what are qualitative research ethics

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Ethical considerations associated with Qualitative Research methods

Introduction.

This high-level guidance has been developed by the UK Statistics Authority’s Centre for Applied Data Ethics (CADE), and the UK Government Data Quality Hub (DQHub), based at the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The guidance can be used as a practical resource to help researchers identify different ethical issues when conducting qualitative research.

This guidance is not exhaustive but aims to support researchers navigating the ethical issues surrounding qualitative research projects (particularly in relation to primary data collection). It brings together existing literature on qualitative research methods and their ethical concerns. Links to further resources are provided if you would like to read about aspects in more detail.

The guidance has been created for researchers using qualitative methods within the ONS . However, the ethical considerations discussed, and the mitigations for these, can be more widely applied to all types of qualitative research.

The guidance is divided into several parts.  

An introduction to qualitative research and why ethics matters in this space. 
An overview of some of the ethical considerations associated with qualitative research methods, and some potential mitigations for these issues. This includes an overview of some of the qualitative methods used within the ONS.
An ethics checklist which summarises the main points covered in this guidance.  
A list of helpful links to further resources.

Qualitative Research: Ethical Considerations

First Online: 01 November 2019

Cite this chapter

Anna-Maija Pietilä 4 ,
Sanna-Maria Nurmi 4 ,
Arja Halkoaho 4 , 5 &
Helvi Kyngäs 6

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Ethical aspects include perspectives of subject protection and conducting research based on ethical standards. This chapter aims to highlight the ethical aspects of qualitative research, with particular emphasis on content analysis. The chapter begins by presenting four ethical principles—autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice—that were first brought to attention by Beauchamp and Childress (Principles of biomedical ethics. Oxford University Press, New York, 2013). These principles form the basis for the protection of the subject in qualitative research. Next, Shamoon and Resnik’s (Responsible conduct of research. Oxford University Press, New York, 2015) principles for responsible research conduct are described. The ethical framework presented by Emanuel et al. (J Infect Dis 189:930–937, 2000; JAMA 283:2701–2711, 2004), which includes eight ethical requirements, is then introduced, and later used to explore the ethical aspects of content analysis based on an example of qualitative research. The chapter concludes by discussing several challenges that researchers may face when applying content analysis to qualitative research.

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Ethics in Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative Research

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Anna-Maija Pietilä, Sanna-Maria Nurmi & Arja Halkoaho

Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland

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Research Unit of Nursing Science and Health Management, Oulu University, Oulu, Finland

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Pietilä, AM., Nurmi, SM., Halkoaho, A., Kyngäs, H. (2020). Qualitative Research: Ethical Considerations. In: Kyngäs, H., Mikkonen, K., Kääriäinen, M. (eds) The Application of Content Analysis in Nursing Science Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30199-6_6