Name: Camille Joy F.

Crisostomo
Section: 13003 (Field Method in Psychology -Lec)

Ethics for Qualitative Psychological Research

Ethics in qualitative psychological research are important so that they can ensure that
the well-being, privacy, and rights of participants are protected. And so these are the
following ethical considerations:

1. Informed Consent: Researchers must obtain voluntary and informed consent

from participants, that explains the purpose, procedures, potential risks, and
benefits of the researcher’s study. And also includes that participants have the
right to withdraw at any time without given consequences.

Possible ethical issues may arise in this matter if the researcher has a
participant that has a disability, like blindness which may require someone to sign
the paper of the informed consent, and that participant should really know the
potential risks and understand well the agreement in the informed consent.

2. Beneficence: Researchers prioritize the welfare of the participants and minimize

any potential harm. Researchers carefully consider the risks and benefits of the
study.

Researchers identify and lessen the potential risks of both physical and
psychological harm to participants and show that they take appropriate measures
to mitigate the said risks of the study.

3. Confidentiality and Anonymity: Researchers protect the identity of the

participants and ensure that personal information remains confidential.
Anonymity is a practice that researchers must remember to prevent the
identification of participants by using pseudonyms.

4. Privacy and Data Security: Researchers respect the privacy of participants and
ensure that their personal information is kept safe and secured by the
researchers. Data should be stored in a way that prevents unnecessary or
unauthorized access.

A common issue in collecting the data of qualitative psychological research is

storing the data since researchers might use camera recordings or voice
 recorders so that researchers could return to those recordings again to check the
correctness of the data gathered, and so this recording must be well-informed to
the participants and made sure that these recordings are private and kept well in
safe devices.

5. Respect for Autonomy: Participants must be treated with respect and they have
the right to make their own decisions, meaning researchers must not insist or do
any bribe acts to make the participants do what the researchers want to.

Ethical issues arise in a study when researchers show a power imbalance and
coercion to participants to make or influence them of the study, like offering them
money to participate in the study which influences the person to decide to be a
participant in the study, this is different from the token or like a thank you gift for
participating in the study since a token is offered after and not before which does
not affect the study anymore.

6. Debriefing: Researchers provide participants with debriefing sessions before and

after the study, explaining the purpose, benefits, and potential implications of the
study.

Ethical issues arise when there is deception, meaning researchers do not fully
explain or provide a thorough debriefing session of the potential risks which
might lead to harm to the participants and researchers will suffer the
consequences if the participants only agree to what the researcher and
participant talked about before proceeding the research.

7. Researcher Competence: Researchers should have the necessary qualifications

and skills to conduct a study ethically and respectfully. It follows the professional
guidelines and standards of conduct.

They must also be knowledgeable of potential biases, values, and assumptions

that they bring to the study. Like when the researchers already have intrusive
thoughts and assume that participants already felt that way when the interviewing
session has not started yet. Or like when the researcher is already interviewing
the participants, instead of focusing on the participant’s answers to the interview
questions, the researcher is concerned about doing something embarrassing or
he/she is not ready for interviewing so he keeps on picking his/her nails or keeps
on bumping/shaking his/her legs.

Researchers must also have cultural sensitivity which respects participants’

cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values and avoids any form of discrimination
 and bias in the research process. Like when researchers are Filipinos and they
want to study foreigners, they should know that if their participants are foreigners
who may have different beliefs in religion, researchers must maintain that
transparency and must not have feelings like hatred or favoritism.

Reference:

Willig, C., & Rogers, W., S. (2017). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in
Psychology. SAGE Publications Ltd, 259, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555