“There Are No Known Benefits . . .”

Abstract

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are responsible for weighing the risks and benefits of research participation. Qualitative researchers note numerous instances where IRB ethical frameworks fail to align with the ethics of their research projects and point out that IRB understandings of the benefits and risks of research often differ from those of the participants they seek to protect. This qualitative cross-case research investigates participants' interview experiences in six qualitative studies that differed in their methods, subject of focus, and populations. Our findings indicate that contemporary IRBs' use of population "vulnerability" and topic "sensitivity" to assess project risk does not adequately determine the benefits, risks, or ethicality of research. We recommend that IRBs treat as real the evidence for benefits in qualitative research, recognize that sensitivity and vulnerability do not predict risk, and encourage researchers to attend to relationships in their projects.

Reframing Photovoice: Building on the Method to Develop More Equitable and Responsive Research Practices

“…Still dominated by the biomedical paradigm, health and medical institutions often reflect an positivist epistemology that assumes quantitative methods provide superior data (Ashcroft & Van Katwyk, 2016). In such a paradigm, scholars who do any form of qualitative research often find themselves defending their work against accusations of bias or value-laden interpretation (Opsal et al, 2016;Padgett, 2009). Photovoice researchers may therefore see the label "arts-based" as inviting even greater skepticism.…”

The insight and challenge of reflexive practice in an ethnographic study of black traumatically injured patients in Philadelphia

“…Many clinical ethnographies completed by nurses do not afford sufficient time and resources to create a robust and reflexive ethnographic recording of the inquiry. As in other qualitative inquires, there are also challenges to aligning the practical and ethical framing of research with, for example, the standards of human subject protection as interpreted by biomedically oriented Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) (Opsal et al, 2016). Finally, the small sample sizes, concerns over lack of generalizability and use of interpretive analytic techniques similarly often fall beyond the bounds of what many in clinical disciplines label as science.…”

Leadership and employee engagement

“…Researchers use the qualitative research method to study participants in their environment to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to their situation (McCusker & Gunaydin, 2015;Opsal et al, 2016). Through qualitative research, researchers can understand and interpret individuals' thoughts, experiences, and feelings (Opsal et al, 2016). Qualitative research can include many data collection sources, which facilitate methodological triangulation (Yin, 2013).…”