.

Week 4:

History of Bio-ethics & Controversies: During this week, course participants will appreciate the current social science research ethics discourse in the historical context of bioethics discourse. The faculty will briefly discuss various controversies that took place over the past few decades in social science research in disciplines such as psychology, and anthropology. Participants will also get an opportunity to get insights into controversies in medical sciences and public health research. These controversies have contributed to enriching bioethics discourse and have also shaped it by further sharpening research ethics obligations towards research participants and participating communities.

Week 5:

Theoretical Approaches to Bio-ethics: During this week, participants will learn about the theoretical underpinning of research ethics discourse. They will learn that there exist multiplicity of approaches to understand and help address ethical issues and dilemmas in social sciences research. Course participants will also learn about the most used framework of research ethics benchmarks.

Week 6:

Social Relevance and Scientific Validity: During this week, participants will learn about two of the foundational principles of research ethics, that is, social relevance and scientific validity of the proposed research. Participants will appreciate importance of ensuring that research meets these two principles. They will learn to assess and ensure social relevance of the proposed research and methods of safe guarding scientific validity of research. They will learn that these are also important considerations during ethics review undertaken by ethics review boards. They will get insights into research scenarios wherein these two principles may conflict with each other requiring further thinking.

Week 7:

Informed consent: During this week, participants will learn the most referred key concept in research ethics discourse, that is, seeking informed consent from research participants; and an allied concept of seeking authorisation of various gate keepers in varied research contexts and settings. They will learn the concept of gate keepers which could be institutes or individuals. They will learn both theoretical and practical aspects of these concepts. They will learn to translate these key concepts into practice; and appreciate challenges involved, specificities relating to research contexts and settings; and various possibilities to address them by reasoning out employing ethics principles drawing upon what they would have learnt in the course by then.

Week 8:

Privacy and confidentiality: In this week, course participants will learn about yet other two of the key concepts, namely, privacy and confidentiality to be maintained relating to research participants, participating communities and information collected from them which are central to research ethics discourse and practice. They will learn both theoretical and practical aspects of these concepts. They will learn to translate these key concepts into practice; and appreciate challenges involved, specificities relating to research contexts and settings; and various possibilities to address them by reasoning out employing ethics principles drawing upon what they would have learnt in the course by then.

Week 9:

Risk benefit analysis: During this week, research participants will learn about risk-benefit analysis in relation to research participants, and when necessary study communities. They will learn both theoretical and practical aspects of these concepts; appreciate challenges involved, specificities relating to research contexts and settings; and ways to address them.

Week 10:

Ethics of positivist and non-positivist approaches in social science research in health: The week aims to identify the potential ethical challenges in positivist and non-positivist approaches to research in social sciences. It also describes the relativist and universalist approaches to resolving such ethical dilemmas and provides examples of possible solutions.

Week 11:
Ethical challenges specific to research methods: quantitative and qualitative methods: The sessions within this week aim to describe the ethical challenges specific to quantitative and qualitative research methods. It also provides examples of such challenges within quantitative and qualitative research.

Week 12:

Translating research ethics concepts in different research settings: Building on the learnings so far in the course, in this week, course participants will learn to appreciate distinct study settings and the concept of situational vulnerabilities. These have implications translating research ethics principles in a manner that takes into account field setting specificities.

Week 13:

Research Ethics Governance: During this week, course participants will learn about ethics review boards, their functioning, and responsibilities of ethics review board members as the key research ethics governance structure and processes. They will learn that engagement with this important body which if functions well carries immense potential to enhance overall quality of research both in terms of scientific validity and research ethics rigour. They will also learn briefly specific obligations in collaborative research initiatives.

Week 14:

Publication Ethics: In this week, course participants will learn about the concepts of publication ethics and research integrity; their importance; and reasons for such practices. They will learn about the concept of authorship and responsibilities that are implied; ghost and guest authorship. Participants will learn about key concepts, such as plagiarism, data manipulation practices which breach integrity of scientific knowledge. The course participants will also learn about the concept of conflict of interest and its relationship with scientific integrity; and ways to address and manage conflict of interest.

Week 15:

Concluding session: During this closing week, course participants will have an opportunity to review some of the key concepts they learnt during the fifteen weeks and their translation in to research practice.

Books and references

1. Mertens, D. M., & Ginsberg, P. E. (2009). The handbook of social research ethics Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

doi: 10.4135/9781483348971

2. Israel, M., & Hay, I. (2006).Research ethics for social scientists London, : SAGE Publications, Ltd

doi: 10.4135/9781849209779.

3. Mertens, D. M., & Ginsberg, P. E. (2009). The handbook of social research ethics. Thousand Oaks.

Instructor bio

Prof Lakshmi Lingam

Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Dr. Lakshmi Lingam is a Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is a gender expert, trainer, teacher and researcher. Dr. Lakshmi has been on the Faculty of the TISS for the past 30 years. She teaches several courses on gender across the TISS Mumbai and Hyderabad campuses. Dr. Lakshmi research interests range from exploring the social and gender-specific implications of macro economic policies; urban poverty and women’s livelihoods; studying women’s movements and other social movements; understanding women’s health and reproductive rights; and exploring issues of culture, women’s identity and agency. She has undertaken several research projects and published extensively on gender, health, development; structural adjustment & urban poverty; micro credit & women empowerment and public policies.

Dr Sunita V S Bandewar

Anthropology and Bioethics

Dr Sunita V S Bandewar: has training in Anthropology and Bioethics. Her engagement with health covers the areas of women and health, global health, and bioethics. She is also a trainer in the areas of bioethics, global health, research methodology, programme evaluation and policy analysis. She currently leads Health, Ethics, and Law Institute for Training, Research and Advocacy of Forum for Medical Ethics Society, Mumbai. She serves on the International Ethics Review Board, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Geneva; and as General Secretary, Managing Committee, Forum for Medical Ethics Society, Mumbai, working editor, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME) and a founding trustee of Vidhayak Trust, Pune.