Ethical considerations

Ethical principles are very important in any form of research. In social science research, these include seeking informed consent, safeguarding the confidentiality and safety of participants, respect for participants’ privacy, among others.

5.7.1 Informed Consent

In addition to the authorisation letters from the national council and the local district education offices, I sought informed consent from the participants with full knowledge that informed consent should be freely given and voluntary. With regard to participants signing a consent form, this never happened although it had not been overlooked. During my pilot study, I had asked teachers to sign a consent form which I had prepared in advance together with my research tools but they declined arguing that they did not want to use their signatures on a form that I would take away from them in case it was used against them. Morrow (2009: 5) points this out in relation to qualitative research in various international settings, ‘Some teams have found that signing a paper consent form is not acceptable for various reasons, mostly because people are wary of putting their signature on forms’. So I decided not to ask my participants to sign any form but in order for them to build trust in me, after my oral introduction, I gave them and asked them to read and keep my letter of introduction which had all the information that was in the consent form as well as my contact details. The letter assured them of confidentiality and mentioned that one was free to withdraw from the study if the need arose.

For classroom observations, I asked the teachers if they were comfortable if I video- taped them as they taught and explained to them why I wanted to record the lessons. I also promised them that they would only be used for the purposes of the research and if they wanted to have them once I was through with the transcriptions, I would do so. Most of them had no issue with the recording while some only allowed me to do it after verifying that they would not be used anywhere else apart from for the intended purpose. Only one teacher refused to be video-taped and it was obvious that she was not very happy with my presence in her class although she later consented to the observation but not to the video-recording. She mentioned that she was only allowing me into her class because the school administrator had said that I could do it. Heath et al. (2010) commenting on the issue of gaining access and being allowed to record note

that there should always be a distinction between ‘getting in’ and ‘getting on’ with the participants. They caution that most of the times, the people that researchers negotiate access to the setting with are most likely not the people who will be filmed. With the understanding that both parties need to agree for the research to progress, I eventually decided not to observe her class and explained to her the reason behind it. The same procedure was followed for the audio recording and all the participants who were requested agreed to it. Roald (2002) while interviewing deaf teachers had to video record the interview sessions so that he would capture the whole conversation. All the interviews with deaf participants were video-recorded since they took place mostly in sign language and it was also important so as to capture the non-verbal communication expressed in body language through the use of facial expressions, and other gestures. All of them gave their consent to the video-recording.

It would be good to note here that although the concept of individual consent is considered crucial in the developed world, in some of the developing countries, the concept of elders, family and community tends to pose difficulties in following up individual consent (Morrow, 2009). The ESRC Research Ethic Framework (2005) also recognises that different cultures have different views on the approaches to informed consent:

Emphasis on the individual can seem inappropriate or meaningless in some cultural contexts, where the individual may take less precedence than broader notions of kin or community (p. 24).

Younger individuals are likely to find it hard to refuse to participate if their elders have given their assent for the research to take place. Since the children involved in this study were only encountered while in the school environment, consent to interview deaf learners was sought from the schools administration, the heads of units and the subject teachers who decided which pupils would participate and explained to them in advance why I wanted to speak to them. Their parents were not consulted since the study was specifically concerned with their learning in school and in the Kenyan context, generally parents would not object to anything that is supported by the school. Consent is understood to be an on-going process (Morrow, 2009) so I would then introduce myself and ask them if they were willing to answer some questions for me and I informed them that they were free to ask me any questions if they wanted to know

something from me. I also sought their consent to record the interviews. All of them assented and the interviews were conducted.

I assured all the participants of confidentiality and anonymity and promised to share the findings of the study with them through the institution.