Chapter summary Research standards Ethical considerations Informed consent Confidentiality and anonymity All disciplines have some kind of research standard to which practitioners are expected to adhere. As a general rule, the research standards in a given discipline are where a researcher should begin their own review for a new research endeavor. All research standards have some type of expectation for ethical standards. Others, like medical disciplines such as nursing, will have substantive guidelines regarding the protection of participants, with an expectation of privacy that protects an individual’s identity as well as the information they provide in a study. In a discipline such as marketing, the Market Research Association provides standards regarding the use of push technologies and manipulative pseudo-sales practices (, accessed on 10 May 2007). In others, such as the American Sociological Association, the Code of Ethics clearly states that a researcher should avoid a conflict of interest …
