How I plan to overcome the ethical issues surrounding conducting research in a school environment.

For this inquiry I plan to conduct interviews and perform case studies on students in my three chosen schools. In order to do this I will have to address a number of ethical issues which arise when dealing with minors. My first concern is getting parental consent.  In an article written by Danny Doyle entitled ‘Trans-Disciplinary Inquiry- Researching with rather then Researching on’ (2007) he outlines some of issues one might face conducting an inquiry such as this. In this article he speaks of a teacher/researcher who is trying to gain parental consent to question and interview her students as part of her research project. Initially consent was not granted as the parents could not see how by partaking in this research would benefit their child, all they saw was time being taken way from their education. Doyle suggested that had she aimed to obtain informed consent form the parent’s from the outset then she might not have received this initially scepticism from the parents. By informed consent I mean she should have explained to the parents in detail the purpose of the inquiry/investigation, give an outline of the content of the part of the inquiry that their children will be taking part in, and explain how the inquiry will benefit their child.

Doyle also suggests that to a certain extent the decision to be part of the inquiry should be left up to the student, if the student can be considered a ‘Gillick’[i]. The majority of the students I will be working with can be considered Gillicks but I am still going to seek parental consent as I am unsure how widely understood this concept is and I do not want parents complaining that I have not go through the proper procedures.  I plan to send letters out to the parents of each child I wish to use in my inquiry, giving a detailed description of what the child’s involvement will entail, how the inquiry will benefit their child, stressing to the parents that involvement in the inquiry will in no way impede on their school work and will take up minimal amount of their time.  This is a point that I plan to discuss with my employer and tutor because I do not want the students to think that I do not think that they are competent to make the decision themselves, as Masson said ‘Where children have the capacity to make a decision, parents’ power over that area of the child’s life is ended unless preserved by statute law. Consequently, a parent cannot consent to research on behalf of a competent child.’ (Masson, 2000 p.39) So at the moment I am in two minds as to what to do.  I believe that a number of the students can be considered competent and thus should be allowed to make the decision themselves but at the same time I do not want to get into any sort of altercation with parents because they think that i have not made them full aware of what is happening with regards to their children.   

I have decided that it will be best if all involved in the inquiry, the students, teachers and names of the schools remain anonymous. I think by doing this I will get rid of some of the confidentiality issues that might arise. It has been advised to me to do this by somebody who has recently underetaken a similar research project. This researcher chose not to do this and found that she was being constantly questioned by parents about the content and outcome of the interviews. By keeping all subjects anonymous the information gathered can be kept confidential until the inquiry is finished. I will of course be discussing elements of the inquiry with colleagues but this will be to get their feedback but as I will be working to a very tight schedule I want to ensure that all engagement in this inquiry will in some way add to it. As mentioned previously I plan to look at three contrasting art departments, gathering information from staff and students, I plan to give them factious names i.e. school x and pupil 2. Any questionnaires will be anonymous, distributed and collected in large numbers so that I will be unable to associate the answers with a particular person.  Another issue I am grappling with at present is how to keep the art departments anonymous. I will not use any names but because the three departments are so different it will be obvious which one I am talking about. At present I am unsure how to overcome this problem.  In his article Doyle using an outline set up by the NTRP, asks, and ‘is there a code of practice for the ethical conduct of research? Are there assurances about:

Whether the school and/or teachers will remain anonymous?

Whether the contribution of the school and the teachers is to be acknowledged and how?

How the data collection about teachers, teaching and learning or other aspects of school organisation are to be checked with those involved in generating them? For example will, teachers who are interviewed have access to records of the interview? Will the teachers or the school have a chance to comment on profiles draft questionnaires, proformas, interview schedules?

Whether the sample will target a range of teacher effectiveness and how is this to be defined. If so what will teachers need and want to know about how their work is being evaluated? Whether the teacher and/or the school have chance to comment on written outputs?

How disagreements about data or reports will be negotiated and reconciled? And whether there are proper arrangements for observing pupils and for parental permission? (NTRP, 2003)

I think this pretty clearly outlines a lot of the issues that I should mainly be considering, some of the questions I already have an answer to, some of which I am still considering, by having this outline I have a clearer idea of ethical areas for consideration when creating the inquiry proposal and conducting the inquiry. 

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[i] ‘In 1986, the House of Lords decided in the case of Gillick V West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority that parental rights are not absolute rights. They are exercised by parents on behalf of children too young to exercise them for themselves. The case concerned a teenage child’s right to consent to medical treatment without the parents’ knowledge. Lord Fraser said that the degree of parental control varied according to the child’s understanding and intelligence.’  Danny Doyle ‘Trans-Disciplinary Inquiry- Researching with rather then Researching on’ (2007)