Can One Get Fish and Bear's Paws at the Same Time Ethical Dilemma of Qualitative Health Research in Chinese Culture

DOI

10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.63How to use a DOI?

Keywords

qualitative methods, research ethics, ethical dilemma, researcher-participant, inform consent, autonomy, inner freedom.

Abstract

Ethical considerations of qualitative research are often likely to be ignored or downplayed. This article will follow bioethics principles to explore the dilemmas expressed in the Chinese proverb: One cannot get both fish and bear’s paws simultaneously. This succinct expression relates to so many phases of a research, based on the ethical characteristics of qualitative research. Four specific ethical dilemmas will be examined in this paper: the dilemmas between “building trust and rapport” and “informed consent,” finding the right balance between “providing benefit to participants” and “coercion through kindness,” the trade-off between “burning out researcher” and “ending research relationship,” and giving consideration to both “quoting comprehensive qualitative data” and “ensuring participant privacy.” Furthermore, the paper explores the different interpretations of autonomy between Chinese culture and Western individualism and their impact on the ethics aspects of qualitative research.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Wanping Yang
AU  - Peihsin Yang
AU  - Yuehjung Chen
PY  - 2013/12
DA  - 2013/12
TI  - Can One Get Fish and Bear's Paws at the Same Time Ethical Dilemma of Qualitative Health Research in Chinese Culture
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on the Modern Development of Humanities and Social Science
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 239
EP  - 246
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.63
DO  - 10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.63
ID  - Yang2013/12
ER  -