INFO 272' Qualitative Research Methods

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• INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods
• April 15, 2008

Research Ethics
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Tuskegee Syphilis Study

• A little bit of history

Source University of Pittsburgh, Graduate
School of Public Health, Minority Health Archive
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Failures of Informed Consent

• Benefits of the research certainly did not
  outweigh risks to the participants
• Not informed
• That they were participating in a study
• About their health status
• Deceived into believing they were receiving
  treatment
• Not given the option to quit participation

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Basic Principles

• Respect for persons
• Beneficence maximize benefits and minimize
  possible harms
• Justice

source USHMM
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Practices

• Informed consent
• About the aims of the research project in
  understandable language
• Option not to participate or to quit at any time
• Option to decline to answer questions
• Assessment of Risks and Benefits
• Publication Practices using pseudonyms
• Selection of Subjects

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The Tearoom Trade

• Covert observation

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Online Ethics

• Association of Internet Researchers -
  http//aoir.org/?qtaxonomy/term/73
• Is there a site policy?
• Who is the author of this online material?
• Can this site/chatroom be considered a public
  space?
• Unique capacity for lurking

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Some cases

• observing and taking notes on behavior in a
  coffee shop
• take a job at a corporation in order to study it,
  various forms of undercover or exposé
  journalism
• lurking in an online discussion group, copying
  and analyzing posts made to the group without the
  writers consent
• being paid by the CIA to collect information for
  them while doing anthropological research
  http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4603271.stm

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Speaking for others

• Speaking for a group you belong to
• Speaking for a group you dont belong to
• Speaking for yourself alone
• what is a middle
  ground