Learning Objectives

Chapter overview and goals

After reading this chapter, you should have a better understanding of:

• What constitutes research ethics
• The connection between relational aspects of qualitative research and research ethics
• The role of Institution Review Boards and ethics committees in your research
• The ethical implications for relationship building with study participants
• Issues of reciprocity and research boundaries with study participants
• The role and pertinent aspects of informed consent and assent in the research process
• The ideological, methodological, and procedural dimensions of research ethics
• How issues and processes related to research ethics are more than just transactional and procedural
• The concepts of anonymity and confidentiality and how they differ
• Issues of data management and security broadly and in relation to technology
• The role and importance of researcher reflexivity in ethical research
• What it means to push against the expert-learner binary
• The role that collaboration plays in conducting ethical research
• Possibilities and limitations of collaboration
• The relationship between responsive and emergent research design and ethical research