Jackie Ader UNIV 391 9/27/12 Reflection B: Ethics of Your Research The research project I am working on involves direct

interaction with human beings, and therefore, is susceptible to many different ethical issues. One possible research ethics issue related to my research project is not having completely voluntary participation from all participants. Since we are implementing a program likely to benefit orphans preparing to age out of care I would not anticipate much resistance. Yet, we would not want to force or coerce any childrens homes into participating by bribing them monetarily or promising certain outcomes. Say the Project Prepare team were proposing the research project to a childrens home and told them the program would make all of their children successful and safe after they left care. They went on to say these children need this program and will not survive without it; this would be an ethical issue. There are immense amounts of coercion in these statements. Ethical research principles mandate, respect for persons and their right to make decisions for and about themselves without undue influence or coercion from someone else (1979 Belmont Report). The childrens homes in which we implement Project Prepare will, thus, have voluntarily and knowledgeably decided to participate. However, there is the concern of whether or not the children are voluntary participating if the childrens home (staff/leader) has decided to participate. Does each child in the home need to individually decide to voluntarily participate? The individual children are minors and under the care of the childrens home staff, so they likely

could probably be consented for by their custodial guardians (childrens home staff/leader), but it may be more ethical to obtain consent to participate from each individual orphan child. Informed consent, explaining the research to participants before they agree to participate, is extremely important. And in this case it would be important to go through the Project Prepare curriculum with staff members before implementation so the staff can discuss and make adjustments if the curriculum has certain components they find offensive, culturally insensitive, or confusing. If the staff are not informed about the taboo or mature subjects (family planning, human trafficking, AIDS, etc.) then the researchers are not being ethical, because knowledge of these components of the program are necessary to prepare the children and obtain informed consent from participants. Protection of privacy and well-being is also essential to ethical research involving human beings. An example of a research ethics issue that could surface in my project is if pictures or identifying information of orphan participants were publically released. There may be pictures taken of these children, but they should not be made available to the public (posting them on the IOFA webpage, facebook, etc.) unless there is definite consent from the childrens home staff and the persons in the picture. The childrens safety is compromised if their pictures and identifying information are easily accessible to anyone. There are, unfortunately, people who may want to harm these children (abusive relatives for example) and this breach of privacy gives them a perfect opportunity. Also, some of the children may have AIDS or other diseases, which they may not want known to others, so it is important to keep all of this information confidential. Another possible research ethics issue is manipulation of the data/results. Clearly manipulating the results is unethical, but some sort of summarizing or simplification is usually

necessary. The Project Prepare research team needs to recognize where to draw the line. This could very well become an ethical issue in this project. All the researchers are very passionate about the project and its benefits to the vulnerable orphan population. Everyone wants to see positive beneficial results when evaluating the Project Prepare program. Researchers may be tempted to alter data or overemphasize positive results in order to present the hypothesized, desired results (a beneficial program for youth aging out of care that can be replicated throughout Ethiopia). We are evaluating focus groups that will be reflecting on how the program went. In this stage there may be unethical manipulation in the analysis of peoples thoughts and comments. If researchers with close ties to the program or IOFA conduct or analyze these focus groups there may be a higher likelihood results of the focus group may also be tampered by these biased individuals to display more positive or beneficial results. One population that may be impacted by my research project is the communities surrounding the childrens homes in which we implement Project Prepare. The surrounding communities will be affected by the outcomes of the program because the orphan children who undergo the program will soon be transitioning into their community. The hope is that these children gain life skills, knowledge, and confidence that will allow them to be productive members of the surrounding community. The program seeks to enable these orphan children to find jobs in their communities, boosting the communities economy and welfare. This relates to ethics because if the program is not beneficial or the research does not hold the principle of beneficence, then it is unethical. Beneficence is the obligation to maximize benefits and reduce risks to the subject. In this case, the subjects benefited or harmed by the program are not only the orphan children, but the surrounding community. If the program actually causes more risk to the orphan children and makes them less prepared to live successful

independent lives in their community, then in turn the community would be harmed by the research project because these children will negatively influence their community.