Step 6: Seeking Ethics Clearance
The supplied teaching source spends four lines on research ethics and uses one of them to defer the subject elsewhere. This page reproduces what is there in full, and marks the boundary of what is not there precisely enough for you to act on it.
Everything the supplied source says about ethics
Step 6 of the process is short enough to reproduce whole. Nothing has been omitted from the callout below.
Three questions, one instruction, and a promise. No procedure, no criteria for a satisfactory answer, no description of who grants an approval or on what basis, and no statement of what happens if the sequence is broken.
Thin as it is, the material is not empty. The three questions are a competent trigger list: between them they cover the data you will hold, the way you will ask for it, and the way you will gather it. Treat them as triggers rather than tests — each one identifies an obligation that then has to be met using material this source does not provide.
The gap, stated precisely
This deserves to be stated before anything else on the page is used, because the shape of the gap determines what you have to go and do.
One further absence is connected. The final step of the same process states that your research report and your data need to be stored appropriately and that the institution has specific requirements in the matter — and those requirements are not in the supplied source either. Ethics and data handling are the same problem seen at two ends of the project; see Steps 9-10: Writing the Report and Storing the Data.
Reading the three questions as a screen
Each question identifies a class of obligation. The table below sets out what each one is screening for and what you should be able to produce when you answer it — the second and third columns being synthesis, since the source poses the questions without commentary.
THE THREE SCREENING QUESTIONS, UNPACKED
| The source's question | What it is screening for | What you should be able to produce |
|---|---|---|
| Does your project require you to access confidential or personal information? | Whether your dataset contains information about identifiable people, or information held in confidence by an organisation — including data you can already see in the course of your job | A written list of every data item you will hold, marked for whether it identifies a person or is held in confidence, and a named authority for each |
| Are your questions appropriate and respectful of the cultural norms? | Whether the way you ask will cause harm or offence, or will be answered inaccurately because it was framed badly | Your actual instrument — the interview schedule or questionnaire, not a description of it — reviewed by someone with standing in the setting you are entering |
| Are your methods of collection unbiased and ethical? | Whether the design itself distorts what you will find, and whether the manner of collection is defensible | A statement of how participants or cases are selected, who is excluded and why, and what pressure a participant might feel to take part |
Column one is the source's, verbatim. Columns two and three are synthesis added here.
The third question is doing two jobs at once and it is worth separating them. Bias is a methodological defect; unethical collection is a different failure, and a study can commit either without the other. The source pairs them in one sentence and does not distinguish them.
Note also that the second question is the only place in the supplied material where cultural considerations appear. It is a single clause. Anything beyond "have you thought about it" has to come from elsewhere — as does the specification of the collection methods themselves, none of which the source defines; see Data Collection Methods: Data as Evidence.
Why clearance comes before collection
The instruction is a sequencing rule: "before you commence any research". Ethics is not a section of the report, it is a gate on the schedule.
- Question fixed
- Design settled
- Ethical issues considered
- Approvals obtained
- Collection begins
The rule is stronger than it looks, because ethics has already appeared once by this point in the source's own process. At the feasibility stage, one of the four practical considerations is whether there are important ethical constraints that need consideration, with the warning that failure to consider any of these factors can mean disaster later. At the idea stage, you are asked whether any problems, sensitivities or issues stand out from the start, and whether they would be substantial enough to stop or substantially delay the project.
So the source raises ethics three times: as a feasibility filter on the idea, as a screening question on the design, and as an approval gate before collection. Only the first two are ones you can complete on your own; see Assessing Research Topic Feasibility and Step 2: Reviewing and Testing Your Research Topic.
What you will have to find elsewhere
The list below is framed the way the gap requires: the supplied source does not cover this, so you will need to obtain it. The third column names the kind of place to look rather than a specific document, because the requirements that bind you depend on your programme, your organisation and your jurisdiction.
NOT IN THE SUPPLIED SOURCE — AND WHERE TO GO INSTEAD
| What is missing | Why your project needs it | Where to obtain it |
|---|---|---|
| The approval pathway, and who owns it | You cannot obtain "the right approvals" without knowing which body grants them and what it needs from you | The body that grants research approvals for your programme, and its published submission requirements |
| Risk categories and review levels | Determines how much documentation you prepare and how long the process takes | The same body's guidance on how projects are categorised |
| Criteria for a satisfactory application | The three screening questions tell you what to think about, not what a sufficient answer looks like | The assessment criteria published by the approving body, and the methods texts your programme prescribes |
| Participant information and consent | Any design involving interviews, questionnaires or observation of people requires it | Institutional templates and the requirements applying in your jurisdiction |
| Confidentiality, de-identification and data security | Follows directly from the source's own first screening question about confidential and personal information | Institutional data management requirements, and your organisation's own information governance rules |
| Retention, storage and disposal | The source's final step requires appropriate storage and states the requirements exist, without stating them | The institutional storage requirements the source refers to but does not reproduce |
| Vulnerable participants and cultural protocols | The source's cultural question opens the issue and closes it in one clause | Specialist guidance for the population and setting you are entering |
| Conflict of interest and dual-role research | The applied expectation is that you relate the research to your own organisation and role, which creates the conflict by design | Your approving body's conflict of interest guidance, and your employer's research or governance function |
| Adverse events and withdrawal during a study | Studies encounter distress, disclosure and withdrawal, and the response has to be decided in advance | The conditions attached to your approval, which typically specify reporting obligations |
| Timelines | Approval duration is a schedule dependency, and the source's half-and-half time rule assumes collection can start when planned | The approving body's stated processing times, obtained before you build the schedule |
Every row is absent from the supplied teaching source. Columns two and three are synthesis; no specific standard, statement or committee is named here because the supplied material names none.
Do this reconnaissance at design stage, not at step 6. The requirements you discover will change the design — what you may ask, whom you may ask, what you may keep and for how long — and a design revised after approval has to go back through it; see Step 5: Designing Your Research.
Researching inside your own organisation
The subject's applied expectation is that you relate the material to your organisation, the projects it typically undertakes, and your own role within them. For most readers of this library, that makes the internal study the normal case rather than the exception, and it is where the three screening questions bite hardest.
Three pressure points the screening questions expose
Visible is not authorised
Records you can open at work are not thereby available as research data. The source's own question about what authority you need to collect data belongs here, and it is asked at the question stage, well before this one.
You are two people at once
A colleague who is also a researcher collects different answers from a stranger, and a participant who reports to you cannot decline in the way an anonymous respondent can. The source does not address this; it has to be handled through the design and disclosed.
You already know the answer
Working knowledge of the setting shapes what you ask and what you count as a relevant response. The source's third question — are your methods of collection unbiased and ethical — is asking about exactly this.
The pre-clearance record
Assemble this before you approach anyone for approval. Most of it is material your design record already contains, which is the point — an application that requires new thinking usually means the design is not finished.
What to have in hand
- Written answers to all three of the source's screening questions
- The full inventory of data items, marked for personal or confidential content
- The actual instruments, in draft — the interview schedule or the questionnaire itself
- How participants or cases are selected, and who is excluded
- The named authority for each source of data, and its current status
- Where the data will be stored during the study and what happens to it afterwards
- Your relationship to the participants, stated plainly, including any reporting line
- The approving body identified, with its requirements and stated timeline obtained
- A schedule that does not assume collection starts before approval is granted
Once clearance is granted, the design becomes fixed in ways it was not before, and changing it usually means going back. That constraint carries into the action stage; see Steps 7-8: Conducting the Research and Theorising the Data.
What to carry forward
- The supplied source gives three screening questions and one instruction. Everything else about research ethics has to come from elsewhere, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
- The instruction is a sequencing rule: consider the issues and obtain the approvals before you commence any research.
- Treat the three questions as triggers that identify obligations, not as tests you can pass on your own.
- Ethics appears three times in the source's process — at the idea, at feasibility, and as a gate before collection.
- Find the approval pathway, criteria and timeline at design stage, because what you learn will change the design.
- Internal research is not exempt. Access at work is not authority, and the dual role has to be designed for and disclosed.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the supplied source say about research ethics?
Three questions and one instruction. The questions are whether your project requires access to confidential or personal information, whether your questions are appropriate and respectful of cultural norms, and whether your methods of collection are unbiased and ethical. The instruction is that before you commence any research you should have considered the ethical issues and obtained the right approvals, and that the subject will be covered in a later topic.
Why does this page not explain the ethics approval process?
Because the supplied source does not, and this library does not invent requirements. The later topic the source defers to is not among the supplied files, and the approval process that binds you depends on your programme, your organisation and your jurisdiction. The page identifies what you need to find and where that kind of information lives, rather than describing a process it cannot verify.
Do I need ethics clearance if I am only using data my organisation already holds?
The source's first screening question applies regardless of who collected the data: does your project require you to access confidential or personal information? Existing organisational data frequently contains both. Being able to access it in the course of your job is a separate matter from being authorised to use it as research material, and the source separately asks what authority you need to collect data.
When should I start the ethics process?
The source's rule is before you commence any research. In practice, start the reconnaissance at design stage, because the requirements you discover — about consent, storage, selection and who you may approach — will change the design, and a design changed after approval usually has to go back through it.
What if I have already collected some data?
The supplied source does not address this; it states the ordering without stating the consequence of breaking it. Stop collecting, and ask the body that grants your approval what the status of that data is and what your options are. Do not build the analysis plan on data whose standing you have not confirmed.
Is a cultural review really needed for an internal project management study?
The source asks whether your questions are appropriate and respectful of the cultural norms, without limiting the question to any particular kind of study. Organisational settings have norms too, and questions framed from outside them produce offence or inaccurate answers. The cheapest form of the check is having someone with standing in the setting read the actual instrument before you use it.
References and source attribution
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge.
- Trochim, W. M. K. 2006, Research Methods Knowledge Base — the excerpt reproduced in the supplied source, which names ethical constraints as one of four practical considerations in judging feasibility.
- The supplied teaching source: consolidated weekly teaching notes and slide material, whose treatment of research ethics is limited to the three screening questions and single instruction reproduced on this page.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Draft written answers to the three screening questions for my research design.
- Build the data inventory for my study and mark which items are personal or confidential.
- What do I need to find out about my approval pathway before I finalise the design?
- I am researching my own employer — what does that change about selection, consent and disclosure?
- My dataset looked technical but contains staff names. What should I do about it now?