Identifying Ethical Issues In Brief Research Essay. (70 Characters)

Computer Games and Violence

Please look atthe three brief research plans given below.  For each plan, you should:

1. Outline one or more ethical issues raised by the plan (e.g., participants are being deceived, participants are not being debriefed)

2. Brieflydiscuss why this is a problem (refer to your lecture notes, your wider reading, and the BPS Code of HumanResearch Ethics to support your arguments)

3. Outline thechanges to the research plan that could be made to address the ethical concernsthat youhave identified.

Advice: Please make sure that you are identifying ethical issues rather than practical ones.  Please try to link your criticisms with aspects of the BPS Code of Human Research Ethics.  Please make sure that your recommendations directly address the problems that you have identified.

JK wants to explore whether playing violent computer games at home makes secondary primary school pupils more aggressive in sports lessons and playground games. JK proposes sending a questionnaire to parents of students aged between 8 and 11 who attend a local primary school asking them to report the names of computer games that their children play across a one-month period. Parents would also be asked to report how much time their child spendsplaying each game. JK is going to ask independent raters to judge the level of violence included in each game mentioned & JK will also consider the suggested appropriate age for playing each game. JK is then going to observe pupils across 3 hours of sports classes and playground free-play each, and will assess the level of aggression displayed by each child. JK is confident of getting permission from the Head Teacher of the local primary School, as she volunteers there as a classroom assistant one day a week. JK is proposing to send a summary of her research findings to all of the parents of the children who take part, and to present her findings to a meeting of teachers, parents and the school governors after the research is completed.

DD is a volunteer for a well-known local charity which supports families of victims of gang-related violence. DD wants to investigate the extent to which a new training programme for volunteers improves the experience of the client families and also the volunteers themselves. DD is planning to ask his co-workers at the charity to agree to be interviewed by him about their experiences before and after the new training, particularly focussing on whether or not they feelmore able to fulfil their volunteering roles after the training. DD is also planning on looking through the charity’s records to identify two families per volunteer (one from before the new training, and one from after the new training). He wants to send these families a questionnaire to complete to explore their experiences of the assistance & support that they were given by the charity volunteer who was assigned to them. DD is hoping to present the findings of his research at a national psychology student conference at the end of the year. Research plan

ST is a final-year psychology undergraduate student who wants to know whether blind marking improves essay grades. She wants to randomly divide all of her classmates into named-essay and unnamed-essay conditions, and see if the average marks of the unnamed essays are better or worse than the average marks of the named essays. The essays are for a compulsory research methods module, that all final year students are required to complete as part of their degree. The essay grade forms part of their overall final year project module mark. STis planning to tell the students and tutors that she is exploring the usefulness of a new coursework cover sheet (which, amongst other things, does not contain information on student names), compared to an existing coversheet which does contain student name information.  She thinks if she actually tells the tutors the real purpose of her study that they will not mark the essaysin the way that they normally would in order to demonstrate that they were not biased.

Computer Games and Violence

The ethical issue raised by the plan is in regards to the rights to self-determination and privacy. The participants are in a way being forced to participate as all the parents of the 8-11 year old students are being sent the questionnaire. Moreover, the children are being used quite unethically as they will be exposed to 3 hours of field and not field play observation. Thus, participants are being utilized without their consent as the nature of the experiment can be unacceptable for many.

An important aspect of the identified problem is in regards to the concept of self-determination of the participants (The British Psychological Society, 2014). The parents of the children will be sent questionnaires without their prior approval. Participants do not go through any debriefing. Thus, the parents will have no idea why the information is being taken. Three hours of observation of potentially violent behaviors of students can pose serious threats to the integrity of the students. Students may end up being harmed by their classmates as there is no mention of any preventive measures in the experiment.

Firstly, the much required recommended changes are in regards to informing the parents of the kids about the whole purpose of the experiment. The questionnaires need to be distributed to parents only after proper permission is taken and assurance about the safety of their kids are provided. During observation for finding potentially violent behaviors there should be ample security that is provided.

References-

The British Psychological Society. (2014). Code of Human Research Ethics. Leicester.

The effectiveness of victim support training is being focused in the research. However, the major ethical issue identified in the case is that the participants are not being briefed properly about where the report will get published. The publishing of the report in the national psychology student’s council needs prior approval of the participants. Moreover, the records of the previous gang victim families will be checked and the families will be approached without consent.

The major problem that has been identified can serve to undermine the respect for autonomy and privacy of the individuals. Firstly, the participants are not being given proper information about where the results will be published (Gavin & Rodham, 2017). Secondly, the previous victim families may feel that their privacy has been harmed due to their inclusion without prior notice. Communities that are to be involved in an experiment need to be treated with respect for their privacy, autonomy and dignity (The British Psychological Society, 2014). It has to be remembered that the risk is greater as the gang violence victims are a vulnerable group.

The most important change to be made is to inform all the participants about the publishing of the report at the psychology students’ conference. Moreover, all the participants irrespective of being volunteers or the victim families need to be consented before the experiment as otherwise this can result in serious breach of privacy.

References-

Gavin, J., & Rodham, K. (2017). from ethical rules to ethical puzzles: Research ethics in the digital age. Psychology Review, 23(1), 2-5.

The British Psychological Society. (2014). Code of Human Research Ethics. Leicester.

There are serious concerns in regards to the breach of ethical considerations in this project. Firstly, the participants are being directly mislead into participating into the interview. They are being deceived by providing false information about the experiment. Moreover, the essay assignment is compulsory part of the course. This means that the research can have far reaching impact on their future prospects of the students (Walliman, 2017).

The identified significant ethical issues with regards to the project are breach of social responsibility, maximizing the potential for harm rather than the benefits of the participants and providing deceptive information (The British Psychological Society, 2014). The participants will enter the experiment thinking that they have entered another experiment to test other research topics. The participants’ future can be greatly harmed if the teachers give them lower marks as a result of the experiment. The risk factor and the breach of integrity are serious issues (Deterding et al., 2015).

It is firstly recommended to give the participants actual true information in regards to the research and the focus of the research. Moving forward the experiment considering the usage of actually valuable course related essay assignments should be immediately scrapped. A completely harmless environment of an essay competition can be used as a replacement research scenario. The participants should be used only with their prior consent.

References-

Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. Routledge.

The British Psychological Society. (2014). Code of Human Research Ethics. Leicester.

Deterding, S., Canossa, A., Harteveld, C., Cooper, S., Nacke, L. E., & Whitson, J. R. (2015, April). Gamifying research: Strategies, opportunities, challenges, ethics. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2421-2424). ACM.

Deterding, S., Canossa, A., Harteveld, C., Cooper, S., Nacke, L. E., & Whitson, J. R. (2015, April). Gamifying research: Strategies, opportunities, challenges, ethics. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2421-2424). ACM.

Gavin, J., & Rodham, K. (2017). from ethical rules to ethical puzzles: Research ethics in the digital age. Psychology Review, 23(1), 2-5.

Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?. Research Ethics, 13(1), 23-41.

Hedgecoe, A. (2016). Reputational risk, academic freedom and research ethics review. Sociology, 50(3), 486-501.

The British Psychological Society. (2014). Code of Human Research Ethics. Leicester.

Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. Routledge.