Forum 1b

In this forum, the speaker discusses the ethical responsibilities of a communication researcher during interviews. They mention that privacy and trust are important for obtaining authentic information. Consent should be obtained when requesting the disclosure of confidential information, especially when it involves children and youth. The potential harm to others should be considered when deciding to disclose confidential information. The speaker also talks about the researcher's obligation to the research process and the need to establish a plan for potential negative outcomes. They highlight that some research methods raise more ethical issues than others, such as those that require the exposure of personal information. Different levels of participation, such as voluntary participation and informed consent, offer varying degrees of protection for personal information. The speaker emphasizes the importance of protecting data and anonymizing personally identifiable information. Hi, this is Paul Constable with LDCN 320 Forum 1B, Researcher Roles and Responsibilities. For this research, we were invited into an interview process where we are probing interviewees for information regarding organizational culture and difficulties in a workplace environment. And in this example, an interviewee lets loose. And so we are asked to respond to a certain number of ethical questions regarding the exposure that happens to potential harmful scenario during this session. So question one says, as a communication researcher, what's your obligation to the individual you interviewed? So first, I would say that privacy is critical to establishing a baseline level of trust and even developing, in a scenario, a truncated relationship. And that allows the researcher to get real and authentic information and feedback from the interviewee's perspective. So there is a certain amount of obligation required to build that trust. Obviously, personal identifiable information can't just generally be disclosed pursuant to any kind of effectual law. And any kind of due process regarding rights to personally identifiable information have to be protected. And so I think that's why, when you have the potential to request the disclosure of confidential information, if it's possible, consent should be obtained, if at all possible, especially when it considers children and youth. And so in that case, they and their parents should be involved. In this particular scenario, that's not the case. We're talking about a workplace environment. So that's less necessary to make sure that a guardian has information regarding disclosure. When there's the potential for the disclosure of confidential information, and it's allowed but it's not required, it should be done for the purpose of promoting positive outcomes. So basically, what I'm saying is, if you're going to disclose confidential information because of the potential for harm to others, you need to look at the greater good. You also need to consider unintended consequences of that disclosure. So there is some risk involved, because we are talking about the absolute disclosure of confidential information versus the potential for harm. But that should absolutely be considered. Second question is, what is your obligation to the research process in general? Should you stay away from such research because of its potential complications or be prepared to break your assurances of confidentiality when you detect potential danger to your participants or others? So before you request information that may be determined to be confidential, you really need to consider the purpose of your request and make sure that you absolutely need that information. If confidential information is determined to be necessary, a researcher can pick a particular research method and establish that to protect the researcher themselves and the interviewee from the potential moral conflict, and we'll talk about that more here in a bit. I don't think an interviewer or a researcher should shy away from collecting confidential information, but if a method can't be employed to protect the interviewee because that personal information is required to validate the data, then the interviewer or the researcher should absolutely have a plan for potential negative outcomes, and that should be established in advance so that there's objectivity into the establishment of that plan and those rules or processes are established and followed without exception. And again, whenever possible, the potential disclosure of confidential information, the rules surrounding that should be disclosed in advance when discussing information with the interviewee. The third question, what's the researcher's obligation to those who might be harmed in some way if the threats that were detected were translated into action? First, I think a researcher should consider equally and maybe even exponentially, should consider the responsibility to others when the potential for harm exists. Ask to the person for whom a confidentiality agreement is broken, whether stated or understood. Consider the potential for a school shooter or a workplace shooter. In that case, the potential to the information that could have been disclosed that hints at that level of harm. If you're just weighing lives equally, there's obviously a greater effect to a community versus a single individual. But when presented with a moral conflict of this kind, disclosure versus potential risk, a researcher has the ability to hesitate to act when that harm is just potential, it's in a potential state, which is why preparation for that potential eventuality should be established in advance so that the researcher can be more resolute with this plan of action. You don't want to get into a situation where you're saying, well, hindsight is 20-20. It's not going to be easily applied to resolve or absolve responsibility and potential guilt that could result from inaction. Could it be that some research methods raise more ethical issues than others? And I would say, yes. Some research methods do create more opportunity for ethical issues as they rely on the exposure of greater amounts of personal information to validate the research results. So consider voluntary participation in research. In this case, a participant can opt in or out of a study at any time. No real ethical responsibility to protect any of the information provided because the participants can withdraw at any time and the participation was voluntary. Another level is informed consent. So a participant might know the purpose of the research. They might know the benefits, the risks, any kind of funding that may exist for the study. And they have the ability to agree to join the research or not. So in that case, there's less responsibility to protect any of the information because, again, it's informed consent. And it's likely that that information, because it's provided with consent, it isn't as likely to have as many participants potentially withdraw like you could see from voluntary participation with no context. The other extreme would be complete anonymity. In this case, the researcher wouldn't know the identities of a participant and any kind of personal information or data that could be collected. It could be collected, but the fact that the research is anonymous removes the risk of any kind of exposure to confidential information since none of the information is attributed to the individual being interviewed. And then somewhere in the middle is this confidentiality, this gray area where a researcher knows who the participants are, but the information is kept hidden from everybody else. So there is a responsibility to protect the data, and a way to do that is to, as much as possible, anonymize personally identifiable data so that it can't be deciphered and linked to a particular individual by anyone else. So, yes, absolutely, there are methods, and I think as a general rule, to play it safe, the less amount of information per participant and the less amount of information, personally identifiable information that is gathered with the data that's being researched protects both the interviewer and the interviewee, but in some cases, personal information is valuable in order to validate the data. So that's a question that will have to be answered in advance by the interviewer with regard to research. Okay, those are my thoughts. I appreciate it.