Knowledge and attitudes about research ethics among social researchers in Vietnam: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Social research has attracted significant attention in Vietnam during recent years with more questions and discussions about how to promote the research outputs and publications in this area. However, there is limited information about the knowledge and attitudes of social researchers for research ethics in Vietnam. This paper aims to assess the knowledge and attitudes of social researchers about research ethics in Vietnam. A survey with 1200 questionnaires, through convenience sampling, was sent either printed copies or email to social researchers in the universities and research institutions in Vietnam. Our response rate was 65% (782), with mean age: 35.9 years (sd=.307). The results show that around one fifth had been trained with research ethics (23.5%), which led to significant responses to the "do not know" about the research ethics principles and research ethics committee with 14.3% and 55.3%, respectively. Despite such few experiences on the research ethics, the participants presented a positive understanding of the general principles of research ethics and positive attitudes to the importance of the related general ethics principles to social research in Vietnam. Such understandings and attitudes also led to the readiness to apply the research ethics values and principles while there are no formal ethical guidelines in Vietnam social research. These findings suggest that Vietnamese social researchers understood most critical ethics principles in social research and expect formal ethical guidelines.