Jason’s Ethics Reading Log

Posted by on March 15, 2010 
Filed under Reading logs

After reading chapter five and the introduction to ethics of inquiry, I feel reminded of the importance of taking the time to carefully consider all ethical issues before conducting research. Because of my background in sociology I have had many of these discussions before. While ethical research seems to mean don’t hurt your research subjects in kind of a “common sense” way, no making people drink poison or purposefully stressing people to their breaking point, etc. Research ethics go much deeper than that surface level.

For instance, in my own research format for the semester I want to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of two different teaching methods. However, theoretically their is good reason to believe that one should work better than the other. Is it right to expose one group to likely inferior teaching method? Is my biased belief in the superiority of one method going to effect my performance as a teacher and therefore bias the results? I can look at past class documents before I began teaching from the new method, and compare outcomes, but those students did not receive informed consent. It’s hard to argue that a researcher, classroom or not, should be able to bypass informed consent. Is going back to previous classes violating my students right to privacy, even if it is confidential and only I know any of the students names?

I remember reading an article on who benefits from research in an anthropology course that I took as an undergraduate. It chronicled the research encounters of numerous researchers from the U.S. with “subjects” from poorer nations. Well when we look in terms of outcomes who benefited? A number of the researcher’s used the interviews, participant observations, etc. to publish dissertations earning them doctorates, qualifying them for teaching positions, allowing them to publish articles and sell books. Well, compare that to the “subjects” who’s taking part in the research allowed for the results, they were for the most still poor and in the same situation as before the research encounter. Is that ethical?

While SToL research is not as extreme as the anthropological example, there is still a definite power relationship and possible an unequal reward structure. One of the biggest questions that I ask myself about SToL research is how do I make it benefit the students giving me access to the necessary data? Sure it has the ability to better my teaching, and maybe benefit future students of mine, but how does it benefit the “subjects”? Luckily SToL research can be used to better the class being studied. For example, by giving the teacher immediate feedback on misunderstandings that are widespread in the class.

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