Ethical Princples to Educational Research

Although all ethical principles are important when it comes to research with human subject, there are a few points that stick out the most. The most important point for a researcher to keep in mind when conducting educational research on human subjects would be subjects should be protected from physical and mental discomfort, harm and danger. Anything that would cause harm to someone else should not be performed. Also if there is a risk of any physical and/or mental harm the task should be avoided or the subjects should not be put at risk. The point of educational research is not to cause harm or danger to others but to study different topics to help in education.

It is also important that a researcher has informed consent of all subjects before conducting their research. If the subjects are younger they should have parental consent and disclosed what the research is about. You would not want to have subjects participating in something that they would not want to be part of or documented about. If you were the one who was participating in the research you would want to give your consent for your information to be used.

Along with getting consent of the participates in the study, all data collected from participates should be confidential. Although the data collected will be reviewed and reported, all names should be left out and only needed information should be known. All information participates are willing to share or observations are made should be considered private and not shared with anyone else.

Human beings are fragile both mentally and physically, just because we want more information about a subject through a study does not cause a need to harm others. We also need to keep in mind confidentiality and also informed consent out of respect for those participating in educational research.