RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

70 THE ETHICS OF EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RESEARCH
Box 2.8
Ethical principles for the guidance of action researchers
Observe protocol: take care to ensure that the relevant persons, committees and authorities have been consulted,
informed and that the necessary permission and approval have been obtained.
Involve participants: encourage others who have a stake in the improvement you envisage to shape and form the work.
Negotiate with those affected: not everyone will want to be directly involved; your work should take account of the
responsibilities and wishes of others.
Report progress: keep the work visible and remain open to suggestions so that unforeseen and unseen ramifications can
be taken account of; colleagues must have the opportunitytolodgeaprotesttoyou.
Obtain explicit authorizations: this applies where you wish to observe your professional colleagues, and where you wish to
examine documentation.
Negotiate descriptions of people’s work: always allow those described to challenge your accounts on the grounds of
fairness, relevance and accuracy.
Negotiate accounts of others’ points of view (e.g. in accounts of communication): always allow those involved in interviews,
meetings and written exchanges to require amendments which enhance fairness, relevance and accuracy.
Obtain explicit authorization before using quotations: this includes verbatim transcripts, attributed observations, excerpts of
audio and video recordings, judgements, conclusions or recommendations in reports (written or to meetings).
Negotiate reports for various levels of release: remember that different audiences require different kinds of reports; what is
appropriate for an informal verbal report to a faculty meeting may not be appropriate for a staff meeting, a report to
council, a journal article, a newspaper, a newsletter to parents; be conservative if you cannot control distribution.
Accept responsibility for maintaining confidentiality.
Retain the right to report your work: provided that those involved are satisfied with the fairness, accuracy and relevance of
accounts which pertain to them, and that the accounts do not unnecessarilyexposeorembarrass those involved, then
accounts should not be subject to veto or be sheltered by prohibitions of confidentiality.
Make your principles of procedure binding and known: all of the people involved in your action research project must agree
to the principles before the work begins; others must be aware of their rights in the process.
Source:adaptedfromKemmisandMcTaggart(1981)andquotedinHopkins(1985:134–6)
Ethics and evaluative research
Strike (1990), discussing the ethics of educational
evaluation, offers two broad principles which may
form the basis of further considerations in the
field of evaluation. These are the principle of
benefit maximization and the principle of equal
respect. The former, the principle of benefit
maximization, holds that the best decision is
the one that results in the greatest benefit for
most people. It is pragmatic in the sense that
it judges the rightness of our actions by their
consequences or, as Strike (1990) says, the best
action is the one with the best results. The
principle of utilitarianism requires us to identify
the particular benefits we wish to maximize, to
identify a suitable population for maximization,
specify what is to count as maximization, and fully
understand the consequences of our actions. The
second principle, that of equal respect, demands
that we respect the equal worth of all people. This
requires us to treat people as ends rather than
means, to regard them as free and rational, and
to accept that they are entitled to the same basic
rights as others.
Strike (1990) lists the following ethical principles
which he regards as particularly important
to evaluative research and which may be seen
in the light of the two broad principles outlined
above:
Due process: evaluative procedures must
ensure that judgements are reasonable: that
known and accepted standards are consistently
applied from case to case, that evidence is
reasonable and that there are systematic and
reasonable procedures for collecting and testing
evidence.