My PhD Bookstack: Ethics and the PhD - and the Saturday Scholar
A very important part of research is ethics; it ensures that research is done correctly, fairly and with respect to the psychological and physical health of the participants; with respect to the culture a researcher is studying, the groups, the physical materials and anything related to the research process. Consent of the participants is a huge part of ethical research, as well as the respect of their anonymity and their personal data, as well as the data they provide for the research.
Ethical research is a huge concern and focus for me, so I have some great recommendations for you which I hope will help you as well! If you have any recommendations, I will be very happy to see them and so will the readers of the newsletter – so feel free to share them in the comment box below.
I have to show you my copy of this book – I have highlighted it, annotated it, taken it with me everywhere. This is so useful, a must-have on your ethics bookshelves. Helen also delves into ethical research into Indigenous peoples as well, which is vital in research.
Generally, anything by Helen Kara, either book or blog post, is excellently written and will help you very much, if you are a novice or seasoned researcher.
If you are doing qualitative research and you are at the very start, this book by Martin Tolich and Emma Tumilty is for you. It gives really clear explanations on how to do it correctly and ethically. It also includes a lot of examples and exercises for practice.
The following is a book by Miller et al. that has been recommended to me; I have not read it yet – but I really trust the source I got it from.
There are series of blog posts from a great researcher, that I will include here:
Pat Thompson writes a lot about ethics, so you can see a whole series on the topic. I would say, subscribe to her blog and you definitely won’t regret it!
The Saturday Scholar
Our Scholar for this Saturday’s newsletter is…the one and only Dr. Helen Kara!
Helen is an amazing researcher who has done a million things - I was so fortunate to ‘meet’ her during a podcast episode I recorded with her and she’s one of the friendliest, most helpful and wonderful people in academia. You can listen to the podcast episode with Helen here:
Helen Kara also has a series of posts on ethics.
"Researchers who use creative methods are at risk of finding ways to express themselves, learn, and have fun." (Kara 2020:237). Helen organsied the International Creative Research Methods Conference for the first time last year, a hybrid conference which was a HUGE success! She is holding it again this year - so if you are available on September 9-10, 2024, register for the conference and go to Manchester to see all these amazing sessions - or if you can’t, you can still attend online! Just visit the link above and you can find all the details there.
She also has a YouTube channel.