Ethics In Research Ethics

distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. In this study the researcher followed the guide of ethics in the fieldwork as requested. The ethic principals exist almost everywhere in research. Walton (n. d) stated that there are three objectives in research ethics : (1) the first and broadest objective is to protect human participants; (2) the second objective is to ensure that research is conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals, groups and/or society as a whole; (3) the third objective is to examine specific research activities and projects for their ethical soundness, looking at issues such as the management of risk, protection of confidentiality and the process of informed consent.

In this study, the ethical

In this regards, the researcher used informed consent (IC) recognized as ‘universal’ ethical principle in the field that guaranteed autonomy and privacy of the participants. The informed consent informed the participants about the objectives and the research project. Each of the interviewees in this study signed informed consent forms; the principals did it for the students as their gatekeepers.

The requirement of informed consent means that prospective research participants were fully informed about the procedures and risks involved in research, and agreed to participate in the study. Furthermore, the researcher avoided putting participants in a difficult situation due to their participation. Participants were free to abandon the study at any time of the process and inconsequential. This means they adhered to the study in free and informed manner.

The data collected were used exclusively for the purposes of this study, and destroyed after its use to preserve confidentiality. Finally, the results of this research were communicated electronically to the

In other words, strategies were used to ensure the trustworthiness, including thick description (findings were presented to the participants in a detailed and clear understanding of the study), member checking (every participants were allowed with an opportunity to review their personal accounts and check the reliability, validity and the compliance with their meanings), and researcher’s position (Merriam, 2002, p. 31). The researcher made sure to avoid bias from his position in the study. Furthermore, data were gathered from various sources (interviews, observations, field notes, documents) to guarantee corroborating evidence and strengthen the trustworthiness of the research (Creswell, 2013). According to Laperrière (1997), to ensure the reliability of a research, it is desirable to proceed to the analysis of the same research object by a triangulation of data sources and instruments. For the triangulation of data sources, in addition to the 10 women principals, the researcher interviewed 15 teachers, 1 school inspector, 2 inspectorate’s counsellors, 2 school counsellors, 7 parents and 7 students. The student interviews were intended to verify some of the information that adult respondents (especially principals and teachers) provided about the phenomenon under study. Finally, while following social norms and culture of the research context, this research was