This book guides readers through one of the most important aspects of their social or behavioural research: planning ethically responsible research. The authors offer practical guidance in each chapter for satisfying federal regulations governing human research and for working with the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB). The book includes an abundance of useful tools: detailed instructions on development of an effective IRB protocol; methods for handling issues of consent, privacy, confidentiality and deception; ways to assess risk and benefit to optimize research outcomes; and how to respect the needs of vulnerable research populations. The book is an invaluable guide to help researchers and graduate students understand ethical concerns within real-life research situations.
Preface: how and why this ethics book is different -- About the authors -- Introduction : research governance and research ethics -- Why we need ethics : assessing vulnerability, risk and benefit -- The relevance of ethical theory to IRb -- A retrospective IRB review : rehabilitating Milgram, Zimbardo and Humphreys -- Journalist ethics : social scientists ethics -- Community-engaged research and ethnography : extreme misfits with the medical model -- Communicating informed consent and process consent -- Degrees of non-disclosure -- Strategies for assuring confidentiality -- The ethics for the invisible, powerless and vulnerable research assistant -- Why IRBs have an important place : the autoethnographic experiment -- Evidence-based ethical problem solving : a research agenda -- Making ethics review a learning institution : ten simple suggestions -- References -- Subject index -- Author index.