SPEaR Good Practice Guidelines 2008: Research and evaluation ethics
Applying the Principle of Reciprocity to research and evaluation ethics
To ensure the ethical reciprocity of their work, researchers should:
- Honour guarantees of confidentiality and anonymity given to research participants, unless there are clear and overriding reasons to do otherwise.
It is wise to be honest with potential participants in advance. Firstly it is ethical and is part of the informed consent processes that should be followed. It is OK to tell people that there is no guarantee that a report will be published or that written feedback may not be possible. Sometimes people prefer that their information might help to make a difference to an agency modus operandi and see this as more important than receiving a published report. What is NOT OKAY is giving undertakings and making promises where the decision is not yours to make and where you do not control the process. While feedback is the ideal, and may be your intent, the agency context can alter and decisions can be changed. Care should be taken not to over promise or to raise expectations that may not be able to be met. If caught in such a situation, the researcher should seek advice from Managers and try and provide some explanation to the research participants.
- Honour agreements to disseminate information for review and alteration.
- Honour obligations to disseminate final reports and/or research findings.
- Honour obligations to save data to realise the full potential of the initial. investment
- Remember to thank people for their time, effort and input.
- Obligations entered into by researchers may have legal effect. Further, a contracting agency may owe (or be alleged to owe) vicarious liability for their agents failings.
