Completing Ethics
Ethics is one if the most important stages in the research process. It means many different things to different people including:
1) An annoying 'jump through a hoop' process to satisfy a pedantic group of people.
2) A fundamental part of the research to balance benefits, harms and risks to participants, researchers and institutions.
3) A necessary evil.
Admittedly, some institutions and bodies may be guilty of overkill, in which they ask for a level of detail and display pedantry to the extreme. However, I'm proud to be a member of the General University Ethics Panel at the University of Stirling. Most members are expert and scholarly researchers who care about the quality of research.
Unless your project is a wholly reflective piece of work which involves a form of systematic review of the academic literature, you are likely to require volunteers for your project. This means you'll need ethical approval before you can collect any data. I must be wholly satisfied that you are ready to collect data before I provide my signature to your application. To help, I've provided two lectures, one which explores what ethics is and another on how to complete an application. They're primarily for University of Stirling students but please feel free to use them.
