I did not experienced many issues when designing these documents. I think we were provided with very good templates for this task. Additionally, I worked on most of the issues that I could have come across here when I was designing the Ethical Enquiry form for this project.
I used these forms to get consent from the participants for both the questionnaire and focus group too.
I found this chapter very useful in terms of introduction to ethics, even though many of the areas discussed here felt too advanced or far from I am planning to do. I think this chapter was complimentary to the article on ethics that I also read for our ARP unit (Banks, 2016).
Ethics should be considered at every stage of the research process
Ethical issues traditionally have been though in term of risks to participants and data gathering. “However, ethics should underpin every single step of research, from the first germ of an idea to the last act after dissemination.” p.35
Theories of ethics: deontology (including ethics of justice), consequentialism (including ethics of care), virtue and value-based ethics.
“It can be helpful for researchers to review ethical theories and standpoints if they want to deepen their understanding of the philosophical basis for their decisions. Researchers may also find it useful to review ethical codes and other resources that suggest ways of putting these theories and standpoints into action.” p. 39
Transformative methodological frameworks such as feminist, emancipatory, decolonised and participatory research – they “are creatively designed to be more ethical by addressing and reducing power imbalances between researcher and researched.” p. 39.
Something that it is interesting to learn more about, especially in the context of my project that involves thinking about including our students’ voices more in my teaching. It is important to remember not to wear only one set of lenses (gender for example).
“After all, nobody is ‘only’ a woman, or a person of colour, or someone with a disability. An intersectional approach does not attempt to take into account every aspect of someone’s identity but aims to accept and reflect the complexity of identity and examine the relationships between different aspects of identity and their implications for power relations.” p.40.
Some other take outs from this chapter:
Recent trends in ethics “represent attempts to broaden the domain of professional ethics beyond dilemmas and decision-making requiring rational judgement (ethics as individual decision-making) and beyond conformity to codes of ethics and rules of ethical conduct (ethics as external regulation). Instead, a situated ethics is proposed, that places dilemmas and decisions in a broader social, political and cultural context and sees responsibility in a wider, more relational sense, beyond the isolated individual decision-maker.” (Banks, p. 35-36)
The list of ethical dimensions very useful. Each dimension made me think of how I can relate it to my profession and my positionality. I read more about the dimensions I found most relatable or important for my project.
“(1) Framing work—identifying and focusing on the ethically salient features of a situ-ation; placing oneself and the situations encountered in political and social contexts; negotiating/co-constructing frames with others (including service users and colleagues);
(2) Role work—playing a role in relation to others (advocate, carer, critic); taking a position (partial/impartial; close/distant); negotiating roles; responding to role expectations.
(3) Emotion work—being caring, compassionate and empathic; managing emotions; building trust; responding to emotions of others.
(4) Identity work—working on one’s ethical self; creating an identity as an ethically good professional; negotiating professional identity; maintaining professional integrity.
(5) Reason work—making and justifying moral judgements and decisions; deliberation with others on ethical evaluations and tactics; working out strategies for ethical action.
(6) Relationship work—engaging in dialogue with others; working on relationships through emotion, identity and reason work (dialogue work)
(7) Performance work—making visible aspects of this work to others; demonstrating oneself at work (accountability work).” (Banks, p. 37)
I focused on role, identity and relationship work. I think they all are closely related, and they made me focus on my role within the University, Library and my Team more.
Role work: “involves judging what roles to take with particular people in particular circumstances, how and when to shift between roles, when a degree of professional closeness or greater distance is right and negotiating roles with service users and others. (…) Ethical dimensions are highlighted when conscious dilemmas and choices over role positions arise—for example, between carer and controller; educator or advisor; ‘friend’ or professional.” p.41.
In my role as librarian, I need to negotiate my role at the service point (Information desk), 1-2-1, group, face to face sessions with students and staff (teaching part of my role), as well as supporting library users in our space – both technically (when they print, use software or need to find the books) and very often emotionally (when they are stressed before deadlines).
Identity work: “is the work people do through talk, interaction and demeanour to construct and negotiate who they are—their personal and social identities. (…) ‘Ethical identity work’ (identity work in the ethical sphere) involves practitioners working specifically on their ethical selves—for example, as morally good social workers, caring professionals, committed practitioners or fair-minded people.” p.42-43.
These words speak to me strongly. This is a motif within ethics and generally action research area that engages me with my studies and work. I feel that it is closely related to compassionate pedagogy that I got interested in during our first unit on the course.
Relationship work: this term is used “to cover the work of engaging with others, building relationships of trust, getting to know people and caring for and about them over time. The relationships may be with service users, colleagues, officials or members of the public. (…) Relationship work is a key feature of the ethics of care, which highlights the importance of attentiveness (noticing the need for care), responsibility (taking care of others) and responsiveness (of others to the care given).” p.44
My main takeouts from the first part of the workshop:
What is ARP?
Working in groups
I found it very useful to discuss the article that was assigned to me in a small group in the workshop. It was great to get to know the fellow students and learn about our roles within the UAL and how our work influenced the reading of “Views on Interviews: A Skeptical Review”. I reflect on the article in a separate blog post. We had different levels of experience in using the interviews in our research and it was very helpful to hear from more knowledgeable colleagues.
Engaging with research ethics
The workshop is a good starting point for thinking of my project’s research ethics and how I can approach it. I found looking at BERA Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research very engaging and thought provoking. I want to give this text more time to make sure I understand its implications better. First thoughts on reading:
This is another great article that provides an introduction and an overview of one of the research methods. I’ve never used the interviews in research, and I think that reading this text gave me a good basis to start thinking on if I want to use this method, and if yes, how do I want to approach it.
Major positions taken to interviewing:
The article made me aware how complex the interviews as a research method are. There is lots of things to consider before conducting the interviews, such as my positionality, positionality of the respondents and ways it is going to influence our interaction; how and what language we use. What are my motives or motives of the interviewees? What is ‘knowing’ and ‘telling’ – how do I factor this in?
At this stage of my studies and planning for the unit, I think I would like to use interviews in my research. It is crucial for me to learn a bit more about it and will need to read more on the subject.
This article is very useful, especially for someone who is quite new to the idea of action research (AR) (me included). The author introduces the idea in a very approachable way and provides more in-depth information on conducting the research in an educational setting.
What is action research?
“Action research is a term which refers to a practical way of looking at your own work to check that it is as you would like it to be. Because action research is done by you, the practitioner, it is often referred to as practitioner based research; and because it involves you thinking about and reflecting on your work, it can also be called a form of self-reflective practice.”
Focus of AR
The author mentions the following aspects of AR:
Planning AR
This is a particularly important chapter for me. The set of questions forming the action plan provided a starting point in thinking about my project for the ARP Unit on the PgCert course. Before reading this text, I felt overwhelmed by this unit and starting my own AR. I’m still a bit anxious, but also excited now when I gathered more information on the subject.
“The main point is to identify an area you wish to investigate and be reasonably clear about why you wish to get involved”
Other important points:
Gathering evidence
To gather data about the situation you can use variety of methods: journals, diaries, notes, audio and video recordings, surveys, attitude scales, pictures and so on. You can use different methods at different times. You will need to compare the first set of data with the later sets and see if you can say that there are any changes, that you can show that you influenced the situation.
Importance of working criteria (connected to your values) – for example if you believe that all people should be treated fairly – what evidence you may have to show that they are treated fairly.
“To show that you are living in the direction of your values, you need to search your data archive, and produce pieces of data that meet the criteria. When data match the criteria, those pieces of data become evidence.”
And finally, the quote that in my opinion describes the AR in very encouraging way. I find it motivational:
“Action research is one way to influence social change. If everyone did a bit extra for someone else, the world would instantly be a happier and more productive place for all.