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Section 2 Key principles of quality in research and consultation

2.09 Adopt ethical research practices

An important issue for the quality of any research is whether it has been conducted in an ethical manner. Ethics refers to the rules of research conduct and matters of ethics should be considered from the outset of the research.

One of the key ethical concerns that affect research quality is objectivity. A central part of ethical research practice is to consider and avoid the risk of potential biases or skewed perspectives in design, implementation, analysis and writing. Biases may arise in many aspects of research including the design of the sample, question wording, poor response rates, the composition of a focus group and the identity and values of the researcher.

One of the reasons that organisations prefer to commission external researchers to undertake research and consultation is that they believe them to be more detached than in-house staff. However, all researchers, whether in-house or external contractors, bring their own perspectives and values to the research process. It is the rigour of detecting and dealing with bias and attention to conducting high quality research and consultation that is most likely to enhance objectivity, rather than the status of the researchers themselves.

Ethical issues are discussed more fully in Section 3.

Practice point

• Improving objectivity and ethical practice in research and consultation requires addressing possible causes of bias and practising high quality research.

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