system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is a study considered unethical if the researcher expects to prove something ethical to be unethical?

If something standard in the world was theorised to cause lasting harm that a mass majority was unaware of and you aimed to prove this (or disprove your concept)  would the study be considered ethical  if it were using the standard "ethical" thing expecting to conclude that this standard thing is causing harm and is unethical?

An unrelated hypothetical scenario for context:
If im proving that a teacher educating 30 students in a classroom causes long lasting mental harm to the students and  my findings support my theory would my use of a classroom environment be unethical?

Edit:
For any additional responses i am uk based -is it ethical by the UK institutional guidelines?
gpt
It would be unethical to deliberately expose participants to conditions expected to produce long-term harm.  Research of that kind usually has to be done another way, such as by collecting longitudinal data on different existing classes, and comparing outcomes of students in larger classes to outcomes of students in smaller classes.