Mentoring Researchers in Best Ethical Practices in Complex Times

• In Event: Ethics Education Across Contexts and the Life Span

Abstract

Education researchers tend to think of “ethics” in relatively narrow terms – that is, as related either to not harming their research participants, or to gaining approval from their institutional review board for their study. Yet, ethics pervades nearly every aspect of education research, from the choice of topic and research questions, to the methods used, to the choices made during data collection and analysis. Indeed, there are often complex and unsettled ethical dimensions to education research practices, particularly as they are situated within certain sociopolitical contexts. Nonetheless, ethics is not often invoked in a nuanced way in the training and preparation of education researchers. This creates an imperative for educational ethicists to foster discussions about the ethical complexities in research, and advocate for nuanced and deliberative considerations of relevant moral tensions emerging from ethical disagreements within research. In partial response, based on my mentoring work in research ethics, I argue that democratic approaches to research ethics need to be an explicit and consistent part of the education of researchers, whether they are engaging in social science or humanities-oriented work.

Author

• Michele S. Moses, University of Colorado - Boulder