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Ethics Evidence 1 From Module 3 (external link) 1.32 Anonymity In all forms of educational research in the UK it is the norm to offer anonymity to participants. This is clearly stated in the British Educational Research Association guidelines: 23. The confidential and anonymous treatment of participants’ data is considered the norm for the conduct of research. Researchers must recognise the participants’ entitlement to privacy and must accord them their rights to confidentiality and anonymity, unless they or their guardians or responsible others, specifically and willingly waive that right. In such circumstances it is in the researchers’ interests to have such a waiver in writing. Conversely, researchers must also recognise participants’ rights to be identified with any publication of their original work or other inputs, if they so wish. In some contexts it will be the expectation of participants to be so identified. BERA (2004) However we can see that there is a recognition that some participants may not wish to be anonymous and may prefer to be credited for any original work or contributions they may have made to the project. This is particularly true in action research where participants may in fact be co-collaborators with the researcher. This wish to be identified within a study applies in part to my participants. Some of the resources I provide were created by colleagues at the school where I work and they wish to have their work credited to them. The head teacher also wanted the school to be credited, in particular for the Hansel and Gretel collage. These credits mean that the school can be identified by anyone following the links to the resources I provide. In fact the provision of total anonymity would be almost impossible. This accords with the work of Walford (2005) who argues that the promise of anonymity is often impossible to fulfil and may even be undesirable. He argues that when there is transparency of purpose and provision for participants to reply to things with which they disagree then not using pseudonyms for participants and research sites can add value to the study. So whilst I will avoid identifying individuals by name or by personal details I may characterise them by job role. As my work context is a small school this may have led to individuals being identified, however, I am going to use input from people in other schools and also from the on-line environment. This should make it harder for individuals to be identified unless they wish to be so. As a researcher I cannot remain anonymous and this too could lead to discovery of my work context. However, my research topic is unlikely to lead me into areas where this would become a huge issue. Refs: British Educational Research Association (2004) Revised ethical guidelines for educational research, Southwell, BERA Walford, G Research ethical guidelines and anonymity. International Journal of Research & Method in Education Vol. 28, No. 1, April 2005, pp. 83–93 Back to section2 Ethics Evidence 2 Extract from my research journal 27/1/06 (external link -Acting to Improve 1) Reflection My choice of a photo of myself (although actually more my hat than me!) is important to me. It would have been easy to follow the group convention to take an animated avatar. I was concerned that it might mark me out as being different but it was important to me. I use this image as an icon in most of my online posting. It has become a very personalised avatar. Its use reflects my desire to make my research work as transparent as possible and connects to my ethics policy. Plan to continue to connect my online presences together to make an integrated, transparent whole. And later: Action
Showed P the TA forum after telling her about it at work. Showed her how to access it at work and encouraged her to join it. Reflection This was quite a hard thing to do. Transparency online is one thing but having a work colleague in the forum felt as if it could inhibit my posting freely. I had to think carefully about why I was feeling this way. My online identity is something I’ve never hidden and yet it felt odd. Anyone from my work place could easily google and find my blog, some of my reports, etc. So why did this make me uneasy? There is a part of me that values privacy and lindiop/lmhartley/lindah is becoming quite a public personna. This is something I need to work through. It may be that I even need to invent a more anonymous personna for my personal posts in that space. Saying that makes me realise how uncomfortable that feels. I don’t like deception in any form so it is better to stand by my transparent personna and make sure I only make posts I would be happy for my colleagues to read. This is probably good advice anyway! Plan To continue to promote the forum at work and show any other TAs who might be interested. Back to section2 |
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