RESEARCH ETHICAL ISSUES- FICTITIOUS STUDY

The study of Fenton and Hammond (2001)

The study of Fenton and Hammond (2001) was criticized. The study was conducted unethically, with little regard for human rights, safety, or professional norms. The study sought to assess the behaviour of some nursing students who had been taught in crisis and emergency situations. The study included 50 students from each group for research implementation. Certain crucial ethical concerns were raised for this research that are worth discussing; thus, outlining the essential role of this article.

The hazards and rewards of participants

The hazards and rewards of participants are the study’s first ethical issues. Despite its unethical nature, the study had both negative and beneficial outcomes (risks and benefits). The research’s concern on its participant’s physical and psychological risks and vulnerability was based on moral critique. It is evident that the study’s student participants who were just but unprofessional researchers were an exploitation of human resources. According to the ethical research guidelines provided by Kimmel (2007), the research experiment should be structured and executed based on the animal experimentation results and background knowledge of the natural history of the problem being tested. However, the study made by Fenton and Hammond (2001) violated these research norms. The study produced fruits that helped the community as a whole. The research simulated an epileptic seizure in the course, and the interpretive signs were recorded down.

Human rights and informed consent process

Human rights and informed consent process were another ethical critics raised against this study. The participants were deprived of their right to self-determination, without any informed consent before the participatory process and the investigation was full of coercion and intimidation (Bernard, 2012). Rationally, it is against human rights to ambush someone into research without informed consent. A thorough discourse on payment terms and complete study cover is needed before involvement. However, this aspect was lacking in this research. Students volunteer as participants, but the nature of the study is not disclosed to them until the last moment, this is the human rights and consent degradation. To some extent, the participants were fairly treated, and to the other extreme, no fairness was evident. As the study came to an end, these participants were given a stipend of ten dollars each; however, this is an exploitation of circumstance. The amount was less compared to the risks that waited for them. The privacy rights of the participants and the subjects were fully honored. The research subjects were not allowed to write their identities i.e. name in the forms given to them. Therefore, confidentiality and integrity were achieved.

The institutional review process

Another ethical concern was the institutional review process, either being an exemption, expedite or complete, would suitably fit the above case (Anyansi, 2015). This study took the course of an expedite investigation where the research was done rashly without prior planning. However, the best approach of all is the complete investigation where the study is general discussing issues in totality. On the other hand, this research revealed an ethical dilemma. The “patient,” who was depicted as another understudy yet who as a general rule was a partner of the specialists, duplicated an epileptic seizure as the initial signs recorded down. Again, the research deputy was not conversant with the aim of the research and eventually knew not about the core education knowledge of the subject matter. To solve this issue, the research deputy observed the timeliness and suitability of the contents’ results towards the condition via a mono-dimensional approach.

Conclusively

Conclusively, the research was done unethically with a lot of pitfalls. It was a rough idea that was executed without an in-depth discourse of the risk management of the participants. Again, the study should have been designed such that it would accommodate for an additional physical and psychological trauma among the participants. It could be achieved via a lengthy discussion by both the research investigators and principals. To my judgment, the study had no serious objectives, and that is why it was conducted unprofessionally.

References

Kimmel, A. (2007). Ethical issues in behavioral research: basic and applied perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub

Anyansi. (2015). Contemporary issues surrounding ethical research methods and practice. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

Bernard. (2012). Ethical issues in clinical research: a practical guide. Place of publication not identified: LWW