“Isn’t It Hard to Answer?” Exploring Qualitative Researchers’ Perspectives on Research Ethics

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Ethical Reconsiderations in Qualitative Inquiry (Table 15)

Abstract

Ethical research practice remains a pressing issue for qualitative researchers. Although qualitative researchers have long noted the insufficiency of only relying on the ethics board review to carry out ethical research, instead arguing for engagement with varying approaches and conceptualizations of ethics, there have been no empirical studies examining how qualitative researchers across a range of disciplines make sense of the very meaning of ethical practice in qualitative research. In this interview study, we invited qualitative scholars from a range of disciplines and geographic locations to describe how they understood and enacted research ethics in their qualitative research studies. Via a thematic analysis, we demonstrate how researchers engaged research ethics across three dimensions: (1) moral, (2) socio-cultural; and (3) institutional.

Authors

• Pei-Jung Li, Indiana University

• Darcy E. Furlong, Indiana University

• Jessica Nina Lester, Indiana University