Research Report: Ethical Standards, Research Design, and Methodology

This report delves into the ethical considerations and research design challenges associated with studying the impact of digitized stimuli on social media users, particularly focusing on a hypothetical experiment by XYZ company involving scent-enabled digital media. It critiques the ethical shortcomings of previous social media experiments, like Facebook's manipulation of user feeds, emphasizing the importance of informed consent, privacy, and respect for user rights. The report addresses the critical need for a robust research design that aligns with international ethical standards. It explores various research approaches, including qualitative and quantitative methods, and recommends content analysis and data mining as the most appropriate methodologies for examining user emotions and behaviors on social media platforms. The report also discusses the significance of sampling methodologies and data collection methods, advocating for ethical practices to ensure the protection of research participants. The report aims to identify ethical standards, appropriate research design, and methods to answer the research questions in a responsible manner.

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Table of Contents
Brief Introduction........................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................3
Statement of Research Questions and Objectives.......................................................................................5
Recommended Research Methodology......................................................................................................6
Sampling Methodology...............................................................................................................................8
Data Collection Methods.............................................................................................................................9
Validity and Reliability of Research Methods............................................................................................10
Summary...................................................................................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................11

Brief Introduction
The research is an integral part of the human lives. The scholars and the scientists
conduct research in different domain to create knowledge and use it to make the human lives
easier. The human participation is an integral part of the research process. Over the years, several
researches in the medical and sociological domain have involved the humans. However, these
research have come under the scrutiny of the ethics committee as several times the research
process creates a negative impact on the human lives or the research participants. Therefore, a
social networking site (XYZ) is trying to conduct an experiment in its users to know whether
they can attain the emotional state of its users. The digital scent technology is in its infancy
which will be examined for the experiment. It is a technology through which scent-enabled
digital media can be transmitted and received on the digital mediums. The company would like
to know whether different types of smells updated on the social media can influence the mood of
the users. However, the involvement of the human participants can raise several ethical questions
regarding voluntary participation, privacy, integrity and the respect for the rights of the users.
The management of the organization is also worried as Facebook, a social networking site also
manipulated the content of its users to examine its role in the change of emotions of the users
(Bui,2013). The change in emotions was examined by the individual posts of the users. Facebook
tampered the news feed of several users b showing them abnormally low level of positive and the
negative new feed. The researchers found that the negative posts or news feed brought more
negative comments and similarly positive feedbacks and comments brought positive comments.
However, the present research was heavily criticized on the basis of ethical grounds as the
research participants were not aware of the research process. Therefore, it is important that XYZ
organization designs and develops a research design which addresses the ethical issues in the

research process. The present report will examine the various ethical issues and the research
design issues in the proposed research. In addition to it, thee research will propose research
approach which will be the most suitable for the research.
Literature Review
According to Stebbins (2001), the fundamental of an ethical research is that the rights and
the welfare of the research participants is always protected. In the last century, large number of
social and the medical researchers have done experiments on the sick and the poor, which has
made is necessary for the government to systematically protect the rights of the individual
participants in the research process. Several committees have been formed which assures that the
research process abides by the ethical standards. It is important that the researcher respects the
rights of the research participants. The research participants should be treated a person rather
than just objects of study. When experiments are done on the human subjects, it raises no moral
questions; however, as soon as the research participants become animate person, the innocence
of the research is lost.
In the perception of Loue, (2007), there are several ethical challenges in the research design and
informed consent in the behavioral setting, especially in the resource-poor setting. There are
several social, cultural and ethical issues in the social or biomedical research. Strengthening the
knowledge about the international ethics is essential in the development of ethics-based research
study. Other than obtaining informed consent of the research participant, it is essential that the
researcher respect the cultural traditions of the study populations and the communities. There
should be independent committee for the ethical review of protocols so that the research remains
ethics based. Ongoing feedback should be provided to the research participants regarding the

progress of the research and their role in it. It assures that their role in the research process is
critical.
In the views of Comstock (2013), the research which involves the participation of the human
participants or the animals should abide by the ethical standards formed by the ethics committee.
It is important to recognize the ethical principles and standards formed by the ethics committee
and abide by them. There are some standards or principles which should be involved in the
research involving human research participants. The researcher should also declare in the
research study that all the principles are followed. Firstly, the researcher should respect the rights
and the welfare of the research participants and the interest of the research participants should
take supreme interest. The research should also be approved and reviewed by an independent
ethics committee. The review must be conducted before the research begins and when the
amendments are applied to the research. Another important aspect of the research is that the
research protocol, research design and the statistical analysis must be clearly described and
implemented. The informed consent is also important for the research process. All the
participants must be informed regarding the various aspects of the research process and their
consent should be taken ideally in the writing form. The research which involves the
participation of the children or other vulnerable population who cannot consent to the research
process should seek the consent of appropriate person who is responsible for the research process
(Onwuegbuzie and Frels, 2016).
According to Long & Johnson, (2007), the research design is also important aspect of the
research process. The research design represents several decisions that the researcher undertook
regarding the research. It includes theoretical framework, methodology, data collection methods
and the research approach. The selection of the research methods is a complex process as it

requires the application of intuition, complex reasoning regarding which research approach will
answer the research questions best.
Statement of Research Questions and Objectives
The aim of the present study is to identify the research approach and methods which will
answer the research questions bet and abide by the international standards of business research
ethics. XZZ management firm has proposed to examine the impact of perfume on the mood of
social media users. In the similar project, conducted by Facebook in the past, the company
suffered from heavy criticism. Several international bodies criticized the company on the
grounds of research ethics and informed consent. It was also suggested that the company
performed the experiment on the basis of poor research design. Therefore, it is important that
XYZ Company develops a well-through research design which can address the research
questions efficiently. In this regard, the research questions can be defined as follows:
 What are the ethical standards that a research study involving human participants must
abide by?
 What are different types of research approaches and designs which can be used to address
the research study?
 Which research design will answer the research questions in the most appropriate
manner?
The research aims of the following research study can be defined as:
 To identify the issues related to research ethics in the research involving the research
participants
 To identify the ethical standards of the research

 To develop an appropriate research design for the addressing the research questions
Recommended Research Methodology
The research methodology is the most important part of the research process. In the
research methodology, the researcher studies regarding the various research methods and
approaches and select the most appropriate research design for the research. The research
methodology encompasses research philosophy, research paradigm and the research approach. In
the present research section, the research method of content analysis and data mining will be
undertaken. This method has evolved with the advent of internet and social media. In this
method, the content and the information from the social media is obtained and analyzed. The
content is synthesized through the postings on the social media, tweets, bookmarks, cookies,
comments, tag and blogs or Wikipedia articles. There are several benefits of obtaining the raw
data from the social media. The most important benefit of obtaining the data from the social
media is that raw or natural data can be obtained regarding the human behavior. The researcher
gets an easy access to massive amount of data at a very cost-effective manner. In this method,
the parameters for the research stud can also be easily set. Other than that, there are also several
other methods which can be used to collect the data. All these methods can be categorized into
qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research methods include methods
such as interview methods and focus group. In these methods, the information collected is
qualitative in nature and which means that it could not be represented through statistical means
(Creswell and Clark, 2011).

On the other hand, the information collected through quantitative methods is statistical in nature.
The information collected through this method can be represented with the help of mathematical
expressions. However, the aim of the present research study is to examine the impact of digitized
perfumes on the mood or the temperament of the social media users.
It can be critiqued that in the present case, the method of content analysis will be the best. In the
present times, it is the most common method for the sociological research. The present research
will examine the emotions of the research participants; therefore, it is important that a research
design is selected which examines is able to examine the actual emotions of the research
participants. The quantitative methods such as survey will not be able to examine the response of
the research participants.
The research participants will have time to think about their response which will reduce the
efficacy of the research. It is due to the reason that when the research participants will have time
to think over their emotion, they might not show their actual emotions to others. Similarly,
interview method is also not considered as appropriate method for the research. In this method,
the interviewer asks in-depth questions regarding the research topic to the research participants.
The research participant has in-depth knowledge or is an expert in the subject. This method is
commonly used to attain in-depth knowledge regarding the research subject. There are various
forms of through which the interview can be conducted. It depends on the style of the
questionnaire. There are three main types of questionnaire, namely, structured, semi-structured
or unstructured. In the structured interview process, the questions which are needed to be asked
with the questionnaire are pre-designed by the researcher. On the other hand, in semi-structured
questionnaire, the questions which will be asked to the research participants are not defined.
However, the main gist or the direction of the interview is noted and the interviewer asks

questions accordingly (Saunders, 2011). In the unstructured interview, the interview questions
are not fixed and the interview goes in an open-ended direction.
The social media content analysis method can be categorized as a focus group method. The only
difference is that the observations are made by scrutinizing the data on the social media. In the
focus group method, the information about a social media is obtained by making an external
intervention. The facilitator does not take an active participation role in the research process. The
only role of the facilitator is to jot down the key points or information in a piece of paper. It can
be critiqued that the best method for the research process is the focus group.
Sampling Methodology
The sampling refers to the process of selecting a few individuals who can represent the
characteristics of the entire population. There are several methods of sampling, such as stratified
sampling, cluster sampling or random access sampling. The sampling methods are used as it is
nearly impossible, very time consuming and difficult to conduct research on the entire
population. Therefore, it a subsection of the population is selected which can represent the
characteristic of the entire population. In the random sampling, the sampling population is
selected on a random basis from the entire population. The stratified sampling is based on the
probability characteristics. In this method, the entire population is divided into several
subsections and participants are selected from each section on a random basis (Thyer, 2010).
Similarly, in the cluster sampling, the researcher divides the overall population in several groups
called clusters and the participants are selected from each group on a random basis. The random
sampling is the fundamental or the basic sampling method in which the characteristics of the
entire population is same. On the other hand, if the characteristics of the entire population is not
same and the random sampling method is cannot justify the results, other form of sampling is

used (Kasi, 2009). In the resent section, the characteristics of the population will not have a
singular effect on the research study. Therefore, the research participants will be selected on a
purely random basis. The emotional quotient of different people is different. The inclusion of
large population will increase the effectiveness of the research. Therefore, the sampling
population can be selected as 10,000 for the research.
As discussed in the above section, the research ethics have a critical role in the efficacy of the
research. In the present, the research should abide by all the principles of ethics committee. The
researcher should respect the right of the informed consent of all the research participants. In this
regard, the research should design an online form wherein all the research participants have to
agree to take part in the research. The online form will also contain a brief regarding the aim of
the research study and the impact of the research on the research. The independent research
ethics review committee will examine the impact of the research on the human participant. It will
be examined whether the influence of the digitized perfume will be temporary or permanent on
the research participants. The voluntary participation also means that the research participants
will have the right to withdraw from the research whenever they choose to be. The researcher
will also assure that the private and the confidential information of the research participants is
protected and is not disclosed to any third party (Creswell, 2013).
Data Collection Methods
In the present research, the data collection method of data mining from the social media will be
used. In this method, the raw data from the social media sites of the research participants will be
included. The data will be in the raw form. It will be collected through the postings, comments,
tweets and hash-tags of the research participants. The data collected through the social media
websites of the research participants will require heavy synthesis from the researcher (Kaar,

2009). The researcher needs to analyze which data will be useful for the research and select it
from the abundance of data available on the social media websites.
Validity and Reliability of Research Methods
In order to develop the validity and the reliability of the research work, the researcher
will abide by all the ethical standards. Firstly, the researcher will take informed consent of all the
research participants for the research process. The research participants must be informed
regarding their role in the research process and the aim and objectives of the study. The
reliability of the research is maintained by adopting a well-designed research design. The
confidentiality of the research participants will be maintained by keeping their information in a
proper password protected file (Bernard, Russell, and Ryan, Gery 2010).
However, there are certain limitations of the research. For instance, if mood or the temperament
of the research participants may get tempered by any national or international event, it may
influence the result of the research study. Therefore, it is important that the researcher adopts
proper sampling strategy and timeline for the research so that the research will be conducted
properly. Other than that, a pilot study will be conducted which implies the research on a smaller
level (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015). The researcher can evaluate the shortcomings of the
research with this process.
Summary
It can be summarized that the research design is an integral part of the research process.
In the present, a case has been taken of a social media company which is trying to conduct an
experiment regarding the impact of the digitized scents on the mood of the users. In the present,
a research design has been proposed which can be used to conduct the research successfully. The

research will also abide by the ethical standards to ensure the reliability and the credibility of the
research work.

References
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approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Bui, Y.N. 2013. How to Write a Master's Thesis. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
Comstock, G. (2013). Research Ethics: A Philosophical Guide to the Responsible Conduct of
Research. Cambridge University Press.
Creswell, J.W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches. Sage publications.
Creswell, J.W. and Clark, V.L.P. 2011. Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research.
London: SAGE.
Kaar, M. 2009. Critical Investigation of the Merits and Drawbacks of In-depth Interviews. GRIN
Verlag.
Kasi, P. 2009. Research: What, Why and How? Bloomington: AuthorHouse.
Long, T., & Johnson, M. (2007). Research Ethics in the Real World: Issues and Solutions for
Health and Social Care. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Loue, S. (2007). Textbook of Research Ethics: Theory and Practice. Springer Science &
Business Media.
Onwuegbuzie, A.J. and Frels, R. 2016. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A
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Saunders, N.K. (2011). Research Methods for Business Students. Pearson Education.
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