An important step in the research development process is securing approval from a Research Board. Central to most research board approvals is the adherence to professional ethics, and an explanation of the protection of research subjects. For example, the Walden Institutional Review Board (IRB) follows a strict and detailed application process with the purpose of assuring that the highest levels of research quality and integrity are in place.

In this course, you will not work on your Walden IRB application, but you will begin thinking about some of the ethical implications of your proposed research. In exploring various ethical positions, you might be asked to think about your role as an institutional researcher, or to place yourself in the role of a community participant in the research.

In Week 1, you began developing a potential topic for your Premise document. The secondary data sources you investigated provided you with some information about the research population. You also explored the broader system of which your topic is a part.

Using this information, you can situate your research population in terms of location/region, socioeconomic level, or various other demographic indicators included in your dataset. With this information at hand, you can discuss health literacy levels as well as possible ethical concerns that may arise with your potential research topic.

For this Assignment, you will consider any ethical and literacy issues in your potential Premise. Remember to think within a systems perspective, but also be sure to bring forth culturally specific characteristics that may boost your argument.

By Day 7

Submit a 2- to 3-page paper that includes the following:

• Restate the topic of your Doctoral Study Premise that you identified in Week 1.
• Describe some of the ethical concerns that should have been considered when this data was initially collected from participants in that topic area.
• Explain how any of these ethical considerations would impact potential IRB approval or other approval processes.
• Describe the types of literacy concerns that your topic may have.