AFRICA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY

UNIT TITLE : BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS

UNIT CODE : BCM 308

TASK : GROUP WORK STUDENT NO. NAME : NEWTON WANYAMA 12M03EBA074 : LEWIS MUNDIA 12J03ABA007 : JAMES IKUA 12S03EBA003 : MARY ODERO 12S03ABA011 : GLADYS MUMO 12J03EBA011 : PENINAH MBUTHIA : GEORGE OLIWA QUESTION : Discuss the ethical issues in research? DUE: 8 JULY 2013 LECTURER: HANIEL NJOGU MUCHIRI

INTRODUCTION
When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’’. This is the most common way of defining "ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Most people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Although most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and human beings pass through different stages of growth as they mature. Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society? Ethics emerge from value conflicts. In research these conflicts are expressed in many ways. i.e. individual rights to privacy versus the undesirability of manipulation, openness and replication versus confidentiality. Each decision that is made in research involves a potential compromise of one value for another. Research must try to minimize risks to participants, colleagues and the society while attempting to maximize the quality of information they produce.
Research ethics are codes or guidelines that help to reconcile value conflicts. Although ethical codes provides direction, the decision made in research must be reached by considering the specific alternatives available.
The churls made in each case weigh the potential risks of the participants. Ethical codes in research stipulate areas of responsibility to participants, clients, respondents to colleagues and professional associates.

The important of adhering to ethical norms in research: * Norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and avoid error.

* Since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed prematurely. * Many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research misconduct, conflicts of interest, the human subjects protections, and animal care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are funded by public money can be held accountable to the public.

* Ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. People more likely to fund research project if they can trust the quality and integrity of research. * Many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal welfare, compliance with the law, and health and safety. Ethical lapses in research can significantly harm human and animal subjects, students, and the public. For example, a researcher who fabricates data in a clinical trial may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety of staff and students.

Codes and Policies for Research Ethics
Given the importance of ethics for the conduct of research, it should come as no surprise that many different professional associations, government agencies, and universities have adopted specific codes, rules, and policies relating to research ethics. Many government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have ethics rules for funded researchers. Other influential research ethics policies include the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), the Chemist's Code of Conduct (American Chemical Society), Code of Ethics (American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science) Ethical Principles of Psychologists (American Psychological Association), Statements on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (American Anthropological Association), Statement on Professional Ethics (American Association of University Professors), the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association).

* Honesty
Strive for honesty in all scientific communications. Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status. Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data. Do not deceive colleagues, granting agencies, or the public.

* Objectivity
Strive to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research where objectivity is expected or required. Avoid or minimize bias or self-deception. Disclose personal or financial interests that may affect research.

* Integrity Be sensitive to the integrity of ongoing institutional activities and alert appropriate institutional representatives of possible disturbances in such activities which may result from the conduct of the research. Keep your promises and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and action.

* Consent – this is the procedure by which researcher chooses whether or not they wish to participate in research study.

* Capacity – is the subject able to decide to participate * Information- consist of insuring the subject understand the purpose of study * Voluntariness- choosing to be in the study on free will ie no fraud deceit or force.

* Harm – this is physical harm as a result of the research. It cab psychological stress, personal embarrassment and humiliation. The goal of the researcher should be to reduce as much harm as possible, but some risk must be present

* Privacy
Every subject has the right to keep private the fact that he / she participated in your study and the right that information given to you not be linked to them. Research is based on information obtained from people and other sources. The information will be used in the study and perhaps published, it must be done in a way that ensures the individual’s anonymity. Violation of the promises of privacy can result in harm.

* Deception It involves the misrepresentation of facts related to the purpose, nature or consequences of research study. Subjects need to be fully informed in order to give consent. If any part of the study is misrepresented then the subjects have not fully consented to the study and the researcher is morally wrong

* Carefulness
Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities, such as data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals.

* Openness
Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new ideas.

* Respect for Intellectual Property
Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without permission. Give credit where credit is due. Give proper acknowledgement or credit for all contributions to research. Never plagiarize.

* Confidentiality
Protect confidential communications, such as papers or grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient records.

* Responsible Publication
Publish in order to advance research and scholarship, not to advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.

* Responsible Mentoring
Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.

* Respect for colleagues
Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.

* Social Responsibility
Strive to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and advocacy.

* Non-Discrimination
Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors that are not related to their scientific competence and integrity.

* Competence
Maintain and improve your own professional competence and expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in science as a whole.

* Legality
Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and governmental policies.

* Animal Care
Show proper respect and care for animals when using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments.

* Human Subjects Protection
When conducting research on human subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy; take special precautions with vulnerable populations; and strive to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly.

* Exercise caution to ensure that there is no exploitation for personal gain of research populations or of institutional.

* Do not use influence to people to participate in research.

* Be mindful of cultural, religious, gender and other significant differences within the research population in the planning, conduct, and reporting of their research.

* Consider and minimize the use of research techniques that might have negative social consequences, for example, experimental interventions that might deprive students of important parts of the standard curriculum.

* Communicate findings and the practical significance of the research in clear, straightforward, and appropriate language to relevant research populations, institutional representatives, and other stakeholder.

* Do not use inadequate sample size to represent the whole population.

* Don’t alter the figures to achieve the desired results.

Unethical issues in research
There are some actions regarded as unethical by most scientists and some might even be illegal. Most of these would also violate different professional ethics codes or institutional policies. However, they do not fall into the narrow category of actions that the government classifies as research misconduct. Indeed, there has been considerable debate about the definition of "research misconduct" and many researchers and policy makers are not satisfied with the government's narrow definition that focuses on FFP. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall into the category "other serious deviations," and the practical problems with defining and policing these other deviations, those unethical issues are.

* Plagiarism
Using other people's work without acknowledging their contribution .

* Fabrication or falsification?
Anything that is made up and did not really occur, e.g. overstating numbers of subjects, changing data, including personal biases (especially in qualitative studies), misinterpreting literature (often occurs that students misquote authors - be careful).

* No publication of data
This is where data is suppressed. It is not ethical to ignore exceptions and just try to explain to oneself the reason for the exception. Finding nothing of significance is just as important as finding something of significance.

* Faulty data-gathering procedures
If machines are not calibrated correctly, if subjects do not follow procedures correctly, if untrained research assistants are used (may give different instructions), if testing occurs at different times of the day. Others?

* poor data storage and retention unethical because it should be available for verification by others.

* Misleading authorship occurs when...People take credit who really make very little contribution to the study. If fellow graduate students assist you they should not expect to be named should you eventually publish the results of your study. The same is true with faculty advisors unless they have made a significant contribution to the study (which often occurs!). Bottom line is not to take credit for things you did not do!

* And related to the above, sneaky publication practices occur when the relationship between research directors (professors often), and research assistants (graduate students often) is not clear. Also it is generally not considered ethical to submit a paper to more than one publication, and certainly not to accept publication in more than one journal!

There are many other activities that the government does not define as "misconduct" but which are still regarded by most researchers as unethical. These are called "other deviations" from acceptable research practices and include: * Publishing the same paper in two different journals without telling the editors * Submitting the same paper to different journals without telling the editors * Not informing a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make sure that you are the sole inventor * Including a colleague as an author on a paper in return for a favor even though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the paper * Discussing with your colleagues confidential data from a paper that you are reviewing for a journal * Trimming outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons in paper * Using an inappropriate statistical technique in order to enhance the significance of your research * Bypassing the peer review process and announcing your results through a press conference without giving peers adequate information to review your work * Conducting a review of the literature that fails to acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior work * Stretching the truth on a grant application in order to convince reviewers that your project will make a significant contribution to the field * Stretching the truth on a job application or curriculum vita * Giving the same research project to two graduate students in order to see who can do it the fastest * Overworking, neglecting, or exploiting graduate or post-doctoral students * Failing to keep good research records * Failing to maintain research data for a reasonable period of time * Making derogatory comments and personal attacks in your review of author's submission * Promising a student a better grade for sexual favors * Using a racist epithet in the laboratory Conclusion

Situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and different ethical principles may conflict. These situations create difficult decisions for research known as ethical dilemmas.

REFERENCES
1. S. O. Keya, B .F. Makau, J. Mani &I. M. Omari (2004) Guidelines for the formulation of research project proposal. National council for science and technology. Kenya
2. Walliman. N. (2nd ed) Your research project.www.sagepublication.com
3. Best. W. J. & Kahn. J.V. (2011) Research in Education. 10th Ed .Pearson Education Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.