Ethical Considerations in Research Every Author Should Know

One may ask, ‘why are ethical guidelines used by researchers or seen as a critical requirement in research?’ The importance of ethical considerations in research cannot be undermined. Ethical guidelines for research are principles that protect morality and guide researchers when they conduct research; they keep researchers accountable, thus, ensuring proper use of funds and avoidance of research misconduct. Moreover, these ethical considerations in research guarantee that the public can trust the research¹.

Now that you understand the importance of ethical considerations in research and the need to follow ethical guidelines, let’s discuss some essential ethical considerations in research that every author must keep in mind when conducting their research.

1. Integrity: Ethics in conducting research means you need to report your research results, findings, methodology, and data honestly. Making up data, exaggerating findings, and misleading readers with unclear or contradictory explanations are considered unethical. Ethical guidelines for research hold that even when researchers are collaborating with peers, it is important to maintain sincerity and honesty¹.
2. Objectivity: Ethical considerations in research require that you carefully and critically examine your research work and avoid any obvious errors and negligence.  Additionally, following these ethical considerations in research also mean you should avoid biases in data interpretation, experimental methods, result analysis, peer-reviewing, and choosing collaborators. To add to that, it is unethical to discriminate against your collaborators, colleagues, students, reviewers, or mentors on any factor that is not related to their scientific integrity.
3. Openness: Being open to criticism and new ideas is a necessary ethical consideration in research. Research is meant for the benefit of society; thus, you should share your ideas, results, and research methodology for the advancement of science and society and be open to interpretation and views.
4. Avoid plagiarism: One of the most basic ethical considerations in research is . You should avoid copying other researchers’ work and always acknowledge and recognize the people who have contributed to your research work. Moreover, another ethical consideration in research is steering clear of any self-plagiarism.
5. Privacy and confidentiality: If your study involves people, ethical considerations in research methodology require you to make sure you respect human rights (for example, privacy of patients’ personal information). The research study should maximize the benefits for both parties while minimizing any possible harm. Special care should be taken when working with vulnerable groups, like, children, people with disability, and older people. Any sensitive information that is provided in confidence, including diagnostic results, grants information, patients’ records, etc. should be protected.
6. Responsible publication: You should not publish anything that is fabricated, manipulated, falsified, or duplication of someone’s work.  where a research paper is split into multiple papers having similar research questions, hypothesis, methodology, results, and sample is also considered unethical so a researcher following ethical guidelines should make an effort to avoid this.
7. Animal studies: When using animals in an experiment, you should always make sure that it is well planned. You should take the right permissions for such studies and ensure that adequate care is taken of the animals you are using¹.

Following ethical guidelines: Importance of ethical research

People often think what is the value of ethical considerations in research? Why are ethical guidelines used by researchers? It’s because adhering to ethical considerations in research ensures that your work is genuine, error-free, and earns the trust and support of the general public. Every researcher should abide by ethical guidelines in every aspect of their study as these ethical considerations in research helps guard against misconduct in academia. Unfortunately, some researchers are either unaware of these ethical norms or are negligent and ignore the importance of ethical research guidelines because of high competition in academia, which can hurt the researcher’s reputation and also hamper scientific advancement. It is, therefore, critical for every researcher to be aware of the ethical considerations in research and carefully follow all the ethical guidelines laid down for researchers.

References:

1. Resnick, D. B. (2015), What is Ethics in Research and Why is it Important? National Institute of Health.

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