Discussion 1

Ethics in Research

Ethics plays an important role in conducting of research. While the individual researcher is responsible for his/her ethical practice, any research sponsored by an organization, university, or government program has a review process guided by a code of ethics. Besides the code of ethics, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) plays an important role in monitoring research. Your task in this discussion is to examine the origins of the IRB and analyze how the Review Board guides or monitors research. In your 250-300 word post answer the following three questions:

• What does the IRB do to protect a research participant from harm?
• One of the reasons for the existence of the IRB has to do with screening research applications. What is the basis for such screening?

The IRB provides the guidelines for ethical research practice. What would the researcher responsibilities be in terms of these guidelines?

Discussion 2

Ethical Implications

Assume you were interested in the issues related to violence in elementary level school children. You are aware of the increased incidences of bullying, leading to serious problems. Specifically, you want to video tape childrenâs behavior out of school on their way home to and from school. You want to capture, on video, the social interactions that take place, trying to record behaviors that are definitely bullying behaviors or âcould lead to bullying.â So you are focusing on the perpetration of bullying. For this discussion, you are asked to identify âethicalâ factors involved in your proposed research. Your list would include research issues and ethical implications beyond the basic informed consent condition.