Ethics

As previously stated, I felt it would be unethical to use a control group who did not receive

‘authentic’ input, however it manifested itself. I felt it would be extremely demotivating to purposefully deny authenticity from a class for the purposes of research, and as such my decision to adopt and adapt Exploratory Practice and reflection were driven by ethical considerations. I have been very considerate of ethics throughout the study. Because ethical approval is mandatory for both the universities involved in this research (Warwick where I am a student and Sophia where I am a teacher) I submitted two carefully written proposals before conducting this research. Sadly, it seems that ethics are often treated as a hoop or a

tick box, but I have tried to integrate ethics into the centre of my study. As I mentioned in Chapter Two, one of the indicators of synergy is empathy, which of course relates closely to ethical considerations.

The students were all given consent forms to sign which explained the nature of the study in both English and Japanese, and they had been verbally informed of my intention to conduct this inquiry and use the class for my research several times since the first day. I also gave each student a personalised letter which explained my research and that I would be giving them consent forms to sign in the lesson before which I handed out the consent forms (Lesson 107A on Wednesday 28/05/2014). I felt it was better to formally tell the students about the research by letter, and then give them time to decide whether or not to sign the forms, therefore I administered the consent forms in lesson 107B Friday 30/05/2014. One slight worry was that before obtaining consent, I had already been recording each of the lessons. This was an issue with the design, and something I explicitly discussed with my supervisor, and clearly stated on the applications for ethical approval at both Sophia and Warwick. I felt it was ethical to proceed in this way because if any students did not give consent for audio recording, the audio files could easily be deleted. However, the first classes were extremely important, and so I felt I needed to record them from the beginning. Together with my supervisor, we agreed that it would not be a good start to the first class to hand out ethical approval forms, when the students did not yet know me.

To my great relief, the students all agreed to the audio recording and other data types I was asking permission to use. Only two students, Mr Nintendo and Mr Dawn, opted out of the use of pedagogical sources. I was actually pleased about this, however, as it showed that I had conducted the procedure in a way which did not too strongly coerce the students into giving consent, and they obviously felt willing to participate and to express doubts or withdraw consent when they felt unsure. After the study was over, students were kept updated about the research via my ePortolio. At the time I was also planning to collect data from my Writing Skills class, and in this class one person opted out of the audio data. As soon as I received that form I unplugged my microphone, and then deleted all the class audio recordings from that course. This happened after teaching this class, but it made me all the more grateful to the CLERAC students for giving me their consent. I believe this episode shows that I acted ethically and did not place undue pressure on the students to participate in the study.

I strongly believe that I am becoming more ethical by increasing my reflective capacity and by challenging my own assumptions. I also purposefully avoided delving too much into

students’ lives and this is why there are several unfortunate ‘holes’ in my data (such as simple

biographical details like age or how long Mr Po has lived in Japan) because I only used the information my students gave me naturally or that was part of my normal teaching. Ethics is actually a very important aspect of my teaching beliefs and is a guiding principle in the choice of content for each lesson as part of my philosophy of teaching.

All participants in this study were adults and none were identified as vulnerable. The

participants’ anonymity was carefully maintained throughout the study and data has been stored on password protected computers. Participants were given the choice of opting in or out of the research, even after data had been collected. Participants were informed that they could access transcripts and data analysis before publication or submission, and I used my Warwick Portfolio as a place to communicate findings with the participants, although very few of them remained in contact after the course had finished, which meant there was almost no respondent validation. Please see the Appendix for samples of the consent forms and letter stating my research intentions.