Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3
RESEARCH
STANDARDS AND
ETHICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
Chapter summary
•
Research standards
•
Ethical considerations
•
Informed consent
•
Confidentiality and anonymity
Research standards
All disciplines have some kind of research standard to which practitioners are
expected to adhere. As a general rule, the research standards in a given discipline
are where a researcher should begin their own review for a new research
endeavor. All research standards have some type of expectation for ethical stan-
dards. Others, like medical disciplines such as nursing, will have substantive
guidelines regarding the protection of participants, with an expectation of privacy
that protects an individual's identity as well as the information they provide in a
study. In a discipline such as marketing, the Market Research Association pro-
vides standards regarding the use of push technologies and manipulative pseudo-
sales practices (http://www.mra-net.org/pdf/expanded_code.pdf, accessed on
10 May 2007). In others, such as the American Sociological Association, the Code
of Ethics clearly states that a researcher should avoid a conflict of interest by
not seeking to gain from information accessed through the research effort
(http://www.asanet.org/page.ww?section=Ethics&name=Code+of+Ethics+Stand
ards#9, accessed on10 May 2007).
