Designer's Corner /Le coin du concepteur: Investigator Bias in Bereavement Research: Ethical and Methodological Implications

Abstract

The ethics of conducting bereavement research has received limited attention. While a plethora of research, both qualitative and quantitative, has been published on grief and loss over the last several decades, consideration of the particular ethical issues involved in such endeavours has lagged behind. Formal institutional or governmental reviews of research involving human subjects are typically based on a risk/benefit analysis. While important and even necessary, such analysis does not substitute for the various sensitivities of the investigator. Ultimately, the ethics of a particular research situation reside with the researchers themselves (Cook, 1995). Understanding the aspects of the "self" that one brings to the research endeavour can help to increase awareness of personal and professional biases concerning grief and loss research. Lipson (1991) writes eloquently about the role of self in the research process and blames lack of self-awareness for some of the most glaring inaccuracies in ethnographic data and analysis. She also raises the suggestion that researchers should be required to undergo some form of systematic self-analysis as part of their training. In the qualitative research literature, the self is acknowledged as influential _ "a presence that permeates all methodological decisions and penetrates the very fabric of meaning constructed" (Greene, 1994, p. 539). It can also be asserted that no research, whether qualitative or quantitative, is value-free.