Kirsty Thomson SREP Administrator: [email protected]
Name of applicant: Kirsty Snape
Title of study: An exploration of undergraduate engineering students’ participation in work placement.
Department: Human and Health Sciences Date sent: 19/02/2015
Issue Please provide sufficient detail for SREP to assess strategies used to address ethical issues in the research proposal
Researcher(s) details Kirsty Snape – PHD research student (Human and Health Sciences)
Supervisor details Main Supervisor – Dr Jane Tobbell Supervisor – Dr Lynda Turner
Aim / objectives The objective of the study is to evaluate undergraduate engineering student’s work placement experiences using sociocultural theory. I also aim to look at perceptions of placements from the perspective of engineering staff.
❖ Aim 1 – To investigate the practices within the workplace setting which enable and disable personal, academic and professional development.
❖ Aim 2 – To investigate how students perceive placements to aid in their development of key competences.
❖ Aim 3 – To investigate student’s subjective notions of their employability shift post placement.
❖ Aim 4 – To investigate how work placements are understood to contribute to the university from the perspective of members of the engineering teaching staff.
❖ Aim 5 – To use sociocultural theory to understand placement participation.
197 Brief overview of research
methodology
See table of methodology below:
Data Collection Method Procedure Ethical Issues
1. Literature Review
• Comprehensive review of WIL literature.
• Comprehensive review of UK engineering sandwich placement literature
• Review of theoretical literature in the field of developmental and educational psychology.
• Plagiarism – I have a strong awareness of the university policy surrounding plagiarism and understand the necessity of referencing the work of others, and how to do so using the APA referencing system.
2. Document analysis
• Analysis of all relevant documentation provided to students in their work placement module. • Analysis of all relevant
documentation provided to students in their final study year.
n/a
3. Student interviews
• pre-placement 2nd year
engineering undergraduates will be questioned using semi- structured interviews.
• Students will be asked to reflect on their university story so far. • Students will be asked questions
pertaining to their subjective views of their academic, personal and employability development thus far.
• Students will be asked questions based on a competency
framework developed from the document analysis.
• Student interviews will occur in the university for both student and researcher safety as this is a familiar and public place for all involved, this also ensures staff will be close by if for any reason assistance is needed.
• If students appear distressed during the interview I will end the interview immediately,
participants will be made aware beforehand they may also end the interview whenever they want.
• Similarly I will allow students to refuse to answer any question they want.
• If students reveal they are distressed in response to the interviews or are generally in need of psychological support I will direct them to the university counselling service.
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• If students reveal information which suggests they are struggling academically I will direct them to the academic skills tutors, and to the school of computing and engineering placement unit.
• I will inform all participants they have the right to withdraw their data from the interviews up to the point of analysis.
• I will type up hand written notes as early as possible and shred them after. I will keep electronic data in password protected formats.
4. Social media discussions
• The previously interviewed participants plus additional participants, at the same point in their education will be recruited for the social media group.
• The participants will be invited into the private social media group as their placements commence.
• The group will be encouraged to discuss their placement
experiences with their peers. • It may also be used as a
platform to share opinions or ask for advice or ask questions of one another.
• I will set regular discussion tasks to begin group conversations and gather data based on my study aims.
• As the students are discussing their personal experiences I will ensure I make the group private so no other social media users will see what is discussed. • Students are likely to use pre-
existing social media profiles containing personal information and pictures which will reduce their anonymity. I will
recommend participants make “pseudo-profiles” for improved anonymity, regardless of if they choose to do this however I will anonymise names in my write up, and instead I will assign each student a number.
• Social media conversations will involve student interaction. There may be a slight risk of participants being verbally abusive with one another. I will tackle this proactively by stating that this behaviour will not be tolerated. I will explain that students much treat each other with respect. Reactively I will remove students from the group if they do not follow the conduct expected of them.
• I will explain on the information sheet, verbally and as part of the rules on the group that they may not discuss the names of their
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employers and colleagues or those of others.
5. Staff interviews
• I will carry out semi-structured interviews with engineering staff.
• The size of the staff sample will be dependent upon the number of staff in the department available for interview. As it stands I intend to interview 5 staff members.
• The interviews will focus on staff perceptions of placement participation and its impact on students and the university.
• As the staff being interviewed work for the university they may be reluctant to discuss any negative opinions of the
placement course, however I will explain that I have no agenda in undertaking this research and aim to explore their perceptions whether good or bad. I will explain that they are welcome to refuse to answer any question they want. And I will explain that they will remain anonymous. • I will inform all participants they
have the right to withdraw their data from the interviews up to the point of analysis.
• I will type up hand written notes as early as possible and shred them after. I will keep electronic data in password protected formats.
6. Student interviews
• Following placement completion I intend to do further interviews preferably with the students previously interviewed (If some of these students are unable to be re-interviewed I will select others from the remaining participants participating in the social media group).
• Questions pertaining to current academic, personal and
employability development will be asked so pre and post placement comparisons can be formed.
• Students will be asked to reflect upon their contextual and social factors and the practices involved in placement participation.
• Participants will be asked to share their opinion on their experience and will be invited to form comparisons between their placement experience and other academic or extra-
curricular activities.
• As with the earlier interviews I expect the same ethical issues could occur and I would approach them as discussed above.
• If additional issues come up in conversation which have not been brought up in the earlier stages I will refer the student to the relevant area e.g. student counselling, academic support, placement unit etc.
• I will type up hand written notes as early as possible and shred them after. I will keep electronic data in password protected formats.