Ethical Issues Affecting Human Participants in Community College Research

Abstract

The increasing demand of constituents to conduct analyses in order to help inform the decision-making process has led to the need for Institutional Research (IR) guidelines for community college educators. One method of maintaining the quality of research conducted by IR staff is to include professional development about ethics. This article reviews ethical issues that IR staff at community colleges are most likely to encounter in their work with human participants. The ethical issues examined include the misrepresentation of work, balancing organizational demands and ethics, conflict of interest, confidentiality, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and informed consent, and deceptive statements. The review concludes with recommendations for future research.