Biology ethics and research methods

• Ethical concepts


  • Integrity
  • Justice
  • Beneficience
  • Non-mallficience
  • Respect
• Integrity


  Honest reporting of all sources of information, whether favourable or unfavourable
• Justice


  Fair distribution and access to benefits of an action, no unfair burden on a particular group
• Beneficience


  Commitment to maximising benefits and minimising risks
• Non-mallficience


  Avoiding causations of harm. Harms should not be disproportionate to benefits
• Respect


  Consideration that living things have an intrinsic value; give due regard to welfare, liberty, autonomy, beliefs, perceptions, customs and cultural heritage
• Accuracy is a measure of the degree of closeness of a measured value to its actual value. It can be improved by sing a syringe to measure liquids rather than a measuring cylinder and calibration of equipment.
• Precision refers to the closeness of two or more measurements to each other. It can be increased by repeating measurements multiple times and ensuring it is the same each time.
• Repeatability and reproducibility of data is a measure of whether the results of an experiment can be attained by a different research team, using the same method.
• Validity is a measure of how correct the results of an experiment are. It can be increased by controlling more variables, blinding the experiment or adding placebos.
• Random errors are errors that occur wholly dues to chance and does not recur. Increasing the number of repeats will help reduce the occurrence of random errors.
• Systematic errors are errors that affect the accuracy of an experiment, which cause readings to differ from the true value by the same amount each time.
• Reliability is whether the results are dependable and trustworthy. It can be increased by having a large sample size and repeating measurements and taking an average.