How can we teach research ethics?

In this section of their guide to research ethics Mark Israel and Iain Hay (Flinders University, Australia) advocate the case method for teaching research ethics, including three cases and how to use them.

One strategy for teaching research ethics is to attempt to provide some clear, unequivocal moral direction to students in the form of rules, such as ‘do no harm’ or ‘do not tell lies’. Such an approach has been pursued by various international and national research bodies in drafting their codes of ethics. However, prescriptive approaches to ethics and ethics education stand in fundamental opposition to moral thinking (Bauman, 1993). In addition, such approaches are fraught with practical problems (Hay, 1998):

• normative ethical positions often suggest irreconcilably different behaviours
• ‘rules’ for moral and responsible behaviour may not be universalisable to all situations at all times
• prescriptive approaches to ethics offer the potential for a contest between ‘legalistic’ interpretations of ethical behaviour and the ‘morality’ of individual actions
• it is unlikely that ethical prescriptions can anticipate all possible moral dilemmas

Rather than relying on the deceptive assurances of ethical codes we argue that we should encourage theoretically informed, self critical and perceptive approaches to moral matters. According to the Hastings Center (1979), an education in ethics should fulfil a number of important goals:

• stimulating the moral imagination
• recognising ethical issues
• developing analytical skills
• eliciting a sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility
• tolerating – and resisting – disagreement and ambiguity

In addition, student centred learning should provide students with the concepts and skills to allow them to handle moral issues independently and competently.

The case method for ethics teaching

Despite considerable disillusionment with the use of the case method approach within law, it offers some considerable strengths in teaching ethics. Cases may allow students to be exposed quickly to a wide range of the types of scenes and conditions with which they might be confronted as graduates. Cases can also help students learn a range of skills, such as problem solving, diagnosis, evaluation and decision making, and may also be an appropriate means of conveying theory. They require students to see matters from a range of points of view and to consider each one critically and sympathetically. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that both law staff and students are familiar with a case based approach.

We provide several case studies in our book (Israel & Hay, 2006) that can be used ‘off the shelf’ – three are included here:

• Case 1: Students faked survey
• Case 2: Harm and benefit in a licensed maternity home
• Case 3: Regulation of the night time economy

There are several ways that teachers can develop their own case studies that are equally likely to engage their students and may have the added advantage of being jurisdictionally relevant and contemporary. Teachers attempting to generate their own case study material will have to decide whether the material will focus on one substantive ethical issue, such as informed consent, confidentiality, beneficence or research integrity, or if it will involve a range of issues. Again, case studies may be limited to one jurisdiction or may more obviously engage with multinational and multicultural matters. While cases can take the form of written narratives, audio or video, they are more compelling to students if they involve real life and open ended situations.

There are several easily accessed sources for generating case studies:

• ethical problems are routinely discussed in the higher education press, such as Times Higher Education – the website has an easily searched archive
• ethical problems can also be identified by searching social science databases such as ProQuest
• perhaps the best resource provided by a professional association has been developed by the American Anthropological Association in their Handbook on ethical issues in anthropology
• cases can also be found in day to day research and teaching practice

How to use cases

• Set up the problem – following introductory reading and classroom discussion of material exploring ethics and ethical theory (for example, Hay & Israel, 2005), present small groups (about 3-4 people) of students with a number of ethical dilemmas such as those set out above
• Identify the issues – students must decide what the ethical problem is. Issue identification is a vital task, and should form an important learning objective in ethics teaching. Identification can be achieved through discussion and negotiation in the classroom – if a number of groups are discussing a case simultaneously, the facilitator might ask representatives to tell the rest of the class about the ethical problem(s) they have identified within the case. These can be reviewed by the class as a whole, summarised, and re-presented as a smaller number of issues for general discussion in the next phase of the exercise.
• Prepare an initial position – students prepare to defend their own position (providing students with the opportunity to prepare a considered opinion obviates the common difficulty of students ‘passing the buck’ and avoiding offering a solution to, or comment on, a troubling moral problem)
• Defend a position – students’ independently prepared notes on the ethical scenario(s) form the basis of small group discussions; further dialogue with the teacher and peers can be used to probe principles embedded in the case under scrutiny (The emphasis is on learning principles, concepts and problem solving rather than learning ‘right’ answers. The central purpose of careful questioning is to elicit the clearest, most defensible positions from students. Questioning should not be a rigorous and damaging cross examination of any single student. Care needs to be taken to ensure that students have the opportunity to reflect on their views, to acquire additional information, and to muster the courage to comment where they might before have been timid. Drawing this stage to a close, the facilitator might debrief the class, offering constructive comments about individual and group contributions.)
• Revise a position – students refine and qualify the positions they have taken; for example, they might be required to rewrite their original opinion in the light of teacher and peer comments provided during discussion
• Reflect and assess – students check to see if their argument can stand up to testing – this may be achieved through formal assessment of each student’s written work, with the marking being based heavily on criteria such as quality of argument. If time is available, engagement with the thoughtful ethical views of a small group of people can be encouraged through the use of writing groups.
  Through this approach students are encouraged to practice ways of identifying and analysing ethical questions. They are also provided with the opportunity to engage with the values of pluralism and respect for the point of view of other people.

Teaching that focuses on rigid institutional codes and practices curbs the possibility of nurturing ethical decision making among students. To some extent, directions for appropriate moral behaviour shift responsibility away from individuals and leave moral minefields into which untrained sociologists may venture. Armed with good intentions, but unencumbered with an education in ethics, researchers may find themselves dangerously exposed in uncharted moral terrains. One potential solution is to use the case method to ensure that students are equipped with critical moral imaginations. These imaginations may offer student researchers the potential to navigate appropriate routes through the key ethical fields of justice, beneficence and respect for others.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010