Before class on Monday and learning more about ethics in terms of research, I just incorporated what I know about ethics in other aspects into research. Plagiarism is a big thing every where and not giving credit when it’s due, so I knew that was really important to research as well. Another aspect that makes research ethical or not is the honesty behind it: making sure you are reporting on the entirety of the results and not what you were hoping to, just to make it easier or to have you look better.
What I didn’t know was that you could essentially plagiarize yourself. I didn’t realize that you can do that by publishing your work twice in two different formats. I think that’s also because I didn’t really realize or know that when you do publish a research proposal, that you give away your copyright rights to whoever publishes that work; they essentially own that work as their own legal property. I didn’t realize that it worked that way. It makes sense as to why they would do that though. If you were able to publish your work in multiple different formats, there is no appeal to fight over it and be the only one who does have it.
What also threw me off was that you could potentially alter your proposal once you’ve started it. I think one of the scenarios asked if we thought it was ethical that a researcher noticed that changed variables into dichotomous made the difference that they were looking for and changed it in their proposal. My response was a hard no, and I still am feeling that way personally. I understand that in that scenario, the researcher wasn’t fishing to find something that worked, they just stumbled upon it in a way. And I could see continuing on with that new found change in the research, but I would definitely address it and be honest with it. “We tried it like this for a while and got these results but then, by accident, we found that when this is changed then x, y and z.” Just to be as transparent as possible, because that’s what research should be like.
I don’t know that the ethical issues learned about on Monday would have an effect on the implementation for my proposal. I am trying to make it as clear and clean cut as possible. Maybe I don’t fully understand the question, but I don’t think I had any ethical issues that I was too worried about or that I am in regards of my proposal.
Justyna Wolek 