Module 14: Research Ethics

This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Course programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research

Mphil Students from participating departments taking the Social Science Research Methods Course as part of their research degree

Number of sessions: 3

• Session 1: What do we mean by ethics? Policy frameworks, ethics, and risk
• Session 2: Ethics across disciplinary boundaries
• Session 3: Dealing with ethical dilemmas

• To demonstrate the practical value of thinking seriously and systematically about what constitutes ethical conduct in social science research.

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

• Israel,M. & Hay, I. (2006) Research Ethics for Social Scientiests. London:Sage
• Israel,M. & Hay, I. (2006) Research Ethics for Social Scientiests. London:Sage
• Haggerty, K.(2004) 'Ethics creep: governing social science research in the name of ethics'. Qualitative Sociology, 27, pp391-414
• ESRC Research Ethics Framework http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/index_academic.aspx

• To gain the maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking. Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Three sessions of 1.5 hours

Three times in Lent term