The ethics process so far

I have just filled out the application for ethical approval for my research, and am waiting for the results from the committee. I’ve found that writing about the aims of the research, including what I want to get out of it wasn’t too difficult. I used the proposal as a chance to work out where my study sits in the literature and to set out the aims, which makes this part of the ethics process much easier.

My supervisors have been really helpful in writing this, both with fleshing out the practicalities of the study (which I need to successfully obtain ethical approval), but also in providing feedback. Collaboration here is essential.

The difficult part was the thinking about the ethical issues, and trying to get my head round ‘critical reflexivity’ which I’ll write more about another time. If you’ve read my research proposal post, then you’ll know that my methods, in a nutshell, are to:

• Interview some teachers about the culture in their school & their use of targets,
• Use a psychometric testing questionnaire (SRQ-A) to measure the motivation of some pupils,
• Hold a focus group after each testing round, to get some more detail on student opinions (amongst other things).

What ethical issues am I facing?

Power relationships with pupils – how will my relationship with the pupils in my school affect the way that they respond to questions during the focus group? This is unlikely to be an issue for the questionnaire (given that they won’t necessarily associate me with it). The way I’m trying to minimise this issue is through:

• Making the environment as comfortable as possible for the pupils
• Ensuring that they know that I won’t judge them or treat them any differently depending on what they say
• Minimise my response (e.g. facial expressions or body language) as to not illicit certain responses from students
• Make use of a reflective journal following each focus group so I’m aware of how I’ve responded to the students, and consider any bias that arises from this

Anonymity – I will obviously reassure students in the focus groups and teachers in the interviews that I’ll not be sharing any responses. However, I do have to hope that the participants don’t share their responses – is there a chance that this could influence other participants?

Potential biases based on my own opinions – the use of a reflective journal where I jot down my thoughts following each data collection event means I can keep better track of where the biases may be coming from. There’s no way to reasonably suggest that there won’t be any bias, but being aware of this means I can factor it in when drawing conclusions from the analysed data.

I’m sure that I’ll need to make some minor changes to my application prior to approval. Once I’ve made any changes necessary then I can conduct the pilot study, and make any final tweaks needed to the methods.