The term ‘research ethics’ is concerned with the moral rules and professional codes of conduct applied by researchers at different stages of the research process, in particular during the planning, collection, analysis, reporting, and publication of information about research participants and the research findings (Sikes and Piper, 2010; May, 2011). The main reason for understanding and applying these rules and codes is to protect the interests and rights of participants, especially in a study like this (May, 2001; BERA, 2011). The first ethical challenge I had to deal with was the submission of application to the ethics board for approval (University of Sheffield Research Ethics, 2014). The writing of the application helped me to consider the ethical boundaries within which to work, due to the complex nature of the interaction likely to occur between me and my potential participants (Saunders, Kitzenger and Kitzenger, 2015; May, 2011).
Table 3.2 below provides details of the key ethical issues relating to the study (from the beginning to the end of the project). Before discussing the ethical issues involved in the actual field work, I wish to state that care has been taken to ensure all ethical issues involving the choice of research topic and acknowledgment of literature have been taken care of to avoid any form of plagiarism. The table below shows the ethical issues that I had to deal with in relation to this study.
Table 3.2
Addressing ethical issues in my study
(Source: BERA, 2011; University of Sheffield Research Ethics, 2014)
Key Stages in the research
process
Ethical issues How ethical issue was addressed
Identification, recruitment
Participation should be voluntary. Participants may withdraw from study
Informed consent form signed by all participants before the start of the semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Quick response to
81 and selection
of participants
without providing reasons and must consent to take part in the study.
misunderstandings, disputes or misconduct Data collection using semi- structured and unstructured interview techniques
Participants must not be subject to stressful experiences, for example, physical or psychological harm. Maintaining professional relationship between researcher and participants, data to be collected during the daytime in a public place.
Ensuring questions are not stressful to participants. Comfort breaks during interviews to ensure the physical/psychological wellbeing of two of my retired participants. No covert observation. Use of data collected, interpretation and publication of findings
Participants’ right to information supplied to researcher. Maintaining confidentiality and anonymity. Under no circumstances should participants be deceived. Participant data is not to be published without consent of the participant who supplied the data (disclosure limitation).
Ensuring that the research results are not made public without the participants’ consent. Participants’ identity to remain anonymous and confidential. Personal data should be reasonably guarded against risks such as loss, unauthorized access, modification, or disclosure
3.6.1 Participant’s consent
As shown in the table above, there were a number of ethical issues that I had to consider for this study. Before the start of the field work, I met all my participants individually to get to know them personally, since our conversations were always by phone. At the meeting, we went through the participant information sheet and I explained to them that their participation in the study was voluntary and there was no monetary reward, though they would be provided with lunch and a drink. I also explained how any other information they provided, aside from anything relating to the study, would be confidential. We also discussed anonymity and the need for them to sign a consent form if they wished to be recruited as participants. At the end of the meeting, participants did not hesitate in signing the consent form because they had all the information they needed and were willing to be recruited for the study. As Israel and Hay (2006) suggest, participants usually give consent if they have full understanding of all the information they need in order to make a decision. Participants were further reminded that they could withdraw at any time without providing me with any reason for their decision.
Having obtained consent from participants, I had to schedule the time and place for the interviews and I gave each person a set of questions (Table 3.3) to prepare them for the actual interviews. An example of the actual interview questions with Hubert can be found in Appendix B.
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Table 3.3
Examples of questions for participants
Where you born and where did you live as a child?
What is the history of your education before training college?
Why did you choose to become a teacher and which training college did you attend? What teaching certificate do you hold?
What memories do you have of your training as a teacher? Which classes did you teach and why?
How did you find your first experience of teaching?
Which language policy did you use in teaching, why and how did you have to use it? What other language policy do you know of?
What is your understanding of the language policy?
How did other teachers in your school use the language policy? What was your schools’ reaction to the language policy?
What are some of the socio-cultural changes that took place during your own education and the time of your teaching lower grade?
What are your memories of teaching lower grade?
Some participants (retired ones and teachers with children) preferred to have the interviews in their own homes, as it was most convenient for them, especially because the field work took place during the school holidays. All my interviews were conducted during the day in a location convenient to both the participants and myself. I made sure that questions asked about their personal lives would not cause them any psychological harm. I did not misrepresent myself in any way and I was polite and respectful throughout the meetings.
With regards to my own safety as a researcher, I took the necessary steps to ensure no harm came to me. For example, I made my family and friends aware of my interview plans for each day, and ensured the interviews were conducted during the day in either the home of the participants or in a designated public place. My initial fears about conducting some of the interviews in participants’ homes were unjustified, because all the participants lived with their families and there were always people around during the interviews. A few of the interviews were held in public spaces, such as the pastoral centre of a local Catholic Church. This centre was a very busy place with a number of activities taking place at the same time as our sessions. In addition, considering some of my participants were retired and some had younger children, I made sure that we had regular breaks and the interview did not go beyond an hour. Furthermore, knowing that interviewing participants in their homes may constitute invasion of privacy, I was always on time and left as soon as the interviews were over. I made no covert observations or showed any disrespect for the cultural values of the participants.
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3.6.2 Confidentiality and anonymity
I explained confidentiality and anonymity to my participants during our first meeting so I made sure I maintained that promise throughout the fieldwork and during the whole study. I maintained anonymity for each individual participant by deliberately giving each of them a pseudonym and removing from the interview transcripts any elements that might make it possible for others to identify them. The question of anonymity arose because, in addition to my participants’ names, in the first interview I had collected detailed information about their dates of birth, hometowns, places of abode, and the training colleges and the universities they had attended. The dilemma was whether or not to anonymise this additional information, since anonymity requires non-disclosure as a means of protecting the identity of my participants and ensuring that my participants could not be identified in my findings (Saunders et al. 2015; Annukka, 2012; Perry, 2006). This was a very difficult decision for me to make because Nespor (2000, p.549) argues that hiding names and places in a piece of research ‘naturalizes the decoupling of events from historical and geographically specific locations’.
However, the decision to anonymise participants’ particulars was taken, although some of my participants expressed the view that since there was nothing confidential about the information they provided, they had no objection to the mention of their actual geographical locations in the study. One of my retired participants said he was always consulted on educational matters in his village because everyone knew the work he had done and he was very proud to be mentioned. This comment receives support from Walford (2005, p.85), who states that ‘confidential information is information that is private or secret’. This also shows that anonymity may not always be appropriate (Perry, 2006).
The issue of anonymity in research, though the accepted norm, appears to have a lot of practical challenges, with writers taking different positions for or against (Saunders et al. 2015; Annukka, 2012). From the views expressed by my participants, it can be argued that ‘blanket’ anonymity should not necessarily be accepted (Saunders et al., 2015) especially where all identifying details of participants are anonymised. However, to protect the identities of my participants, all their names have been anonymised. All other information provided by my participants has also been anonymised but, in doing so, I used the names of places close to the original ones provided so that readers would have a better understanding of the life histories or narratives of my participants.
84 Furthermore, regarding data management and protection of participant data, I maintained an effective and efficient data management system, comprising of manual records and electronic folders/files in my laptop, appropriately labelled and accessed only by me using a secured password. In addition, I used an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (Vin-7700) to record the interviews, because it identifies each interview with the participant through the use of numbers. I therefore knew and could match each number to a participant. The voice recorder was stored in a secure drawer throughout the study and all the transcribed interviews were all retained until such time that they may not be needed. The final electronic and hard copies of the thesis will be stored in the library of the University of Sheffield. I will seek their permission if I decide to publish the results of this study after the completion of my studies