Ethics, ethics everywhere

Going through our digital files I found this blog I wrote back in 2007.

In my spare time, of which I have none, I teach graduate courses in research methods at two different universities. You might think being vice-president of Spirit Lake Consulting would be enough to keep me off the streets, but I really like teaching. It gives me a new perspective on the issues we face every day.

In my classes this week we are discussing ethics in research. The textbook version focuses on not lying to people who will be in your study, not doing anything to cause physical and emotional harm, and so on. It’s funny how textbooks sometimes miss the real issues. Maybe it is because some events, such as the research study where a group of black men were not informed they had syphilis so that the university could study the effects, are so horrible that we want to make sure they are never repeated. I can certainly sympathize with that view point.

However, I think most ethical issues are much more mundane. Most of the past two days were spent chasing down anomalies in data. Something was wrong with the test results on a final report I was preparing for a client. For four of the five years, we found a significant improvement in the students after they had been in the program. For the fifth year, there was no difference. Since all of the results are added together, no one would know if I just said, “The hell with it” and reported the data as is. I take that back, _I_ would know.