Ethics in research methodology and practice

EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION

Education Administration: Ethics of Research

The use of ethics in research has been carried out for a long time. Informed consent is one of the ley concerns in research ethics, dating back to 1946. The Nuremberg Code was formulated in 1948, making it mandatory for the human participants to give informed consent after the German military conducted several medical experiments on soldiers kept as prisoners without their consent (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, n.a.). During the 1950s, to ensure that drug efficacy was appropriately tested before giving to the participants or anyone from the public, the US Senate asked to follow the ‘Kefauver Amendments’ for drug use safety.

A concern of research ethics arose in a 1932-1972 study called Tuskegee Syphilis study that was conducted upon 600 low-income African American subjects for 40 years. Although they were guaranteed free medical treatment to study the disease, this was not the case. The research was stopped in 1973 by the US Department of Health. Similar measures led to the 1964’s Declaration of Helsinki, in which medical doctors were guided about the ethics of involving human subjects. National Research Act (1974) soon took a formal shape in the form of the Belmont Report, in which respect for human subjects, informed consent, risk assessment, justice, and prevention of harm to the subjects were clearly stated.