Ethical issues for teacher researchers

You will find key documents outlining the ethical requirements for educational research in this section of the web site:

  1. A Powerpoint entitled Ethics and Educational Research
  2. The BERA (British Educational Research Association) Guidelines

A key issue for teacher researchers is to draw 2 distinctions:

  1. What aspects of any innovation are voluntary – and do young people understand this?
  2. The collection of research data as part of the innovation is always voluntary –is this clear to participants?

With this in mind we propose you give serious attention to the following questions as you design your research.

Because the teacher-student relationship includes the assumption that within the lesson the expectation is that students complete the tasks they are asked to do, it is necessary to explain that in your role as a researcher they have certain rights. So when you ask them if they will fill out a questionnaire or take part in a focus group or interview, they have the right to say no, the right to withdraw, the right to change their mind and the right to confidentiality. This needs to be made clear to them.

One way to address some of the issues raised by these questions is to prepare an information sheet and a letter of consent that spells all this out. You will find some examples of this as documents in this section of the website. (Examples of Letters of Consent)

Being ethical is not fundamentally about compliance to recommendations it is about personal reflection on what it is reasonable to ask someone to do and so to give thought to the consequences for them of consenting to participate. There are two short documents provided that might help you think about this. This comes from an article written by Susan Malone which shares a letter of consent before and after a piece of research has been conducted – the second letter is annotated with her thoughts on how her research really did impact on her participants in spite of her carefully designed intentions.(Reflection resource 1 and 2)