Ethical considerations in health psychology

Abstract

Obtaining ethical approval is often required before conducting a study. This provides an opportunity to consider various ethical aspects in advance. These ethical considerations affect decisions made relevant to the whole research process – from study conception to data sharing afterwards. There might also be legal requirements for certain studies in certain settings. However, in the context of ethical considerations, these legal requirements can be seen as the minimal requirements for a study that have to be adhered to. For ethical considerations, it is mostly the rationale behind the decisions made regarding various ethical aspects that counts and that should be judged in the context of a specific study. This concerns, for example, what participants are exposed to during study participation, but also what participants are being told in advance. The latter should be done in such a way that participants are able to make an informed decision about participating in a study. In view of the growing enthusiasm for patient and public involvement (PPI) in health research, it is even more important to realize that there is a difference in hierarchy between researchers and participants. This realization needs to be part of the ethical considerations when setting up a study. This to make sure that participants are aware of their level of control and – where possible – to improve this level. Ethical considerations also concern statistical aspects (e.g., power) and matters concerning data protection (e.g., data minimization and data sharing). This chapter presents questions to guide readers in their thinking about all these ethical aspects when setting up their own study or reading work by others.

Teachers' Perception of Artificial Intelligence Integration in Learning: A Cross-Sectional Online Questionnaire Survey

“…The study paid attention to ethics by implementing voluntary participation, data con dentiality, and minimizing risks (Ajemba & Arene, 2022). Ethical approval was obtained prior to data collection (Crutzen, 2022).…”