Dr. Veletsianos provided some very detailed responses to the questions proposed by the five teams. The ethical question and response really stood out to me and stayed with me while listening to the other responses. The question was surrounding the ethics of today and the ethics of tomorrow. I was a member of the team that posed this question to Dr. Veletsianos and I felt like this was a tough question as the ethics of tomorrow is really an unknown. I really appreciated the position that Dr. Veletsianos took when answering this question. “Participant well-being should be taken from the very beginning, it should never be an after thought” (personal communication, August 16, 2019). This was the focus of Dr. Veletsianos’ response to the question and he was saying that ensuring the well-being of the participants is the key to remaining ethical. You cannot predict the future, but you can make sure you are taking every precaution you can to ensure the well-being of your participants. I appreciated this thought and the undertone it took through some of his other responses. For example, with the question surrounding social media platforms and the use of such platforms in research. Dr. Veletsianos mentions that some platforms have an easier accessibility of information which can cause more researchers to use that platform, this can bias the results (personal communication, August 16, 2019). This would be unethical in my mind. Researchers could be knowingly “overusing” research information for their gain because it was easier to acquire. Even though it most likely hasn’t been disclosed, Dr. Veletsianos mentions to take this into consideration when looking at these types of research (personal communication, August 16, 2019). Having a bias result, isn’t respecting or ensuring the well-being of your participants. With the changes in research, the ethical issues will continue to develop and change along with it. Due to this constantly changing environment, I believe the issue of ethical behaviour will continue to be priority.
Reference
Veletsianos, G. (2019). Questions about Research for George Veletsiano [Audio recording]. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzG3Sqo0wImXN0tUf9dcjXODISiSYt9gH8_gJnMC_hY/edit
Hi Leigha,
Excellent post and I had to smile because I too shared your views on the potential for bias when working with or on social media. I believe George explained that Twitter is very forthcoming with quality research data and as such increases the likelihood of research being done on or with that platform. In fact, when I was doing my research article review, assignment 3 part b, I wondered if the chosen study participants were used to increase the odds of gaining research data that would confirm the research of hypothesis. Like choosing a social media platform to study because of the readily available data.
Owen
Hi Owen,
Thank you!
Yes, I recall that Twitter was the sample he used for providing quality research data. I find myself now thinking and wondering the same thing; whether researchers are using specific data or platforms in order to almost sway their data collected. I find social media users can be somewhat categorized and therefore maybe the data being collected, although easy to collect, is somewhat bias based on the group that was used for participating.