by Dr Stella Oluwaseun
In Nigeria, ethical considerations are not so widely talked about in social research as they are in medical research. Social research involves the study of human participants in terms of their behaviour, interactions with one another and the structures in society in order to gain a sense of how society works. Therefore, it is very important for ethics to be part of the consideration in social research projects from the onset to the dissemination of research findings.
One may ask the question, why is the issue of ethics very important to consider in a research project? First and foremost, research should do no harm. Research projects should neither harm the research participants nor the researcher. So, it is very important to think of the safety as well as the wellbeing of researchers and research participants when doing social research. This argument is supported by Clark et al. (2021) in Bryman’s Social Research Methods where they detail the key ethical principles when doing social research as: 1) doing no harm to participants, 2) gaining informed consent, 3) protecting the privacy and confidentiality of research participants, and 4) involving no deception in research.
A few examples of notable but unethical research projects in the past which caused harm or had the potential to cause harm to the research participants include the Milgram Experiment, Stanford Prison Experiment, Tuskegee’s Syphilis Study and Tearoom Trade. All of these studies did not obtain informed consent from their participants and had used deception to collect research data from their participants. They also exposed the research participants to significant degrees of harm which will not be acceptable in modern society. As a result, universities, research agencies and funding bodies in contemporary era would not grant approval or funding for such research projects to be conducted again. The teaching of ethics which includes ethical issues and how they can be minimised or navigated in social research has become part and parcel of the teaching of research methodology in the social sciences in universities. This should also be the same for Nigerian universities to help equip Nigerian students and graduates with these important elements of research skills which are now part of the expectations when doing social research. This is even more the case for Nigerian students and graduates who would want to conduct social research and/or collaborate with colleagues, universities, research agencies and/or seek grants from funding bodies in the Global North in the future.
The question of ethics is not a one-off or mere tick-box exercise during research. In fact, ethics is an on-going process from the beginning of the research project to the dissemination of the research findings. Ethical considerations should be part of the sampling strategy and recruitment of research participants. For instance, there are ethical implications regarding paying people to participate in research, doing research with vulnerable people and using gatekeepers to access research participants. The payment to participants could become an inducement and the use of gatekeepers could influence what participants say during research. The ethical practice is for participants to take part in research projects willingly and without coercion. Ethical considerations should also be part of the data collection; it is important that vulnerable people like the elderly, children or disabled people are not taken advantage of during research for instance. There is need to treat research participants with dignity and respect. Ethics are also relevant to issues of data storage, data analysis and dissemination of research findings. Good ethical practice will involve storing all research data securely, anonymising research data so no identifiable traits of the research participants are left and no element of the findings can be traced back to the research participants. These are all important ethical steps to follow to ensure protection of the privacy of the research participants and their confidentiality.
It adds to the credibility of research as well as the university’s and/or employer’s reputation when students and graduates carry out research projects in an ethical way. To ensure ethical considerations are built into research projects, universities should have systems in place to grant ethical approval to students’ ethics application before students can commence their research projects. Beyond the classroom teaching of ethics as part of research methodology, the universities, professional associations and research funding agencies or organisations should do more to ensure students are knowledgeable and engaged in ethical practices when doing social research. For example, the code of ethics or ethical guidelines for doing social research in Nigeria should be issued by ethics committees in universities, professional associations and research funding agencies/organisations as done in other parts of the world.
Clark, T., Foster, L., Sloan, L., & Bryman, A. (2021). Bryman’s social research methods (6th ed.). Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Dr Oluwaseun is a lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds in the UK.