The issue in research ethics has been a long-standing problem in the academic world. In qualitative research, most of the studies carried out involve human subjects and require awareness of ethical issues that may arise, such as misconduct in research, plagiarism and authorship disputes. However, the emphasis on this issue has been given little exposure mostly among postgraduate students in Malaysia. This paper will highlight the most common ethical issues that arise in qualitative research studies, why this has happened, and how to overcome these important issues across institutions. In order to discover these issues, the databases Scopus, Google Scholar and Google Search were queried in the searching. The databases were assessed through the criteria of research ethics, research misconduct, and ethical issue in qualitative research from the year 1995 to 2019. The results revealed that there are studies on ethics in qualitative research especially in health and business area but insufficiently addressed in education. Besides, there are also several types of ethical problems in qualitative researches being identified which are commonly engaged by students despite research classes or courses that have been provided. Finally, it is concluded that not only does the research ethics component needs to be clearly addressed in the teaching among postgraduate students when conducting qualitative research, but there is also an urgent need to improve the institution curriculum in the research subject.