Ethical Issues in Research - Personal Statement Example

Ethical Issues in Research Answer 1 Communication of key findings in research report is one of the important works of the overall research. Once the researcher obtains the key findings of the research, then it needs to analysed and present in the research report. A research work may have different intended stakeholders or audiences and each of these have unique interest in the evaluation of the findings. They might be interested in gaining more knowledge from the evaluation where they have participated (Kotze, 2007, p.2). Research findings are typically communicated through six different sections, combination of which forms a research report. These six sections are followings. Background: It describes the basic information and history about the programmes or the project which is being evaluated. Review of evaluation questions: This section describes the goals of evaluation of the programmes. It includes specific evaluation questions and reasons for each question. Evaluation methods: These describe in detail the design and the process of the evaluation. This process of evaluation includes the major criteria used for selecting samples or the participants. It also explains the data collections approaches and the process of analysis of the data. Key findings: These are the main observation from the overall research programme which provides descriptions of the participants or the samples which includes the demographic of the participants and the extent of participation. Conclusions: It contains the comparisons hypothesis of the research with the actual findings. It reflects the strength of the research programme identified in the evaluation and recommendation for further improvement of the work i.e. the process of finding the results. It also describes the limitation of the research process and evaluation process. Appendix: It includes the additional information of the report or the evaluation process of the key findings. These help the readers for better understandings of the evaluation process. It includes the questions which are asked to the participants or respondents and the graphical representation of the results of each question. Answer 2 Academic journal report: Academic journals are the specialist publications. A particular academic journal represents an in-depth analysis of a particular area of any subject. The main aim for this is to provide detailed analysis or information about a narrow topic of academics. Analysis is done in much deeper level to find out the key outcomes and the limitations. Newspaper report: A newspaper report generally discuss about the current or recent news or issues from divers areas. It includes the accounts of eye witness for the happening events. Gene3rally newspaper reports answers almost all the questions like who, what, when, where, how and lastly thye most important why. These articles are written keeping in mind the mass market knowledge base to understand and needful of the topic. These based on the study of the wide range of topic not in-depth research on a particular area. The main aim for this type of article is to make awareness of the mass about particular issues or detail facts which the readers need to aware of or sometimes they are interested to know gain a wide range of knowledge. Section B Answer 1 The positivist research philosophy is derived from natural science and is characterised by hypothesis testing and development from the existing theories through the measurement of the social realities. This position of assumes that the world exist for different externalities and objectives. The knowledge of the assumption is only valid if it is assumed based on the findings and the observations of any external realities and it needs to develop some theoretical models which can explain the cause and effectiveness of the possible outcomes. Positivism is based on the quantitative values and the reasons, validity and truth and it always wants to focus on the pure facts and data which become the evidence to support the assumptions. According to positivist position of the research philosophy, the research is conducted keeping in mind that the key findings might be quantitative i.e. the numbers and figures which do not any experts feedback to prove the assumptions or though hypothesis. Positivist assumes that the current happenings in any organizations can be discovered through the previous observation and the categorisation and scientific measurement of the people’s behaviour which might influence the actual outcomes of the assumptions. The nature of positivist researcher is that any interpretation they take is framed by the means which avoid any type of biasness of the participants of a research. Ontological assumptions represent the nature of reality where the positivist believes that there is only one reality and that is positive to the required outcomes. The epistemological assumption represents our acceptance. It involves the relationship between the reach and the researcher. The positivist believes that only the information which backed by the efficient facts and measurable data are only considered as knowledge which might be reflected through the research. The axiological assumptions is only represents the role of values which involved in the research process. Positivist researchers generally have a view that the process of the research is free from value. So, they think themselves that they are independent from the investigation and the phenomena of the research. They are interested in the interrelationship between believe and the object they are studying. Their belief is that the objects that they are studying were present before they have interest on that. Again they think that the object that they are using in research will not be affected by the research and they will be present as it was after the research is done. Positivists only believe on qualitative research method and they adopt the strategies to provide information and knowledge to the readers backed by valid evidence and quantitatively analysed data. Data are collected by the researcher by various means and it follows a strict process for statistical analysis (Alzheimer 2009). Positivist researchers take the experimental research strategy. They collect data by manipulating the independent variables to determine the cause. The research process involves two different ways; these are field experiment or analysis of data and figures directly provided by the target audiences (HCCEDL, 2012, p.23). Answer 4 Ethics must be considered when research is conducted. Any research needs to adapt some ethical approaches that results a sound and valuable starting point, a valid and suitable method, useful results and effective conclusions. There are three main principles of ethics in research that in include confidentiality, informed consent and avoiding harm to do well. Researcher must consider personal safety in terms of physical as well as psychological harm and to ensure that they effectively maintain the professional boundaries. Since last few years in the areas of ethics in research have been tremendously tumultuous ones. It is appeared that a new consensus has been evolving which involves participants in research work have been mostly affected by the problem of participating more actively in the development of the guideline of research. It is not entirely clear that what are the consensus might be but it is certain that it might not be falling into the extreme protection of the experimentation at all cost verses allowing anybody who wants to be experimented on a project. There are number of key phrases which describe the ethical issues in the wide field of research. The contemporary social and business research establishment have created to protect the rights of their research participants i.e. the stakeholders of a research. Voluntary Participation requires that people involved in a research work are not being forced for participating in a research. This is relevant that the researchers are previously trusted on the captive audience for their research subjects and the areas of research. The examples of this are like populations in particular regions and their living style, different universities, companies etc. Informed consent is closely related to the voluntary participation (CWU, 2012). It represents that the prospective participant for any research must be well informed and must be aware about the purpose of the research where might be involved. They also need to be informed the procedure of the research and the risk associated with the research. Ethical standard also includes that the researcher should not convince any participants if the research involve any possible risk of harm which might affect the participants in any always. There are two standards which are developed to protect the privacy of the identification privacy of the research participants. All researchers must guarantee to the participants confidentially that their personal identification details will not be disclosed in future after the research is done. Anonymity represents that the researcher as well as the participants will remain anonymous throughout the research process. The standard of anonymity needs to be stronger guarantee of privacy of the personal details of the participants. Sometimes it is very difficult to accomplish this ethical practice when many the participants are measured at multiple time points. Researcher need to maintain ethical practice to deal with the issues like participant’s right to service. An ethical research practice sometimes needs to use of the no-tremens control group, a group of respondents who do not get the treatment or the programme which is being used in the research process (Resnik, 2011). Reference Alzheimer. (2009). The four main approaches. Retrieve on April 25, 2012 from http://www.alzheimer-europe.org/Research/Understanding-dementia-research/Types-of-research/The-four-main-approaches. CWU. (2012). Ethical Issues in Research. Retrieve on April 25, 2012 from http://www.cwu.edu/~jefferis/PEHL557/pehl557_ethics.html. HCCEDL. (2012). Research Strategies: An Overview. Retrieve on April 25, 2012 from http://hccedl.cc.gatech.edu/documents/114_Fisk_research%20strategies%202004.pdf. Kotze, T. (2007). Guidlines on writing an academic article. Retrieve on April 24, 2012 from http://web.up.ac.za/sitefiles/file/40/753/writing_an_academic_journal_article.pdf. Resnik, D. B. (2011). What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important. Retrieve on April 25, 2012 from http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/. Read More