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Collection Highlights

What Is Qualitative Research Martyn Hammersley

The SAGE Handbook Of Qualitative Research Ethics Ron

Iphofen

What Is Qualitative Interviewing Rosalind Edwards

Doing Qualitative Research 5th Edition David Silverman

What Kind of Creatures Are We Noam Chomsky

Qualitative research in health care Fourth Edition Mays

What Are You Doing With Your Life Jiddu Krishnamurti

Computer Supported Qualitative Research 1st Edition

António Pedro Costa

Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies Ricard

Zapata-Barrero
What are Qualitative Research Ethics?
‘What is?’ Research Methods series
Edited by Graham Crow, University of Southampton
ISSN: 2048–6812
The ‘What is?’ series provides authoritative introductions to a range of research
methods which are at the forefront of developments in the social sciences.
Each volume sets out the key elements of the particular method and features
examples of its application, drawing on a consistent structure across the whole
series. Written in an accessible style by leading experts in the field, this series is an
innovative pedagogical and research resource.

What is Online Research? Forthcoming books:

Using the Internet for Social Science
What is Qualitative Interviewing?
Research
Rosalind Edwards and Janet Holland
Tristram Hooley, Jane Wellens and John
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What is Social Network Analysis?
Lar-Christer Hyden, Margareta Hyden,
John Scott
Corinne Squire and Barbara Harrison
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ISBN (HB): 9781849669702
ISBN (PB): 9781849668170
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ISBN (ebook): 9781849668194
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What is Qualitative Research?
What is Inclusive Research?
Martyn Hammersley
Melanie Nind
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What are Qualitative Research Ethics?
Rose Wiles
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What is Discourse Analysis?
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What are
qualitative
research ethics?
Rose Wiles

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

 Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 175 Fifth Avenue
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10010
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

First published 2013

© Rose Wiles, 2013

This work is published subject to a Creative Commons

Attribution Non-Commercial Licence.

You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you
give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher. For permission
to publish commercial versions please contact Bloomsbury Academic.

CIP records for this book are available from the British Library
and the Library of Congress

ISBN: HB: 978-1-78093-850-9

PB: 978-1-84966-652-7

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

MPG Books Group, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents

Series foreword ix

 Introduction 
Key terms 
Moral judgements/morality 
Ethics 
Ethical frameworks 
Consequentialist approaches 
Principlist approaches 
Ethics of care 
Virtue ethics 
Ethical regulation 
Ethical guidelines 
Informed consent 
Capacity 
Duty of confidentiality 
Anonymity 
Risk 

 Thinking ethically: approaches to research ethics 

Introduction 
The development of contemporary research ethics 
Ethical decision-making 
Ethical frameworks 
Legal, regulatory and professional frameworks 
Professional ethical guidelines 
Ethical regulation 
Legal regulation 
vi What are qualitative research ethics?

Making ethical decisions 

Summary 

 Informed consent 
Introduction 
Providing information 
Encouraging participation: incentives,
encouragement and acknowledgement 
Recording consent 
Consent in online research 
Capacity to consent 
Summary 

 Anonymity and confidentiality 

Introduction 
Confidentiality 
Breaking confidentiality 
Accidental disclosures 
‘Off the record’ comments 
Anonymisation 
Identification 
Visual data and anonymisation 
Summary 

 Risk and safety 

Introduction 
Risks for research participants 
Assessing risk of harm 
Types of risk 
Minimising risks of harm 
Risks to researchers 
Physical risks 
Emotional risks 
Other risks 
Summary 
 Contents vii

 Ethical dilemmas 
Introduction 
Ethical ‘horror stories’ 
Case studies 
Making ethical decisions 
Summary 

 Where next for research ethics? 

Introduction 
Developments in research methods 
Narrative methods 
Visual and creative methods 
Participatory methods 
Digital and e-research 
Data sharing 
Where next for research ethics? 
Summary 

Further reading and resources 

General guidance on research ethics 
Risks and safety 
Consent 
Ethical issue in relation to specific methods 
Professional guidelines and codes 

References 
Index 
This page intentionally left blank
Series foreword

The idea behind this series is a simple one: to provide concise and acces-
sible overviews of a range of frequently-used research methods and of
current issues in research methodology. Books in the series have been
written by experts in their fields with a brief to write about their subject
for a broad audience who are assumed to be interested but not neces-
sarily to have any prior knowledge. The series is a natural development
of presentations made in the ‘What is?’ strand at Economic and Social
Research Council Research Methods Festivals which have proved popular
both at the Festivals themselves and subsequently as a resource on the
website of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods.
Methodological innovation is the order of the day, and the ‘What is?’
format allows researchers who are new to a field to gain an insight into its
key features, while also providing a useful update on recent developments
for people who have had some prior acquaintance with it. All readers
should find it helpful to be taken through the discussion of key terms, the
history of how the method or methodological issue has developed, and
the assessment of the strengths and possible weaknesses of the approach
through analysis of illustrative examples.
Research ethics has come to be one of the most contentious areas
of contemporary social scientific research, and this book conveys the
key issues of contention and how researchers in the field of qualitative
research have responded to them. That it manages to do so in a measured
and systematic fashion is no small feat. In addition, it provides an analysis
of the ethical concerns that continue to arise with new developments
in the field, suggesting that while these do present serious challenges to
researchers, there are good reasons to believe that ethical ways of respond-
ing to them are being developed.
The books cannot provide information about their subject matter
down to a fine level of detail, but they will equip readers with a powerful

ix
x What are qualitative research ethics?

sense of reasons why it deserves to be taken seriously and, it is hoped, with

the enthusiasm to put that knowledge into practice.

Graham Crow
Series editor
1 Introduction

This book provides an introduction to research ethics relevant to qualita-

tive research across the social sciences. It outlines approaches for thinking
about ethical issues in qualitative social research and the key ethical issues
that need consideration. It is intended to have relevance for researchers
and students working across a range of social science disciplines and it
explores ethical issues relating to ‘traditional’ research approaches, such
as ethnography, interviews and focus groups, as well as those relating to
new and emerging methods and approaches, particularly visual and online
methods.
There has been an increasing interest in research ethics in the twenty-
first century in the light of the increasing ethical regulation of social
research. Various authors working in qualitative social science, particularly
ethnographers, have contested the appropriateness of ethical regulation
in social research. These academics have argued that qualitative research
poses minimal risks to participants and that ethical review of research by
research ethics committees is both unnecessary and detrimental to social
science research (Atkinson, 2009; Dingwall, 2008; Hammersley, 2009). An
alternative and perhaps less popular view is that social science research is
never risk free and that systems of ethical review encourage researchers to
think through ethical issues and to develop their ethical thinking (Boulton
et al, 2004). Despite considerable critiques of regulation, systems of ethi-
cal review have become embedded in most research institutions. This has
heightened researchers’ awareness of ethical issues and highlighted the
need for training and resources to enhance researchers’ ‘ethical literacy’.
Much of the drive for researchers in this area has been to enable them to
manage the institutional ethical review process and a number of excellent
resources have been developed with this aim in mind (for example http://
www.ethicsguidebook.ac.uk/).
However, enhancing ‘ethical literacy’ means more than learning how to
achieve ethics approval. ‘Ethical literacy’ means encouraging researchers


 What are qualitative research ethics?

to understand and engage with ethical issues as they emerge throughout

the process of research and not merely to view research ethics as some-
thing that is completed once a favourable opinion on a proposed research
project has been granted by a research ethics committee. While it may
be the case that some ethical issues can be anticipated prior to a study
commencing, often ethical issues emerge as research proceeds, sometimes
in unexpected and surprising ways.
An argument frequently put forward by social researchers is that ethi-
cal decision making is inevitably situational and contextual and cannot
be determined by appeal to predetermined codes and principles. It is
argued that decisions about ethical issues that emerge in the process of
research need to be decided on ‘in the field’ in the light of the specific
issue, the people involved and the likely consequences. This is sometimes
used as an argument against ethical regulation in general which is viewed
as limiting researchers’ ability to act on the situation that arises. It is also
used as an argument against the use of ethical frameworks (particularly
principlism) in ethical decision making. It is argued that a ‘one size fits all’
approach such as principlism, in which issues such as informed consent
and anonymity are viewed as essential principles to be upheld in all social
research, is limiting and prevents researchers making ethical decisions
in the context of their research in the ways that meet the needs of their
research participants.
It is a central theme of this book that consideration of ethical frame-
works is important in helping to guide researchers in thinking through
the ethical challenges with which they are confronted. This is not to argue
that ethical dilemmas are anything other than situational and contextual;
consideration of ethical frameworks does not preclude individual delib-
eration on the part of researchers. The ethical dilemmas that researchers
encounter in research are essentially moral dilemmas. Researchers may
have a ‘gut feeling’ about the morally ‘right’ course of action in a situation
that they encounter. However, ethical frameworks can help them to think
about, evaluate and justify these ‘gut feelings’. Ethical frameworks do not
provide clear answers to such dilemmas, simply a means of thinking about
them and assessing what an appropriate and defensible course of action
might be. Such actions might differ according to the ethical framework
used and an individual researcher’s moral views. The important issue
is that researchers use a framework that fits with their moral views and
which enables them to explore and justify the decisions they make.
 Introduction 

The focus of this book is based on three premises: first, that researchers
need to consider ethical issues throughout the entirety of their research;
second, that gaining an understanding of the different philosophical
approaches to research ethics and identifying an approach that fits with
their moral and intellectual framework will help them to engage with
issues that emerge as their research unfolds; and third, that, despite the
well-known horror stories of unethical conduct, most ethical issues with
which researchers grapple are relatively mundane and everyday, but
no less important for that. The book focuses primarily on ethical issues
that emerge for researchers and research participants in the conduct of
research. Researchers also have ethical responsibilities to the research
team with whom they may be working, to their discipline, to the wider
research community and to the public. It is incumbent on researchers to
consider ethical issues within this broader context.
The book commences with an exploration of ethical frameworks as well
as various forms of guidelines and regulation that guide or inform ethical
decision making. This chapter also outlines relevant legislation with which
researchers are obliged to comply.
The following three chapters explore three of the core issues in research
ethics and the ways that researchers have engaged with them: informed
consent; anonymity and confidentiality; and risk. In each of these chapters
the meaning of these concepts are explored and their application, and
in some cases their relevance, in different types of research approaches
is outlined. In each of these three chapters, examples are provided from
the literature of the ways in which researchers have managed these ethi-
cal issues in their research. Examples are also drawn on from a research
project on informed consent conducted with my colleagues Sue Heath,
Graham Crow and Vikki Charles as part of the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) Research Methods Programme as well as a
project on ethical issues in visual methods conducted with my colleagues
Jon Prosser, Amanda Coffey, Sue Heath and Judy Robison. Each of these
projects involved interviews or focus groups with researchers exploring
their views about ethical issues in qualitative research and how these
issues were managed in the context of their research.
Chapter six discusses common ethical dilemmas that research-
ers experience and through three detailed case studies discusses the
deliberation and management of such dilemmas. Finally, chapter seven
explores developments in research methods over the last decade and the
 What are qualitative research ethics?

ethical challenges that these raise. Developments in narrative, participa-

tory, visual, digital and e-research methods and data-sharing are discussed
and the extent to which these demand new approaches to research ethics
or the re-working of familiar issues in new contexts. A list of resources
where further information on the various issues discussed in the book can
be found is provided.
There are a number of key terms used in the literature on ethics. These
are explained throughout this book. A brief definition of the key terms
is given here; further information on them can be found in the relevant
chapters.

Key terms
Moral judgements/morality
Morality is concerned with intentions and actions which are good (or the
‘right’ thing to do) contrasted with those that are bad or wrong. A moral
judgement is made when a person decides what the right course of action
is in a specific situation. Ethical dilemmas in research involve people
making moral judgements.

Ethics
Ethics is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions about moral-
ity. The terms ethics and morals are often used interchangeably. Research
ethics are concerned with moral behaviour in research contexts.

Ethical frameworks
Ethical frameworks provide a means of thinking about ethical dilemmas
(or moral behaviour). They provide some criteria against which research-
ers can consider what it is right or wrong to do when presented with an
ethical dilemma. Common ethical frameworks are consequentialist, prin-
ciplist, non-consequentialist, ethics of care and virtue ethics.

Consequentialist approaches
Consequentialist approaches argue that ethical decisions should be based
on the consequences of specific actions so that an action is morally right if
it will produce a good outcome for an individual or for wider society.
 Introduction 

Principlist approaches
Principlist approaches are non-consequentialist approaches. Rather than
focusing on the consequences of an action, they draw on the principles of
respect for people’s autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice
in making and guiding ethical decisions in research. Respect for autonomy
relates to issues of voluntariness, informed consent, confidentiality and
anonymity. Beneficence concerns the responsibility to do good, non-
maleficence concerns the responsibility to avoid harm and justice concerns
the importance of the benefits and burdens of research being distributed
equally. People using principlist approaches make ethical decisions on the
basis of these specific principles. Principlist approaches hold that consent
to participate in research should be freely given and that potential partici-
pants should not experience any form of coercion to encourage them to
take part in research.

Ethics of care
An ethics of care approach means that ethical decisions are made on
the basis of care, compassion and a desire to act in ways that benefit the
individual or group who are the focus of research. This contrasts with
consequentialist and principlist approaches which involve using rules
or principles to address ethical dilemmas. An ethics of care approach
means that researchers make decisions about ethical issues in relation
to a particular case and by drawing on the notion of ‘care’ in relation to
research participants, rather than applying universal rules.

Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics focus on the virtue or moral character of the researcher
rather than principles, rules or consequences of an act or decision. Virtue
ethics draw on the notion of researcher integrity and seek to identify the
characteristics or virtues that a researcher needs in order to behave in
morally (or ethically) ‘good’ ways.

Ethical regulation
Most research conducted by researchers in the UK and North America,
and much research conducted in other European countries and indeed in
the Western world, is subject to ethical regulation. The form this takes is
review by a recognised ethics committee.
 What are qualitative research ethics?

Ethical guidelines
Professional ethical guidelines and codes provide frameworks to enable
researchers to think through the ethical dilemmas and challenges that they
encounter in their research. In most cases, these guidelines are very general
and with the exception of some specific issues such as confidentiality or
matters that might result in accusations of research misconduct, they do
not provide answers to how researchers should manage the specific situ-
ations that they might encounter in their research. Social researchers in
many (but not all) disciplines can, and do, conduct research without being
members of a professional organisation. It is also the case that guidelines
are not legally enforceable. Nevertheless, a researcher may be excluded
from membership of a professional organisation, damage their reputation
and have difficulty getting their work published or gaining grants if they
disregard these guidelines in ways that challenge disciplinary norms of
ethical behaviour.

Informed consent
Informed consent involves providing participants with clear information
about what participating in a research project will involve and giving them
the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to participate.

Capacity
The term ‘capacity’ or ‘competence’ is used to refer to people’s ability to
give consent to participate in research. There are some groups for whom
questions of capacity or ‘competence’ to provide consent are raised.
These groups include children and young people, people with intellectual
disability and people with some physical and/or mental illness and disabil-
ity. People are assumed to lack capacity to consent if they are not able
to understand what participating in research will involve, to weigh up the
risks and benefits to them of participating or to reach their own decision
about this and/or other matters that affect their life. Assessing capacity to
consent is, in many cases, a judgement made by researchers but there are
some legal issues that need consideration and specific issues are relevant
for research with children and young people.

Duty of confidentiality
In the research context, the duty of confidentiality is taken to mean that
identifiable information about individuals collected during the process
 Introduction 

of research will not be disclosed. Additionally, the duty of confidentiality

may mean that specific information provided in the process of research
will not be used at all if the participant requests this. Confidentiality is
closely connected with anonymity. However, anonymisation of data does
not cover all the issues raised by concerns about confidentiality.

Anonymity
The primary way that researchers seek to protect research participants
from the accidental breaking of confidentiality is through the process of
anonymisation, which occurs through the use of pseudonyms applied to
research participants, organisations and locations or other ways of not
revealing participants’ real identities.

Risk
Ensuring the safety and well-being of research participants is an important
element of ethical research practice. While much qualitative research may
pose only minimal risks to participants, it is important not to disregard
the risks that can occur, particularly in research on topics which are in
some way ‘sensitive’ because they focus on personal issues, taboo issues
or issues which pose a threat for those participating in it. Assessments of
risk should also focus on risks for researchers which may arise from lone
working or from the nature of the research.
This page intentionally left blank
2 Thinking ethically: approaches
to research ethics

Introduction
Researchers inevitably experience ethical issues in the process of conduct-
ing research. Sometimes these issues are anticipated and planned for and
may form part of decision making about a project before it commences.
However, often ethical challenges and dilemmas are unexpected and
emerge as research unfolds. While there are a number of ‘common’ ethi-
cal issues, and the following three chapters in this book explore these,
research is always situated and contextual and the specific issues that arise
are often unique to the context in which each individual research project
is conducted. However, while ethical issues are often unique to a specific
context, the management of such issues nevertheless needs to be informed
by a range of ethical frameworks, approaches, regulation and guidelines.
In this chapter the various guidelines, approaches and frameworks that
inform, guide, and in some cases constrain, ethical decision-making, are
outlined. An understanding of these provides an important basis from
which researchers can think through, and argue, their ethical decisions.

The development of contemporary research ethics

Contemporary understanding of research ethics in social research has its
roots in the history of medical research. The Nuremberg Code (1947) was
developed as a result of the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War
at which abuses to research subjects arising from experimentation by Nazi
doctors were identified. The code set out ten key principles to underpin
medical and experimental research, central to which were issues of
consent and avoidance of risk to research participants. The World Health
Organisation’s Declaration of Helsinki (1964) developed this code and has
been identified as central in subsequent legislation and ethical codes of
conduct (Israel and Hay, 2006). However, despite the existence of these


 What are qualitative research ethics?

codes, further cases of abuse arising from medical and scientific research
conducted during the 1960s and 1970s occurred. The most well known of
these cases is the Tuskegee syphilis study which took place between 1932
and 1972, in which the effects of syphilis in 400 poor African-American
men were studied over a prolonged period even though treatment for the
disease had become available. This was not an isolated case and a number
of other ethical scandals relating to biomedical studies were identified in
which people were experimented on to examine disease progression and/
or to develop medical treatments (see Israel and Hay, 2006). It was the
Tuskegee study in particular that has been identified as being instrumental
in establishing the United States’ National Commission for the Protection
of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioural Research in 1979 and
the subsequent Belmont Report and the formation of Institutional Review
Boards (IRBs) for reviewing research in the US. The Belmont Report
(1979) has been highly influential and provides the underlying principles
by which research ethics committees across the Western world evaluate
research proposals. It identified three key principles, respect for persons,
beneficence and justice, to which Beauchamp and Childress (1979), in a
widely used book in the field of bioethics, added a fourth, that of non-
maleficence (Macfarlane, 2009). These principles are discussed further
here.
The ethical frameworks used in social research have emerged from the
frameworks developed in relation to medical research. This is an issue that
is a concern for many social scientists who view the risks of social research
to be far less significant than for medical research. Nevertheless, it is
important to recognise that the social sciences have not been immune
from accusations of unethical behaviour. Stanley Milgram’s (1963) obedi-
ence to authority experiment, Phillip Zimbardo’s (see Haney, Banks and
Zimbardo, 1973) Stanford prison experiment and Laud Humphreys’ (1975)
study on homosexual behaviour are commonly-cited ethical ‘horror
stories’ in the social sciences.
The regulation of social research has increased significantly over
the last decade, particularly in Europe and North America. In the USA,
Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) have, since the 1970s, screened research
on and with ‘human subjects’. Their powers have been identified as consid-
erable and wide ranging and their scope increasing (Haggerty, 2004).
In the UK, funding bodies, such as the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC), have established ethical frameworks (ESRC, 2005, 2010)
 Thinking ethically: approaches to research ethics 

resulting in the widespread formation of research ethics committees in

universities and other research organisations (Tinker and Coomber, 2004).
Research ethics committees had already been operating for some time
for researchers conducting research in UK health care settings and, more
recently, for research in social care. Similar developments have occurred in
the European context, for example for research funded by the European
Commission (Wiles, Clark and Prosser, 2011).
The result of these developments is that virtually all research conducted
by researchers in the UK and North America, and much research
conducted in other European countries and indeed in the Western world,
is subject to some form of ethical review by a recognised ethics commit-
tee. This ‘ethics creep’ is viewed as moving UK, and other European,
social research in the direction of the highly regulated system of review
by IRBs in the US and is a development that has been widely criticised
by UK social scientists (Dingwall, 2008; Hammersley, 2009) as well as
social scientists in other countries (Israel and Hay, 2006). Concerns have
been raised by researchers that increasing levels of review will encourage
uniform approaches to ‘ethical’ issues such as anonymity and consent that
avoid any level of risk; this has been identified as threatening the future of
good quality social research and posing particular difficulties for research-
ers using ethnographic approaches (Murphy and Dingwall, 2007), online
(Orton-Johnson, 2010), visual and creative methods (Prosser and Loxley,
2008) and approaches that involve the use of covert methods (Spicker,
2011). However, despite widespread concerns, it is highly likely that the
ethical regulation of social research through research ethics committees
will continue. Alongside critics of the system, various other authors have
identified the importance of researchers engaging with systems of review
to ensure committees are informed methodologically and ethically
(Iphofen, 2009; Israel and Hay, 2006: 141; Pauwels, 2008; Wiles, Clark and
Prosser, 2011). This is a position with which this book aligns itself. Iphofen
(2009), among others, has noted that ethical review has an important
educative function and one which does not of itself limit social research.

Ethical decision-making
Consideration of the links, overlaps and differences between morals,
ethics, ethical approaches, ethical frameworks, ethical regulation and
legal regulation are an important starting point for thinking about ethics.
 What are qualitative research ethics?

Ethical
frameworks

Ethical regulation, Individual

professional Ethical
decision-making moral
guidelines, framework
disciplinary norms

Legal regulation

Figure 1 Factors shaping ethical decision-making in research

The decisions that researchers make about the ethical issues that they
anticipate encountering in the research planning stage and those that
emerge as research unfolds are influenced by several issues: professional
guidelines; disciplinary norms; ethical and legal regulation and an individ-
ual’s ethical and moral outlook. Figure 1 illustrates this diagrammatically.
Each of these issues is explored in this chapter.
All individuals have a moral outlook about what is right and wrong that
guides their behaviour. This moral outlook is shaped by individuals’ experi-
ences and interactions and the specific moral beliefs held are inevitably
individual (see Gregory, 2003). Nevertheless, society has a large amount
of agreement on specific moral principles about right and wrong (such
as justice and fairness), even though there is considerable disagreement
about the application of these principles to particular circumstances and
contexts. Ethical approaches are the application of key moral norms (or
principles). Ethical behaviour in research demands that researchers engage
with moral issues of right and wrong. To do this they draw on ethical
principles identified by the research community to which they belong.
The specific ethical issues that researchers identify in their research are
informed by their own moral outlook and their understanding of ethics
in research. The frameworks for thinking about and managing them
are informed largely by the ethical principles derived from the various
approaches to ethics which are set out in professional ethical guidelines as
well as various textbooks on the topic. Some of these ethical issues can be
considered prior to the research commencing but many are emergent and
 Thinking ethically: approaches to research ethics 

become apparent only as the research proceeds. Researchers can draw on

a range of resources from the literature and the research community to
assist their thinking in how to manage such issues. It is crucial that they
resolve the issues in ways that accord with their moral beliefs but also in
ways that do not contravene the established ethical standards of their
profession. Researchers’ ethical decision-making is also strongly influenced
by ethical and legal regulation. Researchers are legally obliged to conform
with legal regulation relating to their research. Ethical regulation does not
carry such weight but nevertheless researchers are generally obliged to
comply with ethical regulation by their institution or by the organisations
they are conducting research with or for. It should be noted that conform-
ing with ethical or legal regulation does not necessarily equate with ethical
(or moral) behaviour; compliance with regulation in many contexts is
often the minimum requirement and ethical behaviour demands more
careful consideration of the issues involved. These frameworks, guidelines
and regulation that impact on ethical decision-making are explored here.

Ethical frameworks
A range of approaches to research ethics can be identified (see Israel
and Hay, 2006; Macfarlane, 2009; Merten and Ginsberg, 2009). These
approaches or frameworks provide a means of thinking about moral
behaviour. They provide some criteria against which researchers can
consider what it is right or wrong to do when presented with an ethical
dilemma. These frameworks do not provide clear answers to such dilem-
mas but rather a means of thinking about them and assessing what an
appropriate and defensible course of action might be. Consideration of
these frameworks is therefore important in helping to guide researchers
in thinking through the ethical challenges with which they are confronted.
One of the challenges of engaging with these frameworks is that the
criteria that each uses to inform moral decisions vary and thus the deci-
sions that researchers may make will differ according to which framework
is used. It is also the case that some of the criteria (or principles) within
certain frameworks may lead people to reach different decisions about
the ethical challenges they encounter according to which principle within
a framework they give primacy to. The most common approaches are
consequentialist, principlist, non-consequentialist, ethics of care and
virtue ethics.
 What are qualitative research ethics?

Consequentialist approaches argue that ethical decisions should be

based on the consequences of specific actions so that an action is morally
right if it will produce a good outcome for an individual or for wider soci-
ety. In consequentialism, the more ‘good’ consequences that result from an
act, the better or more right is the act; no act is seen as inherently wrong as
judgements are based on the outcome of the act. Using a consequentialist
approach, a researcher would assess what the outcome of a specific deci-
sion might be and decide on an action that they believe would result in
the most beneficial outcome. For example, a researcher might argue that
it would be acceptable to undertake covert visual research, for example
on youth crime, if the findings of the research could be seen as benefiting
society as a whole. Similarly, a researcher might argue that it is morally
right to disclose confidential data from one participant if that might lead
to a better outcome for a larger group of people. An example of conse-
quentialist arguments is provided by Laud Humphreys’ (1975) study of
homosexual behaviour. This research has been widely criticised for being
unethical but was defended by Humphreys on consequentialist grounds.
Humphreys argued that increasing knowledge about homosexual
behaviour was essential to bringing about a change in repressive laws and
attitudes and that ‘his ends justify the means’ (Warwick 1982: 56). Further
detail about Laud Humphreys’ study is provided in chapter 6.
People using non-consequentialist approaches argue that consideration
of matters other than the ends produced by actions need to be consid-
ered and that ethical decisions should be based on notions of what it is
morally right to do regardless of the consequences. A researcher adopt-
ing a non-consequentialist approach might, for example, argue that it is
morally right to maintain a confidence even if the consequences of that
might not be beneficial or in the interests of the wider society. Principlist
approaches are a form of non-consequentialist approach (see Beauchamp
and Childress, 2001). This approach draws on the principles of respect for
people’s autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice in making
and guiding ethical decisions in research. Respect for autonomy relates to
issues of voluntariness, informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity.
Beneficence concerns the responsibility to do good, non-maleficence
concerns the responsibility to avoid harm and justice concerns the impor-
tance of the benefits and burdens of research being distributed equally.
People using principlist approaches make ethical decisions on the basis of
these specific principles. Central to a principlist approach is that consent
 Thinking ethically: approaches to research ethics 

must be freely given and that potential participants should not be subject
to any encouragement (or coercion) to take part such as that arising
from payment for participation or power relations between researcher
and participant. Each of the principles is viewed as important but it is
recognised that they may conflict with each other and in such cases it
is necessary to make a case for why one might need to be chosen over
another. Principlist approaches are widely used and commonly form the
basis of evaluation of applications for ethical approval by research ethics
committees (Israel and Hay, 2006: 37).
An ethics of care approach was originally identified by Carol Gilligan
(1982) and has been developed by other feminist theorists (Mauthner et al,
2002; Held, 2006). In this approach, ethical decisions are made on the basis
of care, compassion and a desire to act in ways that benefit the individual
or group who are the focus of research, recognising the relationality and
interdependency of researchers and research participants. This contrasts
with the approaches outlined above which involve using rules or prin-
ciples to address ethical dilemmas. An ethics of care approach means that
researchers make decisions about ethical issues in relation to a particular
case and by drawing on the notion of ‘care’ in relation to research partici-
pants, rather than applying universal rules. Held (2006) has identified
some key features of the approach and argues that it involves: meeting
the needs of others; recognising emotions; recognising people’s relational-
ity and interdependence; and respecting and seeking the views of others
and their moral claims. This is an approach used in much feminist and
participatory research where researchers develop close relationships with
their participants (see Edwards and Mauthner, 2002). It has been viewed
by some as a form of virtue ethics (see below) in that researchers need
to develop particular characteristics or virtues in relation to the research
they conduct. Mauthner et al (2002) have developed some guidelines for
a feminist ethics of care which draws on the key features identified above.
These comprise questions for researchers to consider in deliberating on
ethical dilemmas (Mauthner et al, 2002: 28).
Virtue ethics is person-based; it focuses on the virtue or moral charac-
ter of the researcher rather than principles, rules or consequences of an
act or decision. Virtue ethics draws on the notion of researcher integrity
and seeks to identify the characteristics or virtues that a researcher needs
in order to behave in morally (or ethically) ‘good’ ways. Macfarlane (2009:
42) has identified the demands that different phases of the research
 What are qualitative research ethics?

process places on researchers and the moral virtues that researchers need
to manage these challenges at each stage. He also identifies the corre-
sponding ‘vices’ that characterise a deficit or excess of each virtue that
researchers may exhibit when they fall short of a desired virtue. The virtues
identified are courage, respectfulness, resoluteness, sincerity, humility and
reflexivity. It is recognised that these virtues are ideals which researchers
strive for and that the vices are what can occur when these ideals cannot
be met. As Macfarlane notes (2009: 42), ‘This set of virtues and vices repre-
sent the ideal character of the researcher and the temptations they face
during what is a demanding social and intellectual process’. In relation to
ethical dilemmas, a virtue ethics approach would expect a researcher to
ask what a virtuous researcher would do in the given situation.
An ethical dilemma, based on one from my own experience, may help
to clarify the actions that might be taken on the basis of these different
frameworks. An ethical dilemma commonly experienced by research-
ers relates to the issue of confidentiality. For example, a case study I was
involved in focusing on a new model of in-patient care in one hospital ward
involved interviews with all staff and some patients to find out their views
about the benefits and challenges of the new way of working. Interviews
revealed that some staff lacked commitment to the new model of care
and that this risked the success of the scheme. Should other people in the
‘case’ be informed that there were problems with staff commitment to the
scheme so that these issues could be addressed or should I not intervene,
given that to do so would involve breaches of confidentiality? A conse-
quentialist would look to the possible outcomes of acting and perhaps
would argue that the greatest good would come from disclosing this infor-
mation in order to improve the efficacy of the scheme. A principlist would
be likely to argue that upholding the principle of confidentiality should
be paramount and that information should not be disclosed. An ethics
of care approach would look to the impact of disclosing information on
the participants who had provided it and would explore what the most
beneficial outcome would be for them. A virtue ethics approach would
explore what a ‘virtuous’ researcher would do in this context which would
ensure all participants were treated with respect. In this case this would be
likely to mean maintaining confidentiality.
These ethical frameworks provide researchers with the tools to guide
decision-making in research. However, there are a range of other factors
 Thinking ethically: approaches to research ethics 

which shape, influence or constrain ethical decision-making. These are

discussed here.

Legal, regulatory and professional frameworks

Professional ethical guidelines
There are many professional guidelines and codes aimed at providing
frameworks to enable researchers to think through the ethical chal-
lenges that they encounter in their research (see for example, American
Sociological Association, 1999; Association of Social Anthropologists, 2011;
British Psychological Society, 2009; British Sociological Association, 2002;
European Science Foundation, 2011; RESPECT guidelines, 2004; Social
Research Association, 2003). There are also specific guidelines and codes
on particular methods or approaches which raise ethical challenges, such
as online research (Ess et al, 2002; British Psychological Society, 2007)
and visual methods (British Sociological Association Visual Sociology
Group’s statement of ethical practice, 2006). These guidelines shape the
decisions that researchers make about procedural and emergent ethical
issues. They are drawn, to varying degrees, from the ethical approaches
outlined above, particularly principlist approaches. Such guidelines are
necessarily very general. Except in relation to some very specific issues,
such as confidentiality or matters that might result in accusations of
research misconduct, they do not provide answers to how researchers
should manage the specific situations that they might encounter in their
research. Rather, they outline principles to enable researchers to think
through the specific situations that occur (Wiles et al, 2006). These guide-
lines recognise the situated and contextual nature of the ethical challenges
that arise when conducting research. The principles addressed in these
codes generally relate to issues of the well-being and rights of research
participants, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality and anonym-
ity. Social researchers in many disciplines can, and do, conduct research
without being members of a professional organisation; as such not all
researchers are subject to the guidelines and even if they are, these are
not legally enforceable. Nevertheless, a researcher may be excluded from
membership of a professional organisation, damage their reputation and
have difficulty getting their work published or gaining grants if they disre-
gard these guidelines in ways that challenge disciplinary norms of ethical
 What are qualitative research ethics?

behaviour. They might also be subject to disciplinary sanctions if they do

not comply with institutional requirements of ethical research behaviour.

Ethical regulation
Most researchers are subject to ethical review procedures through a
research ethics committee (REC). Committees vary widely in the ways in
which they assess applications for review and the conclusions they come
to, even in highly regulated and established systems such as that for the
review of research in the UK National Research Ethics Service (Edwards
et al, 2004; Israel, 2004). However, the general principles they assess are
fairly uniform and are likely to comprise voluntary informed consent, the
confidentiality of information provided by participants, the anonymity of
study participants, the avoidance of harm and researcher integrity. These
are issues that researchers are advised to consider carefully in preparing
applications to RECs. RECs have the power to determine the way that
various ethical issues will be managed within a research project. RECs
generally focus on procedural or anticipated ethical issues; it appears that
social researchers, in the UK at least, tend not to seek advice from RECs
on ethical issues that emerge once research has commenced unless they
are obliged to do so (Wiles et al, 2012). As noted above, some concerns
have been raised that ethical regulation places limitations on research,
particularly certain types of research such as ethnography, online research
and visual methods.
Many resources exist to assist researchers through the ethical review
process (see for example http://www.ethicsguidebook.ac.uk/). As well as
the importance of preparing a good application that addresses the central
ethical issues, researchers can adopt other strategies to maximise their
chances of gaining approval. These include finding out how a local REC
operates, opting for a committee that might be sympathetic, identifying
a committee member to champion the application and being prepared
to discuss the application with committee members (Wiles et al, 2012;
Israel and Hay, 2006). While RECs have considerable power in determin-
ing how ethical issues will be managed in research, there is some evidence
that researchers have developed ways to work with ethics committees to
modify their impact (Wiles et al, 2012).
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