Question

1. Discuss the importance of the Belmont Report in conducting social science research.

2. Provide an overview of the history of conducting ethical research from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century.

3. In addition to the most current APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, select one other ethics code from a professional social science association. Analyze how both ethical codes provide guidance to social scientists in conducting and using research in his or her professional practice.

4. Explain how to identify when social science research is conducted appropriately or not.

5. Explain the importance of an Institutional Review Board for protecting subjects whether animal or human in social science research.

Answer 1

1. Discuss the importance of the Belmont Report in conducting social science research.

Belmont report is a historical document and summarises the principles of ethics for the biomedical practices as well as behavioural research. This report does not intend to give directives about the administration. The core principles that were identified in the Belmont report included beneficence, justice and respect for the individual. This report helps in assisting ethical problems that surround an issue when it comes to research related ethical dilemma in accordance with the human subjects.

2. Provide an overview of the history of conducting ethical research from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century.

Modern research can be attributed since the 1700s with the treatment of scurvy, moving towards surgery and vaccination beginning with Edward Jenner. Since, at these times, the trial were just conducted without any involvement of the patient and his will, these were known as blinded trials and developed the need for informed consent. The thought of conducting clinical trials on a larger mass came into Aleixandre Louis' thoughts. The progress continued to the 20th century when ethics in research became more prominent. This led to the introduction of the Nuremberg code in 1946 after the conflict of the German physician's using thousands of subjects without their consent, came up. This was followed by the helinski declaration in the year 1964 for the research regarding medical doctors. An even greater push came into the ethical research with the the Tuskegee syphilis study. Since the subjects were deni treatment even after diagnosis, it led to widespread outrage and finally resulted in the Belmont Report being established.

4. Explain how to identify when social science research is conducted appropriately or not.

In order to be sure that the research is ethical, all the researchers and the PhD students have to submit their ethical certificates and the publications that require to be published, so that they can be checked for its ethical compliance. The ethics committee goes through the proposed research and determines if it is in accordance with beneficence, justice and respect for autonomy.

5. Explain the importance of an Institutional Review Board for protecting subjects whether animal or human in social science research.

The Institutional review board acts as a third party committee or an oversight committee which serves as protecting any risk that could occur for human subjects at the time of participating in a research experiment. This committee is independent while conducting human research. One of the major components of IRB is informed consent and its primary purpose is to look out for human subjects.