A young researcher contends that never putting subjects at risk is the only ethi

Question

A young researcher contends that never putting subjects at risk is the only ethical way to conduct research. Comment on this

Investigators are conducting a 24-month demonstration project study the effectiveness of a job-training project. The investigators propose to randomly assign persons eligible for job training to either an experimental or control group. Control group members will neither receive training nor will project staff inform them of other training opportunities. Comment on the ethics of this.

Explanation / Answer

Hi, thanks for posting your question.

Ethics in research methodology has many points to consider under it. They are mainly, informed consent, deception, debriefing, experimenter's effects, voluntary participation of the participants, confidentiality, no harm, anonymity and privacy of the participants.

Yes the young research is correct in his understanding of ethics in conducting a research, that the participants must not be put at risk, however it is not the only ethical way to conduct the research. As mentioned above there are various other ethical considerations as well that we must consider while conducting a research.

In the situation stated in the question, the investigator is conducting a 24 month project study i.e. a 2 year study, therefore as we can see the control group will be deprieved of training or even will not get any information about training oppurtunities, this situation will only be ethically correct, if informed consent has been obtained from the participants about the project study thus giving them a fair chance of whether to participate in the study or not, as there may be some participants that may want to seek jobs and withholding job or training information from the control group without informed consent would be unethical. Informed consent mainly means that the research participants be provided with information about all the events and procedure a study will involve before they agree to participate in it.

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