Ethics in Qualitative Research: Challenges for Psychologists - Research Paper

Qualitative researches are designed to create an interaction between the researcher and the participants. It is the interaction that makes ethics in qualitative research so important. For researchers, it is quite challenging to involve participants personally. The formulation of ethical guidelines is so vital to a psychology researcher. A psychologist who carries out research is laden with immense responsibility. There is minimal statistics that a psychologist deals with. The psychologist researcher has the responsibility to evaluate information from the participants and interpret it in the interest of the research and not their own. This article also presents the order to which qualitative psychological studies can ensure they achieve proper ethical requirements of a review. In terms of ethical challenges, the paper highlights applicable procedures that can secure trustworthy outcomes. In this paper, the focus is to present ethical considerations that should be considered during a psychological investigation or analysis.

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Ethical Consideration of a Qualitative (Psychology) Project

As mentioned earlier, carrying out qualitative research is an immense challenge. Researchers face ethical challenges from the design of the study to its presentation. Critical ethical issues to consider concerning qualitative studies, especially those that are psychological, have to focus on anonymity, confidentiality, consent, and the overall impact that the investigation has on the participants. Below is an explanation of ethical considerations that a psychological researcher would consider.

The Researcher and Participant Relationship

The relationship between the participant and the researcher in qualitative research is very crucial. The involvement of participants and researchers in psychological analyses raises ethical considerations because of the vulnerability of mental participants. Most participants of psychological research have become instruments of choice, especially for the naturalistic study. Psychological investigations are highly responsive and determining environmental stimuli. Having known the human character and the nature of psychological research, it is only fair to create an intimate relationship between the researcher and the participant as a way of addressing a range of ethical considerations.

The relationship between participants and researchers raises ethical considerations that act as dilemmas to qualitative researchers. To highlight a few ethical considerations created by a participant to the researcher relationship, they include; respect for the participant and their family privacy. Additionally, setting the ground for an open and honest interaction that leads to the avoidance of misinterpretation is essential to ethics.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality as an ethics issue involves unrevealing personal items and information, except in specific situations. For qualitative research, however, the duty of privacy is essential; it helps access particular hidden facts that will help the researcher address the expected outcome. To deal with confidentiality, a qualitative researcher must always endeavor to minimize any possibilities of intrusion into the autonomy of their participants (Campbell, 2016). In psychological research where sensitive issues that might even involve children are mentioned, it is only fair that there is access to an advocate. The presence of an advocate allows the participant to share confidential information with very little fear of disclosure by the researcher. Apart from having an advocate at times, psychological researchers are required to indicate the specific people that can access research data and how the data are needed to be used.

Informed Consent

Another ethical consideration emerging from participant to researcher relationship is consent. Campbell (2016), explained that informed consent is an essential ethical consideration in qualitative research. A researcher should specify for the participant the different aspects of research that the participant is taking part in while seeking to get the participant's approval. The approval also requires the use of comprehensible language and the potential role expected of the participant. Informed consent in psychological investigations is more of ongoing negotiation terms of the agreement. For purposes of health, psychological research is conducted to improve and better policies that guide patients and clients with specific disorders.

Research Design and Process

Another part which breeds ethical consideration regarding qualitative projects is the process of data collection. Qualitative studies, especially those involving psychology, require that participants are observed from their natural environments. The ethical consideration rising from the mentioned requirement is whether the participants will behave naturally, or they will doctor their behavior in a way than informs the qualitative project.

Additionally, the ethical considerations become more serious when, as a researcher, there is a need to deal with community groups, target groups, and control groups. Accessing a community group, a target group, and a control group might be a potential for ethical conflict, considering how the researcher will gain access to the community group. Another ethical consideration is how the community group will expect to be treated during the project and the effects that the project will potentially have on them.

Beneficence and Autonomy

Another ethical consideration that arises from the design of the qualitative project is closely linked to a moral principle known as beneficence. The principle of beneficence emphasizes the need for doing good to others and preventing harm. Beneficence illicit ethical consideration and challenges when there is extreme paternalism. Paternalism is a case when the psychological researcher denies the participants freedom of autonomy and choice. For Example, a research project might need the involvement of older adults. Instead of involving the older adults, a researcher decides not to engage them because they might be too vulnerable for the project. The above analogy of older adults is ethical since the project has limited their autonomy. However, on the positive side, the moral principle of beneficence has been realized further creating an ethical dilemma for the psychological researcher.

From the analysis above, it is logical to consider the following issues as ethical considerations before and during the process of setting up a qualitative project in the field of psychology. Firstly, the principles of autonomy and beneficence. Additionally, confidentiality, informed consent, and the type of group are important ethical considerations during qualitative projects.

Qualitative Project Proposal

Psychology studies have, in the past, focused effort in proving how media violence, especially television, influence youth violence. There is a vast of studies linking media violence and youth. These studies focus on the youth, not knowing that the most influenced age is not the youth but preschoolers. Studies focusing on preschoolers, who are children just shy of entering the school-aged category, are not quite common (Howitt, 2016). It is logical to say that there is very less attention given to the effects of television and media violence on preschool children. This paper then proposes a qualitative project to study the impact of media violence and television on preschool children. Preschoolers are children transforming into youth from babies; understanding the effects of media violence on them will surely help in addressing media violence issues among the youth.

Research Question

The two research questions that the project will seek to address are highlighted below:

• RQ1: Can exposure to media violence, and television acts through cartoons and animations interfere with personality, character, and behavior in developing preschoolers?
• Following the research question identified above the following semi-structured interview questions:
• How are children (preschoolers) in your guidance likely to model behavior based on media and television exposure?
• How is the preschool child's behavior when dealing with conflict or frustration, especially after exposure to television violence?
• How often does the preschool child re-create scenarios from scenes of animations and movies?

RQ2: Do parents and caregivers concerned with preschoolers' exposure to violence through animations and cartoons?

• Following the research question participants will answer the following semi-structured research questions
• What kind of movies, programs, channels, and animations do children under your care and guidance watch?
• What concept of aggressive behavior is highly used in animation or television programs that a preschool child under your care is exposed to?

Target Population

The primary purpose of the qualitative project is to determine if preschool children's behavior demonstrate the interpretation of the violence that they are exposed to by media and television. Borrowing from the primary purpose of the research, the main target population are preschool children. However, since the research is qualitative, the behavior of children can only be accurately determined through observations made from parents, caregivers, and teachers. It means that other target populations for the project are teachers, caregivers, and parents. Further reasons why parents, teachers, and caregivers are also a target population exist for the underlying assumption that there is very little known about how parents, caregivers, and teachers perceive the relationship between media exposure and preschool child behavior.

Ethical Challenges from the Project

Since the qualitative project is targeting children and adult caregivers, there are ethical challenges that are expected. Below are anticipated ethical challenges in implementing the qualitative project titled the effect of media and television on preschool-aged children.

To begin with, access is an ethical challenge. As a qualitative project involving children accessing parents, teachers, and their caregivers in the different facilities will be a challenge. For child protection concerns, the research will require a medical and criminal certificate clearance. Schools and care facilities might also have policies limiting the researchers' access to children, especially during their playtime (Ryen, 2016). In some families, parents and teachers might not be the ones to approach for clearance, but also local authorities. Access to children cannot only mean parental consent. A lot of other stakeholders are involved in making access to an ethical challenge. In the case that access is granted, the researcher will manage the access part of the project as a sensitive issue. If access is denied, the researcher has to seek further authority approval to be allowed to complete the project.

A second ethical challenge is an autonomy. Even if the researcher is provided access to children and the caregivers, it still does not count for the right of independence. Children, however young they may be, have the right to decide whether they can participate in the research. The ethical dilemma for the researcher is how to strike negotiations with a preschool child to get an informed consent that proves autonomy (Ryen, 2016). The best strategy for the researcher to handle the ethical challenge of independence among preschool children is to draft a letter to parents and guardians, asking if they wish their child to participate in the qualitative project.

The last ethical challenge that might arise from the qualitative project is dissemination. Ethically, it is expected that research subjects see and underst...