Ethical considerations

‘Ethical considerations pervades the whole process of research; these will be no more so than at the stage of access and acceptance, where appropriateness of topic, design, methods, guarantee of confidentiality, analysis and dissemination of findings must be negotiated with relative openness, sensitivity, honesty, accuracy and scientific impartiality.’

(Creswell 2013:83)

Dörnyei (2007) declares that social research is about people’s lives in the social world and, therefore, it inevitably involves ethical issues. Punch (2005) points out that ethical issues are more delicate in qualitative research due to their genuine interest in personal views and because they often target sensitive or intimate matters. Researchers face ethical issues that come up during the data collection in the field and during the analysis and dissemination of their research reports (Creswell 2013), mainly if interviews and observations are included (Zwozdiak- Myers 2012). This is the reason why a researcher needs to be careful with aspects such as confidentiality, privacy, and anonymity. It is indispensable, then, to inform participants of details concerning the research, providing information of what they need to do, as well as possible negative outcomes, to avoid deception that ‘can often result from thoughtlessness, oversight or taking matters for granted’ (Cohen et al. 2011:88). Johnson and Christensen (2004:111) pointed out that QR may include elements that ‘muddy the ethical waters’ and merit careful consideration during the study. Some examples of such sensitive aspects are:

The amount of shared information. How much information should be shared with the participants about the research so as not to cause any response bias or even non-participation.

114

Anonymity. Participants should remain anonymous, but the researcher often needs to identify the respondents to be able to match their performances on various instruments or tasks. However, only the researcher will know this information.

As Zwozdiak-Myers (2012) suggested, before undertaking AR, the researcher needs to keep in mind ethical implications throughout the study. Hence, for this study I needed to guarantee that the participants clearly understood what the study was about, by informing them (through a letter of information) about the purpose of the research, the benefits they would obtain, and the instruments I would be using to collect data without providing details that might influence their responses and reactions to the study. I asked them for permission to use the information collected in my written and oral presentations of the findings with my PhD panels and final examination, as well as for presentations in future conferences and publications. Respondent validation was also considered. The participants were given the right and the option to revise the transcripts and the preliminary findings reports to ensure that they agreed with what was being reported. These ethical considerations are closely related to privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity, for which I now provide more details and explain how they were looked during and after the study.

4.4.2.1 Privacy, anonymity, confidentiality

In Dörnyei’s (2007) words, it is a basic ethical tenet that the participant’s right to privacy and anonymity must always be respected and that they have the right to decline to answer questions or to withdraw from the study without offering any explanation. According to Cohen et al. (2011), the right to privacy means that a person has the right not to participate in the research, not to be interviewed, and

115

not to answer telephone calls or emails regarding the study. For the sake of this study, I informed participants of their right to withdraw at any time, and to refuse to take part in any or all of the research. I verbally provided details of the two phases of the study, so they could decide if they wanted to participate in only one or the two phases, or none of them. They were also told that the results of their RP during the study would not affect their grades of the teaching practice subject. Before signing an informed consent form, they had the opportunity to ask as many questions related to the study and its implications as they wished. By giving participants the opportunity to decide, they would not feel any kind of pressure to participate.

Since ‘anonymity is a promise that the ‘information provided by participants should

in no way reveal their identity’ (Cohen et al. 2011:91), and that ‘even the researcher will not be able to tell which responses came from which respondents’ (Bell 2010:49), in my study I protected the participants’ identity by asking them to provide a nickname, pseudonym, or alias (Creswell 2013) to refer to them during the analysis and oral and written reports and publication of the study. This was a very important element, as it would make the participants feel more confident about what they did and expressed during the study. Taking into consideration that it was not possible to guarantee absolute anonymity (Kaiser 2009; Walford 2005; Baez 2002) because they had known each other for a long time (Baez 2002), I recommended them not revealing their chosen nicknames or pseudonyms so the rest of the group would not be able to identify who provided specific information. The only way for the rest of the group to know the pseudonyms would be if they themselves informed each other about it. It would be their option to reveal their identity if they wanted (Baez 2002). Furthermore, I did not ask for any type of personal information, for them to describe their physical traits, nor provide

116

academic details, as proposed by Walford (2005). Anonymity is related to

confidentiality, being a promise that any detail will be revealed to a third party. Confidentiality in this study was assured by giving attention to the organisation and storing the qualitative data (e.g. field notes, transcripts, and videos) in my personal computer. As proposed by Creswell (2013), I developed back-up copies of computer files, and protected files with a secret password so they cannot be easily accessed.

4.4.2.2 Written consent

As stated in the previous section, in order to gain support from participants, and to explain to them how their confidentiality and anonymity will be assured, a qualitative researcher needs to explain the purpose of the study and offer details in order to avoid deception about the nature of the research (Creswell 2013). The most recommendable way of informing about the study is by providing clear, brief, and frank written information that enables the participants to make a fair assessment of the project so that they can give informed consent (Walliman 2011). Dörnyei (2007:70, citing Cohen et al. 2000; Creswell 2003; Johnson and Christensen 2004) suggests what a written consent form usually needs: an explanation of the purpose of research and procedures to be followed; the tasks the participants will be expected to perform during the study; description of any risks or discomforts, benefits the participant may encounter/receive; a statement indicating that participation is voluntary and that the participant can withdraw and refuse to participate at any time with no penalty; an offer to answer any questions; and signatures of both the participants and the researcher agreeing to these provisions. All these details were included in the informed consent forms (see Appendix 5). In total, 43 consent forms (out of 49) were signed for the first phase and 21 for the second phase of the study. For the second phase, only eight

117

participants actively took part by writing journals, attending the GRs, and being part of the FB group.