THE UNITED NATIONS' RESEARCH INITIATIVE- TDR GLOBAL HAS AWARDED RECOGNITION TO KONNIFEL'S RESEARCH INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME AND MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME
THE UNITED NATIONS' RESEARCH INITIATIVE- TDR GLOBAL HAS AWARDED RECOGNITION TO KONNIFEL'S RESEARCH INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME AND MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME
A career in research often involves spending long hours testing out a hypothesis, analysing data, and reaching conclusions. The first step in research is to clearly define the research problem and formulate a clear plan to carry out the investigation. The hypothesis is the most crucial starting point—it is related to the research question that needs to be formulated at the beginning of a project. The ultimate aim of research is knowledge production.
Working for long hours to collect data and confirm the initial hypothesis can be a tiring and often an unrewarding experience for researchers. But researchers must reject any temptation to cut corners and make use of unethical means. Researchers must do well to remember that their task comes with huge responsibility and they must be meticulous in adopting an ethical conduct in their research work.
It is during the initial phase of research that students are taught crucial lessons in research ethics. For instance, it is important for a researcher to adopt ethical approaches while practising ethnography, which is a qualitative research methodology that involves observing people in their natural environment. Moreover, researchers should ensure that all work they produce is fully original, and all sources are properly cited in their work.
While working with human subjects to collect data, researchers must ensure that “people should not (in most cases) be involved in research without their informed consent and that subjects should not incur an increased risk of harm from their involvement in research, beyond the normal risks inherent in everyday life” (“Research Involving Human Subjects”). This is particularly true for sociologists or anthropologists doing fieldwork during the course of their work.
During fieldwork, special care should be taken to ensure that all human subjects being studied have clearly expressed consent to participate in the study. Researchers following the ethnographical methodology, which often involves participant observation, should take special care to respect the traditions and habits of the population that they are studying. For instance, if researchers are staying for a long time in a tribal village to conduct a study on the local population, they should maintain proper decorum and abstain from indulging in practices that may be deemed to be disrespectful to the tribal population
Similar care should be taken while working with animals, whether in their natural habitat or in the laboratory environment, to ensure that no animals are harmed while conducting the research. At the end of the day, researchers need to exercise empathy while engaging with the subjects of their study. Adopting discriminatory practices toward or harassment of the subjects of a study makes research an irresponsible, unethical and futile exercise.
One of the most important things about research is that the work produced should be absolutely original. Perhaps the biggest red flag in research is when we come across instances of plagiarism, when a work or a part of it or even an idea has been copied from somewhere else without giving due credit. It is the worst unethical practice on the part of a researcher and it, in a way, defeats the true purpose of research itself. Therefore, the first thing that a student should be mindful of when starting out in their journey of research is the fact that the work that they produce should be absolutely original and no ideas should be borrowed from elsewhere without giving due credit. Moreover, all patents and copyrights with respect to intellectual properties should be respected and given due credit.
This is why it is of utmost importance to carry out a comprehensive literature survey at the beginning of research. The literature survey helps sketch out the vast, existing body of work in the field while also identifying crucial research gaps. At the end of the day, literature reviews are important because they “can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper’s investigation” (“Literature Reviews”).
Students must do well to remember that plagiarism is the worst kind of grievous misconduct in research. A researcher found guilty of plagiarism loses the moral right to claim that the research work that they have produced is the fruit of their own hard labour.
A student must take utmost care to ensure that they are adopting ethical and responsible practices holistically in their research. They must “develop, foster, and maintain a culture of integrity in science”, “discourage and prevent unethical conduct”, “promote a career-long positive attitude toward research ethics and the responsible conduct of research” and adopt responsible practices when it comes to “data acquisition, record-keeping, retention, ownership, analysis, interpretation, and sharing” (“Responsible Conduct of Research and Training”).
Researchers should also treat their supervisors, fellow researchers, mentors and students with respect. Researchers should do well to remember that there is no space for rude behaviour or discrimination in their daily lives. As researchers very often go on to become instructors, moulding the lives of the next generation of students, they should take care to set a high moral benchmark for everyone else to follow.
Most importantly, irresponsible and unethical conduct not only tarnishes the reputation of researchers, but also appears as a blot on the work that they produce. Different philosophical and ethical frameworks make it easy to understand why it is of utmost importance for researchers to conduct themselves responsibly. For instance, “deontological ethics hold certain acts as right or wrong in themselves, e.g., promise breaking or lying. So, for example, in the context of research, fraud, plagiarism and misrepresentation are regarded as morally wrong in themselves, not simply because they (tend to) have bad consequences” (Kalichman).
In their quest for knowledge production, researchers should not forget that the means that they deploy in their journey of research are as important as the end. A good researcher not only produces an excellent body of work but she also has an unblemished record of unquestioning honesty and integrity in the path that she follows in her journey. Conducting interviews, data collection and reaching a conclusion are all important steps that should be traversed by a researcher while adopting the best possible ethical practices.
Kalichman, Michael. “Introduction: What is Research Ethics?” in Online Ethics Centre for Engineering and Science, https://onlineethics.org/cases/resources-research-ethics-education/introduction-what-research-ethics, accessed on January 11, 2025.
National Institutes of Health. “Responsible Conduct of Research Training,” https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/ethical-conduct/responsible-conduct-research-training, accessed on January 11, 2025.
The Writing Centre, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Literature Reviews,” https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/ #:~:text=A%20literature%20review%20discusses%20published,combines%20both%20summary%20and%20synthesis, accessed on January 11, 2025.
US National Science Foundation. “Research Involving Human Subjects,” https://new.nsf.gov/funding/research-involving-human-subjects#:~:text=The%20basic%20principle%20of%20human,risks%20i
nherent%20in%20everyday%20life, accessed on January 11, 2025.
