TO MY THESIS
Jim Byrne
9th – 14th May 2008
APPLYING MY NEW MODEL FOR ETHICAL DECISION MAKING (IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH) TO MY ORIGINAL 14 ETHICAL RESEARCH ISSUES, PROBLEMS AND DILEMMAS
1. Introduction
In this document I will apply my new Model for Ethical Decision Making (in Qualitative Research) to the fourteen ethical issues that I identified with my original research proposal – as discussed in Byrne (2006a; 2007a).
The development of this model marks the completion of a cycle of enquiry which began between 27th July and 1st August 2006, when I sent the following question (plus one other question) to Respondents 1 and 2 (as described in Appendix ‘H’):
“Q1: In your opinion, do you think it is fairly easy to think about the ethical implications of your own Doctoral research work, or do you think you could benefit from help in that area?”
One of the replies that I got said:
“I always find difficulty with the less obvious ethical dilemmas. I think what would be useful is a model to consider research dilemmas. Are you familiar with the Bond/Gabriel ethical decision making model?”
I have pursued this idea in various parts of my doctoral thesis, and as a result, I initially developed a twenty-four element, multi-coloured heuristic, which explores the field of teaching and learning ethical research competence. A copy of that heuristic is shown in Figure ZI.1 on the next page.
By working though the twenty-four elements of Figure ZI.1, at least twice or three times, any postgraduate tutor or student could develop a good level of ethical research competence.
Figure ZI.1: My ethical research thinking heuristic (for teaching and learning purposes)
(To enlarge this model, double click on the image with your left-hand mouse button).
However, once the individual has reached their desired level of competence, it seems onerous to have to go back to using all twenty-four elements each time they want to assess an ethical research issue, problem or dilemma. Therefore, for that purpose I decided to develop a specific model to guide the process of making ethical decisions about moral problems in qualitative research. (Please see that model in Figure ZI.2 below).
This model is likely to be optimally useful to those individuals who have already worked with the heuristic in Figure ZI.1, preferably several times, so that they have a good grasp of the kinds of issues that come up in using duty ethics (deontology) and utilitarianism (or consequentialism). The new model for ethical decision making is shown on the next page, in Figure ZI.2.
Figure ZI.2: My new model for ethical decision making in qualitative research
(To enlarge, double click the image).
Both the heuristic and the decision making model have yesterday (8th May 2008) been sent out to all of the Doctoral students in the School of Social Care to ask them for their perceptions of the usefulness to them of both thinking aids. So far I have had four responses, which will be analyzed and reported upon in Chapter 5: Conclusion, of my thesis.
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2. Applying my new model to my fourteen ethical issues
On 26th April 2006, I submitted a twenty-thousand word assignment entitled: ‘From Moral Dogmatism to Critical Thinking about Moral Issues In Counselling and Therapy Research’. This was the culmination of almost two years’ work, in which I tried to teach myself ethical research competence.
Beginning from the idea that my original research proposal – submitted in November 2004 – contained no ethical issues or problems, I eventually, in the document submitted on 26th April, 2006, got up to fourteen potential ethical difficulties with my proposal. The purpose of my two year assignment was to get to the point of resolving those fourteen ethical issues in a way that satisfied my desire to believe that I now know how to conduct an ethics risk assessment on my own research proposals.
Starting on page 35 of Byrne (2006a) I analyzed those fourteen issues to see if I could now think critically about such matters. The evidence of that document is that I had certainly developed some useful distinctions, and ways of weighing some of those distinctions against each other, which was a big step forward. What I now want to do is to see if I have moved any further forward as a result of my study of critical thinking and moral philosophy, in the process of developing my twenty-four element heuristic, shown in Figure ZI.1 above. I can do that by applying my model for ethical decision making, in ZI.2 above, to the original fourteen ethical research issues.
The fourteen issues were as follows:
1. If I were to draw my research participants’ attention to the ‘possibility’ of
a ‘placebo effect’ having made some contribution to their therapeutic outcome, this could have the effect of causing them to lose faith in their therapy, which could cost them whatever placebo gain they may have made.
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: We don’t know enough about how counselling works to be able to know what the risks are of reversing the beneficial effects in post-therapy research interviews. The consequence of causing a reversal of a beneficial outcome would make this research too risky, because too potentially harmful.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: Protecting the safety and wellbeing of (potential) research participants.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Avoiding harm to (potential) participants.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: Since there is a (theoretical) risk to the (potential) participants, it is not safe to implement this research proposal; so do not proceed.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Question 1: The criticism would have to say: “You should have proceeded!” and it would be almost impossible to argue this position rationally in the face of my thinking in Boxes 1 to 3. Question 2: My decision is justifiably universable. Question 3: My decision is clearly just, in that no reader would want to be subjected to this research, given the considerations in Boxes 1 to 3.
2. It may be unethical to waste the time of research participants if we have good reason to believe that our research report or article(s) will never be read by our colleagues or peers.
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: Mair (1999) seems to suggest that I might be wasting the time of my (potential) research participants because “…it could be that practitioners are not particularly interested in the topic I intend to investigate”: (Byrne, 2006a). This argument amounts to claiming that since most counsellors do not read very much about counselling research, counselling research wastes the time of its research participants.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: One value – Respecting human rights – could seem to support the idea of not interviewing people on this topic for the reason stated. However, another value – Enhancing the quality of professional knowledge – would seem to suggest that, even though counsellors might not currently pay sufficient attention to research, there is a case to be made that this does not reflect upon the value of the research, nor upon the case for expanding the role of research in (increasingly, in the future) informing the counselling research regarding their professional practices.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Potentially wasting the time of (potential) research participants seems to be a form of ‘harm’, if a minor one. However, against that principle I would pit the principle of Promoting the social benefit (of providing potentially useful information about what people get from counselling, and the factors that they identify as potent in their counselling experiences).
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: I think this objection – by Mair (1999) – should not be allowed to stop this research going ahead. Proceed.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: To effectively criticise a decision to go ahead with the proposed research, despite Mair’s (1999) objections, one would have to argue that all published information that is currently not widely read should be eliminated, and no form of publishing should proceed unless it is known in advance that there is a reasonable level of demand for its production. It seems unlikely that most people (no matter how ‘critical’ could reasonably support such an argument).
3. It seems to be somewhat questionable practice to restimulate memories of pre-therapy unhappiness in research participants:
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: We do not have very good published information about the amount of time the average citizen spends being happy; relatively unhappy; very unhappy; and so on. We do not have very good ways of conceptualizing the value to a person of their happiness, but it is probably reasonable to assume that most people would consider happiness to be a prime social good. If I restimulate memories of pre-therapy unhappiness, how long will they last? I have no way of knowing. Will they be brief and transitory; or will they be protracted and difficult to shift? I cannot answer those questions. Thus I cannot quantify or qualify the degree of harm that I could do to potential research participants by restimulating memories of pre-therapy unhappiness.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: Protecting the safety of participants. This value would dictate that I not proceed with this research.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Avoiding harm to participants. This principle would dictate that I not proceed with this research.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: The case against proceeding is strong. The case for proceeding – from situation 2 above – is weak. Therefore, I should not proceed.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Question 1: To criticise the decision not to proceed, a person would have to say that the happiness of potential participants is less important than the data collected. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to support this argument, especially given the reservations of Mair (1999) above. Question 2: It would be easy to universalize the principle of not spoiling the happiness of others unnecessarily, or for student-research purposes! Question 3: The decision is fair, as I propose to universalize it, and not to apply it unevenly.
4. It is almost certainly indisputable that it would be unethical to restimulate memories of trauma in victims of trauma.
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: At the beginning of May 2005, I found a document (Pope, 1999) on the ethics of restimulating old memories of trauma. This is it: Invited Guest Editorial: ‘The Ethics of Research Involving Memories of Trauma’, by Kenneth S. Pope (1999). One of the points that Pope makes is this: ‘Studies that invite participants to remember trauma may, as this study suggests, themselves be traumatic. As Primo Levi … wrote: "the memory of a trauma suffered or inflicted is itself traumatic because recalling it is painful or at least disturbing" (p. 24).’
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: Protecting safety of participants. It would not be a protection of their safety to expose them to memories of trauma suffered in the past.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Avoiding harm to participants. It seems to me to be positively harmful to expose an individual to the restimulation of an old trauma for the purposes of conducting research. It may be okay if the aim is therapeutic, but my research was not designed to be therapeutic.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: The thinking in Boxes 2 and 3 are against proceeding, so do not proceed.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Question 1: To criticise my decision, a group of critics would have to agree that it is okay to restimulate memories of trauma in pursuit of a student-research assignment, which could not easily be supported by reasons and evidence. Question 2: This decision could easily be universalized. We should not restimulate memories of trauma in anybody, with the possible exception of therapeutic work in which clients are helped to digest old traumas in counselling and therapy sessions.
5. McLeod (1994) draws attention to the fact that qualitative research can normally be expected to be “painful and distressing”. This results from the depth of relationship established between researcher and research respondent in qualitative research, and the encouragement given by the researcher for the respondent “…to write or talk openly and honestly about themselves”: (McLeod, 1994: 167).
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: If McLeod is right, that my work could be “painful and distressing” for my participants, then I do not think I would wish to proceed.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: Respecting human rights and Protecting the safety of participants seem to be the most important two values here. If I am to respect human rights, I must seek to avoid harming or hurting my research participants. Since I would be asking them about their research experiences, and what they got from it, and what they think contributed to their gains, it is certainly possible that they might bring up some painful memories in the process.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Avoiding harm to participants seems to be the most important principle here. If I am to avoid harm I should not wish to cause my participants to feel painful experiences.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: Since the purpose of my proposed research was to get me a doctoral degree, I do not think I can proceed, since I could cause my participants some mental suffering. Do not proceed.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Q1: Some critics might think I am being too sensitive and fastidious. However, to sustain their argument they would have to show that I was missing some great gain to society by backing off; and I do not think they could produce solid evidence to support such an argument. This would have been an exploratory study by a doctoral student which might or might not have thrown up some useful ideas. I find I am no longer willing to “embrace these difficulties” and to work “in anguish”, (unlike McLeod, 2001: 198). Q2: There is nothing in principle to stop the universalization of this decision, given that it is about student studies, and not about fully professional studies, which might be subject to slightly different criteria of acceptability. Q3: The decision seems to me to be just. It does not unfairly disadvantage anybody. If it disadvantages me, then that is my choice.
6. There is an implicit contradiction, or an acute tension, between the apparent need to engage in some small degree of deception in connection with the purpose of some research projects, on the one hand, and the stressed importance of being trustworthy, and building a relationship of trust with the participant, on the others.
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: I had planned to withhold the information that I was conducting my research to try to invalidate the placebo explanation for positive outcomes in counselling and therapy, for two reasons. Firstly, to prevent harm to the participants’ placebo gains (if any); and secondly, to avoid creating the idea in the participants’ minds that I want them to look for ‘active ingredients’ other than a placebo type effect. However, Willig (2001: 18) specifies the rule that there should be “No deception”.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: Bond (2004b: 11) is opposed to withholding information: “such practices are usually incompatible with an ethic of trust and contrary to other ethical approaches to research involving human subjects”. However, the BPS code (Banyard and Flanagan, 2005: 43) allows the withholding of information by deception, unless “…the participants are typically likely to object or show unease once (informed during debriefing)”.
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Honesty and trustworthiness. Ideally it would be best to try to avoid any form of deception. However, in some cases it would be impossible to conduct the study without some withholding of information, to avoid creating demand characteristics which would distort the participants’ responses.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: It would not be dishonest to say: “I want to find out what you got from counselling/therapy” – and to omit reference to the placebo effect. This is an omission and not a deception. When I wrote up my final report – if it proved to be relevant and appropriate – I probably would make reference to the placebo explanations of Horgan and Erwin. Therefore, when this issue is considered from the point of view of deception versus omission, it seems okay to proceed with my research proposal. This is surprising since, when a different aspect of this issue is addressed – namely the possibility of a loss of therapeutic benefit – I would not be willing to proceed. Therefore I must not proceed with the withholding of this information to get the research launched, because I will have to reveal my goals later, and this could have a negative effect on the therapeutic gains of my research participants.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Q1: I think this decision could stand up to a range of critics because it is based on the need to avoid harm, and not just on the principle of temporary deception which is unlikely to be objected to when the deception is revealed. Even if my participants were not to object to my deception, they might still lose some of their placebo gains when they find out what the research was really about. Q2: I think my decision is universalizable, because I am saying “Research must not be allowed to harm research participants”, and that is an important universal principle of all but the most life-saving of medical research. Q3: The decision is fair to my potential research participants; and it is not unfair to me, since I am making the decision for my own good reasons. There are no third parties who could be disadvantaged – or subjected to injustice – because of my decision.
7. If I don’t withhold some information about my goals in relation to invalidating the placebo explanation for positive outcomes in counselling and therapy, then the ‘demand characteristics’ of my study will probably induce participants to ‘find’ (or create) ‘active ingredients’. (This would affect not only the validity of my results, but also the integrity of my study).
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: Given that I believe the above statement (or believed it on 16th June 2005!), it seems to me that it would be unethical for me to proceed with this study, without withholding some information, since I know that giving the participants all of the information about the research design will enable them to ‘help me’ to produce the result that I ‘want’! I originally was concerned about this proposed withholding, because of the potential effect on the participants’ perceptions of my trustworthiness.
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: The most important value here is not Trustworthiness, but rather Protecting the safety of participants. That is to say, my trustworthiness is of a lower order of importance than the safety of my potential research participants. And since they could be harmed by knowing my goal – regarding the placebo effect – and I must tell them about that goal at some point; therefore I cannot proceed with this research. FULL STOP!
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: Avoiding harm to participants is the most important principle here, and this reinforces the points make in the previous paragraph. Do not proceed.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: There is no justification for proceeding with this research, as it could potentially harm at least some of my participants to some extent, by undoing some of their (theoretical) placebo gains.
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Q1: In order for a critic to seriously challenge my decision s/he would have to demonstrate that knowing about the placebo explanation for their therapeutic gains could not possibly cause anybody to lose any of their (theoretical) placebo gains. I do not know of any evidence that could be deployed to support that argument. Q2: Universability: As I said recently, my decision is based on avoiding harm to my potential research participants, and the avoidance of harm to research participants is virtually a universal principle, except perhaps in some life-saving medical research contexts. Q3: The decision is just, because it is about putting the interests of my potential research participants above my own selfish need to get a doctoral degree.
8. If I believe that people engage in ‘just so’ stories about their lives, including their experiences of counselling and therapy, and that their stories are not some kind of ‘objective truth’, but I report their stories as if they represent anything other than their ‘psychological reality’, then I am acting unethically.
a. Box 1: Describe the situation: If this statement is true, then what is the value of my proposed research study? Am I going to spend a couple of years collecting just-so stories, based on fallible memories, and to shape them into a just-so story of my own, and present it as a picture of the ‘psychological reality’ of six individuals who have been through counselling and therapy. What is the value of this kind of activity? I just do not know: (or did not in 2006).
b. Box 2: Identify and apply relevant values: The most important value here is Dealing with data and publication in ethical ways. Dealing with data in the form of personal autobiography is dealing with subjective accounts which contain “nuggets of truth”, as demonstrated by Eysenck and Keane (2000: 222-223).
c. Box 3: Identify and apply moral principles: The most important principle here is Managing the integrity of the research process… which means in this instance describing my data/texts accurately.
d. Box 4: Weigh up the pros and cons, and make a decision: The reservation about just-so stories, in Box 1 above, is not a valid reason for not proceeding with my original research; otherwise it would be equally invalid to have proceeded with my actual research on the teaching and learning of ethical research competence. The reason it is invalid is this: A ‘just so’ story means an account which claims that what happened must be seen as having happened exactly as I recall and retell it – just so! However, an alternative sort of story is the ‘qualified story’: It seems that X happened, and I interpret this as meaning Y. Of course Z is also a possible factor here… This is not a just so story, but a Law of Seeming story. A law of seeming story is s story in which we acknowledge that, for a human, all that ever happens is that something seems to happen, and that that something seems to mean something, to somebody; at some point in space/time, but it could be otherwise! That is to say that a Law of Seeming story is based on ‘fuzzy logic’ (Kosko, 1993) and ‘awareness of abstracting’ (Korzybski, 1933/1958).
e. Box 5: Appraise the decision: Q1: For a critic to defeat my decision in Box 4 above – to the effect that it would be okay to proceed with my research despite the fact that autobiographical memory is imperfect - s/he would have to demonstrate that it is actually totally imperfect and therefore totally unreliable. As long as I place a restriction on the degree of validity that I claim for my data/texts, I will not be exaggerating the imperfect-but-useful statements of my research participants.
3. Interruption
At 9.00pm on Tuesday 13th May 2008, I ran out of energy, and stopped working on this appendix at the end of 8(a) above – having described ethical issue No.8. I got to bed about 10.00pm, and slept well until about 3.35am, when I awoke. I had been dreaming, and my dream was about having put some commodities into the wrong containers. I intuited that this had something to do with the non-conscious part of me communicating something about the way I was proceeding with this appendix. I therefore got up and had a mug of cocoa and went back to typing this page.
Before I could get down to typing, I realized one problem: I had intended to continue to work through all fourteen of these ethical issues, but now it seemed that some of these ‘containers’ would be unnecessary. After all, I have established that somebody could be harmed by my proposed research; and that no amount of benefit derived from my (student) research (project) can justify that harm. Therefore, it does not matter what I discover in relation to issues number 9 to 14, I will not change my mind now about not proceeding. Therefore, from the point of view of economy of effort and time, it makes sense to summarize my situation, and get on with other urgent writing tasks.
4. Conclusion
I now need to bring this appendix to some kind of meaningful conclusion. I will begin by presenting an extract from my original risk assessment from Byrne (2006a), as follows:
Of the fourteen issues in my risk assessment exercise, I conclude as follows:
• Issues 2, 6, 12, 13 and 14: It seems okay to proceed.
• Issues 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10: It seems okay to proceed with caution.
• Issues 1 and 7: It seems inappropriate to proceed. Do not proceed.
• Issues 4 and 11: Do not recruit traumatized or depressed applicants.
Because of issues 1 and 7 in particular, combined with seven “proceed with caution” decisions, I think it appropriate that I not proceed with my original research project design.
In my second risk assessment, presented in section 2 of this appendix, above, I concluded as follows:
Issues 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7: Do not proceed.
Issues 2 and 8: Proceed.
It thus seems I have become more ethically sensitive between the time of completing my first and second risk assessments on my original research proposal, because my number of “Do not proceed” decisions has increased from two to six!
I also found my Model for Ethical Decision Making to be easy to use, and helpful in focusing my mind. I did not run into any difficulties in using it, and have not come up with any changes that I would want to make to it. I have thus “field tested” my model shown in Figure ZI.2 above, with the results shown in this and the previous section.
Jim Byrne
14th May 2008
05.10am
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POSTSCRIPT
3rd July 2008
I have received positive feedback about my ethics decision making model from three Doctoral colleagues, as follows:
Fred: "I read the model you attached and later, when an opportunity arose, I applied it to an ethical consideration. It is very clear to follow - maybe the 1-4 boxes could have a colour background to differentiate them. I would call it an ethical policy and by keeping it on the cover of my research folder it would keep me mindful to be ethical and a good reference point. The content covers all that is necessary".
John: "What useful material. Can I give you feedback after the summer because that will give me time to try out the model? I have changed my mind about research ethics coming at the beginning of the course because it is only at the end of the second year when I have begun interviewing that I am so much more conscious of things like informed consent. Before that ethics seemed an academic concept and it is only now that its relevance is striking home .... The (professional body's)ethical code informs my (professional) practice, but the research ethics (approach that you have talked about) is only now informing my research. Hope this makes sense. My eureka moment has only just arrived".
Joyce: "I really like your model and found it very helpful".
I would appreciate any comments on this, my final appendix.
Jim Byrne
3rd July 2008
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POSTSCRIPT TWO
A few days later, I got the following feedback from Respondent CJG:
“I have had a go at you ‘Ethical Thinking Heuristic model’ and found it very interesting.
“I worked my way up through the first three layers in a progressive manner and found that the questions it posed me were useful…. And indeed would have been very useful when I as considering the structure of my research.
“I found it useful now as I am at a sticky patch with my action research group and what to do could easily become manipulative on my part to gather in the data. It has made me go back to the question about ‘What is for the good of the group participants?’. What course of action will cause least harm? What is harm anyway? Is some psychological disturbance OK as they will grow personally through that? They may also become better practitioners etc etc.
How do I apply the universality principle here?
“When I came to the outer layer of your diagram I felt there was a ‘step change’.
“This is the stuff of the backbone of everything else. Knowing and reading some of this would put the principles in one’s head before the actual research question is attempted.
“I do think this is the place for participatory learning… discussion, writing, case study etc in groups.
“All of us have to choose our own ethical principles in the end, but without some structure to think through them it is too difficult to really do this. I think what most do is, if they think at all, is to take one or two basic principles ‘off the shelf’ and apply these as they stand.
“So these are my thoughts. I have attached my workings through the first three layers … just in a few areas. I am encouraged to go back now and ask myself some more questions………..”
C.J.G.
Feedback like that is like gold-dust in the world of research. What a privileged individual I am to have had such wonderful research participants: (indeed they have been co-researchers, working on this stuff themselves!) Respondent CJG produced a three-column matrix, and worked through the first few layers of the multi-coloured model (in Figure ZI.1) above. It was most gratifying to see how helpful my questions had been.
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I would greatly appreciate any further feedback on the two models above.
Best wishes,
Jim
Jim Byrne
Doctoral candidate
University of Manchester
