Ethical considerations

Ethical issues play an essential role in social research, particularly, in a cross- cultural research. An ethics awareness helped the researcher to obtain basic guidelines and principles when undertaking social research in a multicultural environment (Johnson & Christensen, 2004). As Neuman states that “the researcher should be sensitive to cultural and political issues of cross-cultural interaction. They need to learn what is considered offensive within a culture” (2011, p. 413). These issues were kept in mind when the researcher collected data in China. She kept a good relationship with the subject university and the participants and did not cause any offense in the whole data collection process.

The researcher followed the ethical guidelines to apply for a full ethics application approval. It was firstly reviewed by the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania to ensure the full ethics application has been qualified for the human research. Secondly, the full ethics application was sent to the full ethics committee of the University of Tasmania to be approved by them. Thirdly, after getting feedback from the full ethics committee of the University of Tasmania, a revision was made to respond to the queries in this research and it was resubmitted. Finally, the full ethics application was approved by the University of Tasmania to allow the research to conduct this research in mainland China. Ethical clearance (H12633) was obtained on the July, 2012 (as shown in Appendix 1). There are three main issues most frequently raised in western research ethical guidelines and by the professional associations, namely, codes and consent, confidentiality, and trust (Ryen, 2011). These three issues will be discussed in detail in the following paragraphs.

Code and consent refer to the ‘informed consent’, that is, the research subjects have the right to “know that they will be researched, the right to be informed the nature of the research, and the right to withdraw at any time” (Ryen, 2011, p. 418). The full ethics application of this research included two consent forms, one was for the survey and the other one was for the semi-structured interview. There would be no harm to the participants in these two forms. The participants recruited in the study were university students, who were considered to be both mental and physically healthy adults in the subject university. It is believed that the participants could make decisions independently to decide if they would like to take part in this research based on their own belief. There were no sensitive

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topics and cultural issues addressed in the survey and the interview questions, which were designed and practiced according to the principles of the conducting researches in other countries (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2007). Thus, participants were not offended during these two forms of data collection process. They were informed that finishing the questionnaires and handing in them meant that they understood the use of implicit consent in the survey. The interview was conducted after the participants signed the consent form and they could withdraw their participation anytime without any further negative effect on their learning in the subject university. Therefore, all the data that were collected in this research and that were used in the data analysis was with participants’ consent.

Confidentiality means that it is obliged to protect the identity, the place and the location participants of the research (Ryen, 2011). In this study, the issues of data report and storage were explicitly described in the full ethics application. On the one hand, the participants’ responses in the survey were non-identifiable data, that is, all the participants involved in the questionnaire were anonymous. On the other hand, the participants’ responses to the semi-structured interview were identifiable data, but the researcher would protect their confidentiality. All the participants’ names and particular information were erased in the interview transcripts; thus, only the chief investigator accessed to know the participants. The initial textual data were replaced by pseudonyms, which was recorded and labelled by students’ number, such as student NO.1 and NO.2. Also, the researcher had no discussions with others about the participants in relation to their confidentiality. There will be no individual personal information used in any publication based on this research.

Trust is the third issue mentioned by Ryen (2004), which refers to “the relationship between the researcher and the participants, and to the researcher’s responsibility not to ‘spoil’ the field for others in the sense that potential research subjects become reluctant to further study” (cited in Ryen, 2011, p. 419). When the study was conducted in Central China Normal University, the researcher kept a good relationship with the participants and the university. All the participants involved in this research were volunteers for the survey and they were informed that the responses were non-identifiable. In the semi-structured interviews, the participants who decided to take part in the interviews had known that their personal information would not be uncovered in any other publication and not exposed to anyone else. They had the right to withdraw the data which had been recorded or stopped at anytime during the interview. There would no other

negative influence on them. Therefore, it is believed that the whole process was trustworthy (Fine, 1993).

The data collection used paper instruments that were stored securely and safely. All the printed copies of questionnaires and original transcripts in the audio-taped files were carried personally by the researcher to the University of Tasmania after the data collection process. The paper files were locked in the chief investigator’s cabinets with locks and the recorded files were downloaded to a password- protected file stored in a network storage area of the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania. Afterwards, all the files during the period of data analysis and the thesis writing were conducted in a password-protected server. All data will be destroyed after five years of the completion of this research and then removed and shredded by a contractor employed specifically to deal with the confidential wastes of the university.