Ethics is important while doing research. The aspects that make ethical consideration important are its usefulness, ecological validity, reliability, validity and bioethics.
Usefulness is where the research is applicable to everyday life as it refers to the contribution that it makes to human welfare. This kills two birds with one stone as it has ethical consideration and also improve the way researchers work. Such as in the research of Andrade study (2010); understanding the role of boredom, daydreaming and tasks that alleviate them; allowing a more complete cognitive analysis of task performance in the lab and real-life work and educational settings.
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To comprehend more about the ways of maintaining attention to tasks are also important in the context of depressive rumination and worry; mind wandering helps maintain dysphoric states. In addition, having it useful benefits the society; example on research of Canli et al. where a twenty-five year-old man studied on his own exhibited significant behavioural changes after he was in an accident that had a severe injury with a metal rod; stabbed into his cheekbone, passing through his eye and out the top of his head. This study can be applied to the publicising agencies where if emotionally intense information is more likely to be perceived at a later date then notices that will appear on the television or in magazines may be designed explicitly to contain extreme symbolism. Considering this ethics leads to improving the lifestyles of the general population too. As proven from the research by Yamamoto et al. (2012); chimpanzees flexibility on targeted helping based on understanding conspecific goals. This is to have more knowledge on the behaviour of chimpanzees whether they can respond to those help in need. The results taken were applicable in children’s development and edification on helping others. This means if children and chimpanzees take the same progress path, we could teach children on how we can solicit people whether they want to help even without being directly implored.
Moreover, ecological validity is also one of the important matters while doing research; making sure that a study is true to real-life as possible. One best way is to study in their natural environment having mundane realism. Having a natural experiment can help the researcher get the most realistic experimental results. Most of the people have psychological stress when they are in a laboratory setting (McLeod, 2012). Therefore, researchers cannot get hundred percent authentic answer and results. Despite, when people are not aware while contributing in the study, most of them would give their true thoughts. Else, observational experiment is by having random participants; obtaining different data and information. Referencing to the study of Piliavin et al. (1969) on “Good Samaritanism”, it is carried out to test helping behaviour in the field; bystander apathy.
A pessimistic occasion such as an open assault on an individual or a person falling sick on the street requiring help, was less inclined to offer help; being given if there were numerous witnesses than if there were not many. The statistics gained by the researchers is high in ecological validity as there were lack of control in the situation due to the field setting. Additionally, this can be generalized beyond lab setting. While researchers interview a person in a specific place outside his or her usual environment, answers may have demand characteristics; having participants giving social desirable feedback. For instance, when participants are unknowingly taking part in the event of experiment, their reactions are not prone to change their natural behaviour in line with their interpretation of the examination purpose. Thus, responses differs according to the environment.
Furthermore, reliability is the extent to which a procedure or measure is consistent. This is to minimize differences in the way research is conducted so that standardization can be used. Test-retest method is to measure the reliability with the same test twice over a period of time with a group individuals. This method is used to measure stability of the test over time. Referring to Pepperberg as an example, she trained Alex the parrot learning on how to categorize colours, shapes and material with the same method every day. Thus, test-retest method has both advantages and disadvantages which takes a long time for results to be obtained. However, repeating the test is the safest method for consistency result and hence, enhances standardization. In fact, this type of reliability assumes that there will be no change in the quality of method being measured. Followed by inter-observer reliability is one of the reliable method because this refers to different evaluators; having consistent data from the same test. For example, two groups of research with five person in each group to give their opinion in a scenario where a person suffers from schizophrenia, committing murder, and majority has decided to put him behind bars - inter-rater reliability is high. On the other hand, inter-rater reliability is to have the majority of observers determine each results and having an agreement among themselves. For instance, two researchers are observing an aggressive children’s behaviour, they both would have their own subjective opinion regarding the condition. In this situation, if they both have total different aspects, then the data is be unreliable. Yet, if they both categorize under the same amount of aggressiveness, then the result is reliable. This method is usually relied on majority to observe and then calculate the percent of agreement among the observers.
Additionally, validity is results found to genuinely represent the phenomenon that can be asserted as a solid measure. One good way is to have a veracious feedback. Taking Laney et al (2008) into reference – investigating whether giving false feedback suggesting that a participant loves to eat asparagus as a child can initiate a false belief of memory of experiences associated to eating asparagus; subsequently leading to changes in the general liking as well as the fondness in ordering this vegetable dish in a restaurant setting. In this study, questionnaires were the data collected method; qualitative data obtained from open-ended questions on their encounter with asparagus. Nevertheless, answers were based on the participant’s reminiscence. Contrarily, it can eliminate researcher bias. Proven by the research of Dement and Kleitman (1957) – relation of eye moments during sleep activity where the objective of this is mainly to study on dreaming. The findings is high in validity due to participants not being debriefed whether their eyes had been moving or not; researchers not having any communication with them during the night – eliminating experimenter effects. Therefore, socially desirable findings are not subjected to the data collected. Rational findings also subjects to high validity. According to Schachter and Singer (1962) - testing two-factor theory emotions where a person is in a situation; state of arousal for which they have an appropriate explanation and if the person reacts emotionally only when on state of physiological arousal. Validity is high because of the participants being randomly distributed to different conditions which allows experimenters to deceive them on the real nature of the study. This leads to participants not knowing whether they were actually injured with the injected solution given. Although validity was high in the researches above, some ethical considerations are still yet to be improved. In other words, validity should be high in research as it is one of the most important methodological issue used to determine the true measure of the examination.
Last but not least, bioethics must be considered while undergoing a research. It is defined by Hellsten (2009) as the study of the ethical, social, legal, philosophical and other related issues arising in the biological sciences and in health care. Bioethics has been used in multiple disciplines such as physics-mathematics, engineering science and social interaction (ibid). However, there is no detailed understanding of what bioethics is among those who are involved in any discipline and as such, although it can be defined as above, the definition itself is still open for interpretation by anyone. Also, different ideas can be applied: debating whether bioethics is descriptive or prescriptive, how methodology applied in bioethics inquiry and what the goals in bioethics are. Hence, the diversity of viewers easily loses their focus on discussion of bioethics topics that leads non-argumentative diverse viewers on different ethical questions. For example, academic disciplines require practices from bioethics to the work of regulative committees. In essentiality, bioethics is shown in all forms of academic disciplines; gradually losing its reflective edge due to its tendency to fall into ethical relativism of all possible approaches. By the same token, the principles of making informed decisions specifically defined the “right” or “wrong” dependent on the views of scientists. Due to this, bioethical consideration must be used to objectively present facts instead of pushing opinions based on beliefs or politics. It is also pertinent for the presenter to ethically and objectively present their case instead of using their personal biases to influence the data and report. To boot, bio-politics refers to ethics that can be used to skew opinions and attempt justified outcomes based on pre-existing opinions from researchers in order to make non-objectives research. This means that the government bodies or political groups or activists can twist the facts towards their cause and push their own agendas. Thus , there is always a threat that definition of bioethics itself will become politicized to mobilize political agendas. Therefore, considering ethics in terms of bioethics is possible to make research of non-objective and non-scientific by introducing pre-existing or biased views.
In conclusion, ethical consideration is a must to take into account while doing a research. Multiple aspects has to be considered in order to determine or maintain an objective research as well as to derive an objective and fact based conclusion that is not swayed by unnecessary subjectivity and collecting legitimate results.
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