Ethical Considerations

Previous experience in the Taiwanese classroom, combined with knowledge o f the difficulties many Taiwanese students have when called on to adapt to an unfamiliar culture, suggested that ethical issues in and out of the classroom might be significant fo r my research. The ethical guidelines followed in this research were based on BERA (2011).

In terms o f my role in the research process I needed to be aware o f respecting students' privacy and anonymity, although few students expressed concern about anonymity, and although remaining on good terms with the students I needed to achieve a good deal of detachment in order to remain unobtrusive.

In order to make the research as valid as possible, I decided to brief the students and the teacher prior to the questionnaires, the classroom observations, the small-group interviews, and the diary explanations. The briefings were carried out in each school before each questionnaire, classroom observation session, interview, and diary request. This was done by arranging with the school or the teacher that a briefing would be taking place in order to put my position in the class in perspective. I briefed the whole class on the proceedings prior to the classroom observation as I felt that singling out the Taiwanese students may introduce a bias into the data gathering. Taiwanese students were, however, singled out purposely fo r briefings fo r the questionnaires, the small-group interviews and the diary explanations.

The briefings covered the following points:

a. The.reason fo r my presence in the classroom — to observe students' interactions, with the teacher, the other students, and their use o f the textbooks.

b. That I, as an observer, would be taking no part in the classroom activities.

c. That my primary interest was in how students reacted to the textbooks; no group o f students, and no individual students, would be put under pressure o f any kind.

Note: It is difficult to realistically determine how the students would define 'pressure' in this situation; however one of the reasons fo r including this

information in the briefing was as a means to reassure them and allow them to relax in my presence as much as possible.

d. That the information gained may be used in the longer-term to assist in the cultural and linguistic preparation o f students prior to their departure to Britain by giving institutes in other countries and in Britain means to allow fo r a smoother transition, linguistically and culturally, into the host culture.

e. The Taiwanese students were informed that their responses would be used in a piece of research, and as a result, they had the option o f using pseudonyms for the classroom and interview stages. The students decided in favour o f using English pseudonyms. This allowed me to refer to specific students in my analysis without using the students' real (Chinese) names.

f. They were informed that if they would like to express their true feelings it may be more beneficial fo r the research and indeed fo r themselves. This proved to be more of a challenge considering that the students may resort to less than truthful answers as face-saving strategies. This is not in any way to imply that the students may be knowingly dishonest, but to suggest that they may resort to coping strategies in order to avoid embarrassment to themselves or others.

The issue of face is referred to in Chapter 2 and again in Chapter 4. As Delamont (2004, p. 212) states: 'informants may systematically hide things, and tell lies, to protect themselves, their secrets or their privacy/ Given this information, it was im portant to make the ethical briefing as friendly and conciliatory as possible in order to reduce the possibility of the students feeling themselves to be under any undue pressure, and in more of a position to use face-saving strategies. As a researcher, I dealt w ith this issue myself by beginning the interviews with rather more general questions and then moving

into the more specific and somewhat more personal areas. I believe this assisted me in helping the students to feel more at ease in addition to allowing me to analyse the students' responses with greater rigour.

This was particularly important when students came to complete their diary entries, given that the purpose of the diaries was to allow them to put their experiences, feelings and perhaps frustrations down on paper in order to create a picture of their life outside the classroom. I emphasised that the information would be in confidence, and I assured them that it would not be possible to identify individuals in any reports as real names would not be used. I stressed the fact that the students may be uncomfortable in discussing certain issues; if this was the case, they were under no pressure to disclose any information they did not wish to. This created a very fine balance fo r myself as a researcher. I needed to gain the maximum information while remaining true to the ethical principles employed, in addition to maintaining my awareness of Taiwanese students' underlying cultural values, which can sometimes force them to hide the truth behind a more culturally secure version o f an incident, or even to suppress the incident entirely and record only those experiences that the students see as acceptable to their preconceived blueprint of the British experience.

The teachers' ethical responsibilities to the students are very closely tied to the institutes' responsibilities. In fact, three o f the teachers at School A expressed concern that the students' privacy would be respected, and the integrity o f the institute would be maintained. I gave them a verbal assurance that this was the case, in addition to an offer of anonymity for the teachers and the students.

As a learning experience the research journey demonstrated that I had to have a certain amount o f flexibility when planned elements of the research; fo r example, the number of

diaries completed and the timing of post-class interviews, did not go as planned. I ultimately decided that such events and consequent changes were an integral part of the research process and that the rigour of the triangulation o f methods used was robust enough to accommodate some change in the initial plan.