Reference no: EM133258072

Relationships with research participants

1. Sociologists have a responsibility to ensure that the physical, social and psychological well-being of research participants is not adversely affected by the research. They should strive to protect the rights of those they study, their interests, sensitivities and privacy, while recognising the difficulty of balancing potentially conflicting interests.

2. Because sociologists study the relatively powerless as well as those more powerful than themselves, research relationships are frequently characterised by disparities of power and status. Despite this, research relationships should be characterised, whenever possible, by trust and integrity.

3 In some cases, where the public interest dictates otherwise and particularly where power is being abused, obligations of trust and protection may weigh less heavily. Nevertheless, these obligations should not be discarded lightly.

4. As far as possible participation in sociological research should be based on the freely given informed consent of those studied. This implies a responsibility on the sociologist to explain in appropriate detail, and in terms meaningful to participants, what the research is about, who is undertaking and financing it, why it is being undertaken, and how it is to be disseminated and used.

5. Research participants should be made aware of their right to refuse participation whenever and for whatever reason they wish.

Case study

The following tasks could be useful for you to consider in relation to the points raised above. Read the tasks and then reflect on the questions below.

Task A

Students are often young people who, when they move away from home for the first time, have to adapt quickly to being independent. Often universities find that the first year is very stressful for students. As is discussed in this book, stress can be a cause of ill health. How would you research the issues that students face at this stage in their college or university career and the effects these issues have on their health?

Task B

Most universities have a range of students on a variety of courses. Intuitively, one would think that students on health-related courses would have better or wider knowledge of health and have a healthier lifestyle than students on non-health-related courses. How would you research this comparison between different cohorts of students?

For each task, think about the following:

- What would a suitable research question be?

- Where would you look for previous literature on student experiences away from home?