 Data Ethics Reinaldo Villasml Victoria Period 4

Ethics Ethical  of or relating to moral principles or the branch of knowledge dealing with these. Unethical  lacking moral principles; unwilling to adhere to proper rules of conduct. Definition

Basic Data Ethics  Institutional review board  Informed consent  Confidentiality

Institutional review board Definition  All planned studies must be reviewed by an institutional review board, which is charged with protecting the safety and well being of the subjects. Information  Its purpose is not to decide if a study will produce valuable information, its purpose is to “protect the rights and welfare of human subjects recruited to participate in research activities. It reviews the consent form to make sure that the subjects know the nature of the study and about any risks. Throughout every study the board must monitor the progress at least once a year.

Informed consent Definition All individuals who are subject to any test must give their informed consent before data is collected. Informed Consent: permission granted to disclose or collect data after a study or observation has occurred Information  Subjects must be informed about the study as well as its risks. During a sample survey physical harm is not allowed, but can include emotional harm. Subjects should be told the type of questions that are going to be asked as well as how long the study should take. Then the subjects must “consent” in writing.

Confidentiality Definition  Individual data must be kept confidential, only statistical summaries of groups are allowed to be made public.  Confidential: spoken, written, acted on, etc., in strict privacy or secrecy; secret: Information  Ethical problems don’t disappear after a study has been cleared by the review board. It is important to protect individuals’ privacy. Confidentiality is not the same as anonymity, anonymity means that the individuals are anonymous, their names aren’t even given to the study. Anonymity is very rare in statistical studies. Any breach of confidentiality is a serious violation of data ethics.

Unethical factors  A study or observation may be considered unethical if participates in any of these actions:  1) Cause harm to participants. 2) Deceive. 3) If they don’t get informed consent from participants. 4) They don’t give participants the right to withdraw from the study. 5)If they interfere with the the confidentiality factor

Examples! A promising new drug has been developed for treating cancer in humans. Before giving the drug to human subjects, researchers want to administer the drug to animals to see if there are any potentially serious side effects. Will people try to stop someone from driving drunk? A television news program hires an actor to play a drunk driver and uses hidden Camera to record the behavior of the individual who encounters the driver. Are companies discriminating against some individuals in the hiring process? To find out, researchers prepare several equivalent résumés for fictitious job applicants, with the only difference being the gender of the applicant. They send the fake résumés to companies advertising positions and keep track of the number of males and females who are contacted for interviews.

Examples pt. 2  A team of researchers is interested in studying helping behavior. They stage a scene in a subway in which a confederate falls off his seat and bleeds from the mouth. The dependent variable is how quickly bystanders help the “victim.” The bystanders are never told that they were part of an experiment. 9

Video  VIDEO (24:20) VIDEO

Homework  Questions on page 275: # 109,112, and 116