The Ethics of Qualitative Social Work Research

Abstract

A study cannot be a good study unless proper ethical standards have been maintained. This article examines ethical thinking and practice in qualitative social work research. A review of a randomly selected sample of articles published in social work journals in the past decade was conducted, centered around four main issues: (a) prevention of harm; (b) empowerment-related aspects of the research process; (c) research-related benefits for participants and others; and (d) researchers’ technical competence. Our findings suggest that, as a general trend, ethical considerations are marginal in most phases of the studies that are reported in our journals. This raises questions as to the meaning of ‘proper ethical standards’ in qualitative social work research and as to the extent research ethics are regarded as important by researchers and journal editors in our field.

The Potential of Digital Technologies for Transforming Informed Consent Practices with Children and Young People in Social Research

“…An online Observatory of research exemplars, with critical reflections and commentary would be a good starting point for this: a space where researchers can make public their creativity and innovation in research ethics methodologies and share good practices. A separate and dedicated space is needed because there is very limited reporting of research ethics methods in social science peer-reviewed journal articles (Peled & Leichtentritt, 2002) or sharing of examples and practices at the university level (Parsons et al, 2015). Targeted research is also needed to examine the extent to which children and young people, including those with disabilities and a range of communication needs, comprehend and remember the information that is given to them when they are approached for research participation.…”

Constructing service discourses in Lithuanian family social work

“…Basically, most of the interviews were conducted in the social workers' workplaces and several in public areas, such as a park or a coffee shop. The study complied with general research ethics guidelines (e.g., Peled & Leichtentritt, 2002). All the interviews involved face-to-face and one-on-one interactions, generally in the social workers' offices.…”

Ethical Issues in the Use of In-Depth Interviews: Literature Review and Discussion

“…Many interviews concern issues that are sensitive; this can make interviews emotionally intense [28,40,44,49,58,69]. They might potentially harm both interviewees [10,15,16,31,33,49,77] and interviewers [4,37,39,45,51].…”